The 'Ankara Moment

The politics of Turkey's regional power in the Middle East, 2007-11

Bibliographic Data

ID5768832
AuthorsAndré Bank (0009-0007-9085-2897, German Institute for Global and Area Studies), Roy Karadag (0000-0003-0447-3828, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies)
Year2013
Volume34
Issue2
Pages287-304
Publication date2013-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThird World Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0143-6597 • E-ISSN: 1360-2241
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/01436597.2013.775786
OpenAlexW2089730152
LanguageEN
Citations received13

Around 2007 Turkey became a regional power in the Middle East, a status it has maintained at least until the outset of the Arab Revolt in 2011. To understand why Turkey only became a regional power under the Muslim akp government and why this happened at the specific point in time that it did, this article highlights the self-reinforcing dynamics between Turkey's domestic political-economic transformation in the first decade of this century and the advantageous regional developments in the Middle East at the same time. It holds that this specific linkage-the 'Ankara Moment'-and its regional resonance in the neighbouring Middle East carries more transformative potential than the 'Washington Consensus' or the 'Beijing Consensus' so prominently discussed in current global South politics. Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank Errol Babacan, Hans-Jürgen Bieling, Kevin Gray, Thomas Richter and Sören Scholvin, as well as two anonymous reviewers, for insightful comments and productive criticism. Notes 1 A Acharya, 'The emerging regional architecture in world politics', World Politics, 59(4), 2007, pp 629-652; and A Hurrell, 'One world? Many worlds? The place of regions in the study of international society', International Affairs, 83, 2007, pp 127-146. 2 P Cammack, 'The G20, the crisis, and the rise of global developmental liberalism', Third World Quarterly, 33(1), 2012, pp 1-16. 3 J Williamson, Latin American Adjustment: How Much has Happened?, Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics, 1990. 4 C Weaver, Hypocrisy Trap: The World Bank and the Poverty of Reform, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008. 5 J Cooper Ramo, The Beijing Consensus: Notes on the New Physics of Chinese Power, London: Foreign Policy Centre, 2004; and S Zhao, 'The China model: can it replace the Western model of modernization?', Journal of Contemporary China, 19(65), 2010, pp 419-436. 6 D Jung, 'Turkey and the Arab world: historical narratives and new political realities', Mediterranean Politics, 10(1), 2005, pp 1-17. 7 M Altunışık, 'The possibilities and limits of Turkey's soft power in the Middle East', Insight Turkey, 10(2), 2008, pp 41-54; M Altunışık & LG Martin, 'Making sense of Turkish foreign policy in the Middle East under akp', Turkish Studies, 12(4), 2011, pp 569-587; K Kirişçi, 'The transformation of Turkish foreign policy: the rise of the trading state', New Perspectives on Turkey, 40, 2009, pp 29-57; Z Önis, 'Power, interests and coalitions: the political economy of mass privatisation in Turkey', Third World Quarterly, 32(4), 2011, pp 707-724; and H Pope, 'Pax Ottomana? The mixed success of Turkey's new foreign policy', Foreign Affairs, 89(6), 2010, pp 161-171. 8 Z Önis, 'Turkey and the Arab Spring: between ethics and self-interest', Insight Turkey, 14(3), 2012, pp 1-19; and C Tugal, 'Democratic janissaries? Turkey's role in the Arab Spring', New Left Review, 76, 2012, pp 5-24. 9 T Oğuzlu & M Kibaroğlu, 'Is the Westernization process losing pace in Turkey: who's to blame?', Turkish Studies, 10(4), 2009, p 586. 10 S Larrabee, 'Turkey's new geopolitics', Survival, 52(2), 2010, pp 157-180. 11 B Aras & RK Polat, 'From conflict to cooperation: desecuritization of Turkey's relations with Syria and Iran', Security Dialogue, 39(5), 2008, pp 492-515. 12 A Altay, 'Businessmen as diplomats: the role of business associations in Turkey's foreign economic policy', Insight Turkey, 13(1), 2011, pp 119-128. 13 K Kirişçi, 'Turkey's "demonstrative effect" and the transformation of the Middle East', Insight Turkey, 13(1), 2011, pp 33-55. 14 AO Hirschman, The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism before its Triumph, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977. 15 A Bugra, State and Business in Modern Turkey: A Comparative Study, Albany, NY: suny Press, 1994. 16 Ibid; and R Karadag, Neoliberal Restructuring in Turkey: From State to Oligarchic Capitalism, mpifg Discussion Paper 10/07, Cologne: mpifg, 2010. 17 Önis, 'Power, interests and coalitions'. 18 Z Önis, 'Domestic politics versus global dynamics: towards a political economy of the 2000 and 2001 financial crises in Turkey', in Z Önis & B Rubin (eds), The Turkish Economy in Crisis, London: Frank Cass, 2003, pp 1-30. See also Karadag, Neoliberal Restructuring in Turkey. 19 W Hale, Turkish Foreign Policy, 1774-2000, London: Frank Cass, 2002. 20 M Altunışık & Ö Tür, 'From distant neighbor to partner? Changing Syrian-Turkish relations', Security Dialogue, 37, 2006, pp 229-248. 21 Ü Cizre-Sakallioglu, 'The anatomy of the Turkish military's political autonomy', Comparative Politics, 29(2), 1997, pp 151-166. 22 S Sayari, 'Turkey and the Middle East in the 1990s', Journal of Palestine Studies, 3, 1997, pp 44-55. 23 Z Önis & F Şenses, 'The new phase of neo-liberal restructuring in Turkey: an overview', in Z Önis & F Şenses (eds), Turkey and the Global Economy: Neo-liberal Restructuring and Integration in the Post-crisis Era, London: Routledge, 2009, pp 1-10. 24 M Kutlay, 'Economy as the "practical hand" of "new Turkish foreign policy": a political economy explanation', Insight Turkey, 13(1), 2011, pp 67-88. 25 C Bakir, 'Policy entrepreneurship and institutional change: multilevel governance of central banking reform', Governance, 22(4), 2009, pp 571-598. 26 Önis, 'Power, interests and coalitions'. 27 C Tuğal, Passive Revolution: Absorbing the Islamic Challenge to Capitalism, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009; and I Göcmen, 'The politics of religiously motivated welfare provision', PhD dissertation, University of Cologne, 2011. 28 HJ Rutz & E Balkan, Reproducing Class: Education, Neoliberalism and the Rise of the New Middle Class in Istanbul, New York: Berghahn Books, 2009. 29 Pope, 'Pax Ottomana?'. 30 Altunışık, 'The possibilities and limits of Turkey's soft power in the Middle East'; and Pope, 'Pax Ottomana?'. 31 We would like to thank one reviewer for alerting us to this point. 32 For detailed figures on Turkish-Middle Eastern trade in the 2000s, see Ö Tür, 'Economic relations with the Middle East under the akp-trade, business community and reintegration with neighboring zones', Turkish Studies, 12(4), 2011, pp 589-602. 33 Ibid. 34 See the 2010 Arab Public Opinion Polls by Telhami and Zogby International, at http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/reports/2010/08_arab_opinion_poll_telhami/08_arab_opinion_poll_telhami.pdf, accessed 1 February 2012. 35 W Hale & E Özbudun, Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey: The Case of the akp, London: Routledge, 2010, p 87. 36 For example, in the ruling on Leyla Sahin against the Turkish state on 10 November 2005, the European Court of Human Rights did not interpret the headscarf ban in public universities as a violation of the freedom of religion. 37 The Middle East has not taken over Turkey's dominant trade in absolute terms, as Europe and Russia continue to be its biggest trading partners. However, in relative terms the Middle East's role in Turkish trade has changed dramatically in the course of the 2000s. 38 For a more systematic treatment of the 2006 Lebanon war and the 2008-09 Gaza war in the making of the regional order in the Middle East, see M Valbjorn & A Bank, 'The new Arab Cold War: rediscovering the Arab dimension of Middle East regional Politics', Review of International Studies, 38(1), 2012, pp 3-24. 39 For a detailed overview of the turns this case has taken, see Gareth Jenkins's report, at http://www.silkroadstudies.org/new/docs/silkroadpapers/0908Ergenekon.pdf, accessed 5 February 2012

Regional power · Transformative learning · Islamic Studies and History · Middle East and Rwanda Conflicts · Turkey's Politics and Society

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub