Abstract
Turkey has become a regional power, thanks to its economic success and democratic achievements catalysed by the EU. Under the AKP, the Turkish neighbourhood policy has grown increasingly assertive, especially in the Middle East. Yet the Arab Spring caught Turkey, much like the West, off guard. As a result Ankara is recalibrating its foreign policy. This presents a chance to rein-vigorate relations with the EU and the US despite tensions and challenges.
Turkey is no longer the country the West once knew. Formerly a peripheral member of the Atlantic community, Turkey is now at the centre of its own world which spans the Middle East, North Africa, the Balkans, the Caucasus and beyond. Its foreign policy has undergone change too. The crisis in Libya has shown that Turkey's support for NATO is qualified. Ankara prefers to engage rather than put direct pressure on Iran, and is comfortable talking to Hamas, Hezbollah and the Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. Until August 2011 Turkey was amongst Bashar al-Assad's closest friends as well. Its once-warm relations with Israel are now in tatters, with Prime Minister Erdoğan threatening to step up the Turkish naval presence in the Eastern Mediterranean to put pressure on Tel Aviv over Palestine. Turkey is no longer frantically banging on the EU's door but pursues a multi-vector policy serving its commercial and security interests. Ties with Russia are thriving, while Ankara is also reaching out to other rising powers such as Brazil and Turkish entrepreneurs are making inroads in far-off places in Africa and Latin America. In short, Turkey is now an actor, an economic pole, and perhaps an aspiring regional hegemon or ‘order setter’ (düzen kurucu). The paradox is that in the process Turkey has also become more like us: globalised, economically liberal and democratic. 1
For an overview of the lively debates on the state of Turkey's democracy and foreign policy, see the essays in [1].
How did we get here?
Western allies often succumb to the error of explaining Ankara's turnaround by looking at the Justice and Development (AK) Party's roots in political Islam. Such views ignore the profound structural shifts which have affected the country. The end of the Cold War saw Turkey at pains to find a new role in a highly volatile regional environment, with conflicts tearing apart the former Yugoslavia, the Caucasus and the Middle East in the 1990s. Old alliances proved of little use in responding to new security challenges such as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) insurgency in the south-east. Finally, the erosion of US influence after the 2003 Iraq War and the persistence of sclerotic authoritarian regimes in the Arab world opened up a power vacuum that the economically dynamic and increasingly democratic Turkey was happy to fill [7].
One should also not lose sight of the immense transformation in the country's economy and society over the past three decades. Liberalising reforms in the 1980s opened Turkey to the global marketplace, including neighbouring regions; energised growth; and gave rise to a new, conservative but entrepreneurial middle class. The reforms provided the backbone for the AKP and aided its challenge of the secularist establishment. Marketisation and conservatively tinged capitalism reordered Turkey's relations with neighbours too, paving the way in the 2000s for a policy based on trade integration, open borders and deepening people-to-people contacts. There has been a marked change from Turkey's traditional posture, suspicious of neighbours and casting them as abettors of internal enemies, to political order, reliance on military might and a fixation on relations with the West.
The AKP factor
The AKP is both the product and the catalyst of these tectonic shifts. Since 2002 it has harnessed change to expand democratic rule and continue market-friendly policies, with the aid of the EU's political conditionality. Deepening democratic reforms have curbed the power of the self-appointed guardians of the republican order in the military, civil service and the courts. Having been re-elected for a third consecutive term, the AKP has largely won the battle. Gone are the days when the military threatened coups while the Constitutional Court was on the verge of banning the party. Now the AKP is the dominant force in Turkish politics (by way of comparison, in the period between 1960 and 2002, governments lasted 14 months on average). It effectively controls key institutions such as the presidency, the general staff, the judiciary and the police. But such a concentration of power, without a properly functioning system of checks and balances, is increasingly seen as a problem, even by liberals who have previously given the AKP their support. Turkey's democratisation is still unfinished business; examples of this abound, from Internet censorship to the ongoing crisis in Kurdish-populated provinces.
Yet, for a majority of citizens, rising prosperity trumps concerns about residual authoritarianism. Turkish GDP per capita (using purchasing power parity) rose from around $3,000 in 2002 to well over $10,000 at present. Unlike the EU and the US, Turkey weathered the 2008 global crisis with few casualties, with the economy expanding by 8.2% in 2010 and reaching 11% in the first quarter of 2011. Consumption and investment are key components in the growth model. Scholars have written at length about the rise of the ‘trading state’, but Turkey's exports are expanding at a slower rate than imports and the current account deficit has reached 8% of GDP. 2 Government spending therefore plays a principal role, with large projects in public infrastructure and housing. Such initiatives, as well as its popular reform in the area of health care, boost the appeal of Erdoğan's government.
There is a worry that Turkey's economy might be ‘overheating’ similar to other emergent powers. See [9].
Turkey as a regional power
Achievements at home have empowered the AKP to pursue an activist policy abroad. Results are visible: trade with neighbours has been growing at a faster rate than with the EU; Ahmet Davutoğlu, the mercurial foreign minister, is more likely to be seen in assorted Arab capitals than in Brussels; Turkish popular culture has made inroads in the Middle East and the Balkans; and tourists and business people, from Russia to Kosovo to Jordan, flock in ever greater numbers into Istanbul and to the big coastal resorts. Yet Ottoman nostalgia is not what drives such policy—the goals are distinctly pragmatic. First, engaging neighbouring countries, especially in the Middle East, adds to Turkey's security, helping to respond to threats such as the PKK insurgency. Second, the Turkish government has been systematically looking for new markets for the country's buoyant businesses, for example in the construction sector. Foreign contracts, from Russia to Libya, bolster the AKP's popularity. Third, Prime Minister Erdoğan has a penchant for grandstanding on issues outside Turkey, such as the plight of Palestinians, to score points domestically. Last, but not least, Turkish ‘neighbourhood policy’, 3 or ‘strategic depth’ as Davutoğlu [3] puts it, advances Ankara's claim for a place in the new pecking order of emergent powers. Turkey is a proud member of the G-20, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Brazil, South Africa and Indonesia.
Term proposed by Kιnιklιoğlu [6].
It is the Arab Spring that has posed the most serious challenge to Turkey's aspirations for regional leadership to date. This is a striking paradox because upheavals in the Middle East and North Africa have been inspired by the Turkish success story of democratic and economic achievements. In reality, extensive commercial and political interests had induced Turkey to build ties with autocrats in places like Libya and Syria. 4 For instance, Turkish leadership had invested enormously in economic, political and military relations with Damascus, facilitating the regime's cautious rapprochement with the West and mediating peace talks with Israel. While Erdoğan was quick to tell Egypt's President Mubarak to heed the demonstrators’ call and leave office, it was a more painful decision to oppose Qaddafi and especially al-Assad. Hopes to steer either of them into reform and conciliation with the opposition proved to be in vain. As a result, Turkey's much-talked-about influence has faltered [2,4].
Prime Minister Erdoğan received the Al-Qaddafi International Prize for Human Rights in November 2010. He and his family went on a vacation with the Assads in the summer of 2008.
But despite the initial surprise and zig-zagging through a succession of painful choices, Turkey has managed to reposition itself as a force for change and come out, as several analysts put it, ‘on the right side of history’. (Normative arguments have always had clout within the AKP, with President Abdullah Gül as a key voice.) Its policy in Libya and then Syria converged with that of NATO allies and the US. Following an about-face, Ankara is now amongst the key sponsors of Libya's National Transitional Council, offers safe haven and support to Syrian dissidents and high-ranking defectors from the army, and conducts military exercises next to borders with Syria to show its teeth. But save direct military intervention, which is not very likely, Turkey has little leverage left to shape the course of events across its southern border. The Syrian crisis has shown, very starkly, the limits of Turkish power. This is true elsewhere too. Despite early breakthroughs in 2010, Davutoğlu's shuttle diplomacy achieved little in Bosnia-Herzegovina and failed to build bridges with Republika Srpska. 5 The opening with Armenia has been derailed and held hostage to ties with energy-rich Azerbaijan. Finally, little has been achieved regarding the decades-old disputes with Greece in the Aegean—the Cyprus issue has deteriorated due to tensions over gas exploration in the Eastern Mediterranean.
For more see Petrović and Reljić [8].
What lies ahead?
To redeem his country's somewhat tarnished image, Erdoğan staged a triumphant tour of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. The hero's welcome he received from the crowds, fuelled in no small measure by Turkey's tough line on Israel, reinvigorated discussion of Turkey's role as a source of inspiration for the region or even as a model for democratic development. However, it transpires ever more clearly there is not one but as many as three separate models. Moderate Islamists like the AKP's blend of piety, economic dynamism and electoral success. For their part, liberals appreciate the secular character of the Turkish Republic. They cheered at Erdoğan's speech in Cairo which urged the new constitution to be equidistant from all religions, a message harshly criticised by the Muslim Brotherhood who were taken by surprise, as were many in Turkey, by the prime minister's rhetoric. Even more strikingly, parts of Egypt's military have turned to the tutelage system established by the coup of 1980, calling for a similar arrangement that would enshrine the role of the army in daily politics. The irony is, of course, that it was precisely this political status quo that the AKP and its predecessors battled for long years in order to make sure that elected politicians, rather than generals and bureaucrats, called the shots. And, at the end of the day, there is the lingering question of what makes Turkey more popular on the proverbial Arab street: its domestic make-up or Erdoğan's Israel-bashing?
The real challenge is not ambiguity, which if used creatively could actually serve as a powerful political tool. Rather, it is consistency and the resulting risk of double standards: one projected to the outside world and another practised internally [10]. For instance, Turkey is still at pains when it comes to the establishment of a proper secular order. What it has is a framework in which Sunni Islam is subordinated to the state but still holds a privileged position over the other creeds in the country. The Kurdish issue is an even more overwhelming concern, as it bears directly on Turkey's prestige as a beacon of democracy in the Middle East. It is a thankless task to preach conflict resolution abroad, with a conflict in your own backyard. This is especially true given that the last round of elections ratcheted up the rivalry between the AKP and the Kurdish nationalists, which in turn fuelled renewed hostilities in the south-east, culminating in airstrikes against PKK bases in northern Iraq. The so-called Kurdish (or Democratic) Opening of 2009 looks, sadly, like an opportunity squandered by all sides [5].
Turkey faces competitors, potential and real, too. Post-Mubarak Egypt is now searching for an independent foreign policy role and is therefore reluctant to see itself as a pupil of either the West or Turkey. The call for the ‘restoration of dignity’ heard in Tahrir Square means, amongst other things, more assertiveness abroad. Iran is an even more formidable force to reckon with and what Americans would describe as a ‘frenemy’. While the regime cooperates extensively with Turkey in the economic field, and even though Turks opposed the tightening of sanctions at the UN Security Council vote in June 2010, the rivalry between the two powers is visible. Iranian officials lambasted both Erdoğan's speech on secularism and, even more importantly, the decision to host NATO anti-missile radar. Despite the deepening rift with Israel, Iran finds Ankara's position on Palestine relatively lenient and semi-publicly dismisses the Turkish realignment as disingenuous. Tehran watches with concern Turkey's turn against al-Assad, a key ally which also furnished an above-ground link to Hamas and Hezbollah. In August, Ankara rightly intercepted an Iranian aircraft carrying arms for Hezbollah, showing its adherence to the sanctions.
Is the EU (still) relevant?
The elephant in the room in the foregoing discussion is the EU. Despite the hype, Turkey's neighbourhood policy cannot be an alternative to its EU aspirations. Europeanisation has made Turkey more democratic and prosperous and therefore more appealing to its neighbours. The Union anchors progress in human rights and democratisation, on divisive issues such as the Kurdish question, civil–military relations, the reform of criminal law, freedom of religion, and the rights of minority communities. Integration into the EU's single market bolstered trade, brought in billions of euros in foreign direct investment and made Turkey's economy more sophisticated, globally competitive and attractive to neighbours. The AKP was in position to drive this forward and reap the benefits, securing the opening of membership negotiations in October 2005.
The EU has shaped Ankara's foreign policy as well. In relations with neighbours, Turkey is applying the EU toolbox centred on diplomatic engagement, trade liberalisation, cross-border investment and the lifting of barriers to enable the free movement of people. Though abolishing visas for citizens of neighbouring countries might not be compatible with Turkey's desire to gain visa-free travel within the Schengen Area, Turkey is spreading the gospel of integration and interdependence to regions where the EU has little, if any, influence.
However, Turkey has grown disenchanted. Membership negotiations are now all but blocked. No new chapter has been opened since the European Council's Spanish presidency began in 2010, and a number of policy chapters have been blocked by either the EU-27 collectively or unilaterally by Cyprus and France. Accession negotiations are running out of steam but Turkey will not walk out of the process. Yet, the AKP government will not take bold steps either. It is unlikely that Turkey will unblock the stalemate by implementing the Additional Protocol to the Ankara Agreement to let Greek Cypriot ships and aircraft into Turkish harbours and airports as it committed to do back in 2005. This stalemate suits the AKP as it has more urgent business on its hands: the renewed PKK insurgency in the south-east, Syria and the possibility of initiating constitutional reform as promised during the election campaign. However, this also serves Turkey-sceptics inside the EU.
The trouble is that the current deadlock prevents the two sides from meaningfully cooperating in addressing the momentous change sweeping through the Arab world. There is already a sense of competition in Libya, where President Nicolas Sarkozy and Prime Minister David Cameron, who were instrumental in pushing forward the NATO military intervention, rushed to visit on 15 September, the day before their Turkish opposite number arrived on the last leg of his Arab Spring tour. Erdoğan, for his part, made thinly veiled references to the Western powers’ interest in the natural resources of the country, calling for ‘a Libya for the Libyans’. There is a similar sense of rivalry outside the Middle East and North Africa too. EU diplomats have warily followed Turkish activism in places such as Bosnia, for instance. This is unfortunate as ultimately the EU's and Turkey's interests in stability, economic development and the spread of democratic rule converge. A more effective European policy towards Turkey should take its cues from the pragmatic US approach which seeks to identify areas of cooperation, despite mounting divergence over Israel and Palestine.
Conclusion
The rise of Turkey's power in neighbouring regions is a fact of life. The reasons for this are simple. The country has seen its economic weight and appeal growing at a time when the ongoing euro crisis threatens the fundamental principles and institutions of the EU, and the US is winding down its presence in the Middle East. A sense of Schadenfreude is certainly not warranted given the interdependence linking Turkey and the Union's economy. Turkey's success as a regional power continues to benefit from its privileged relationship with the Union, though the connection is not as obvious as it was in the not-so-distant past. Whether the two sides will find ways to revitalise the strategic link and join their efforts abroad, in times of turmoil and strain, is anybody's guess. There are many varying scenarios of how the two could interact in their shared neighbourhood, from the Western Balkans to North Africa. If they do find one, however, there is no doubt that this would be good news for everyone, not least for Turkey.