The Western Condition - St Antony's College - University of Oxford

More documents

Recommendations

Info

The Western Condition: Turkey, the US and the EU in the New Middle East a result of both these dimensions the claims made around the theme of “Turkey as a model” for the region. Although there is no strict division of labor in this regard, it is true that Europe has traditionally privileged reform and the United States has traditionally privileged strategy in their respective relations with Turkey. We suggest that the two overlapping crises in its neighbourhood – e.g. financial and political - have both brought Turkey back into the fold of US grand strategy for the Middle East, and loosened the imperative of democratic reform as the Obama administration astutely recycles in a pro-Western key the AKP’s own regional leadership agenda – a discourse crowning Turkey as the ‘victor of the Arab Spring’ and promoting it in the Middle East as a ‘moderate Islamist’ model of democracy, economic growth and political stability. But this strategy, we argue, is not devoid of significant risks, if not embedded in a broader democratic agenda. Only a return to and of a West committed to such an agenda will keep the country from a further slide into authoritarianism. Are Turkey and the West, and more specifically Europe, ready for such a return? We believe that despite the apparent lack of interest on both sides in resuscitating Turkey’s stalled accession process to the EU, there are new avenues for bilateral engagement that could both once again inspire a democratic reform agenda in Turkey, and provide the much needed outward looking political dynamism for the EU. It might be argued that Europe’s internal woes and Turkey’s entanglement in the Middle East’s confrontations have become too profound to allow for such a rapprochement to take place. But this is also precisely what makes re-engagement desirable, even a necessity for both sides. Ultimately, in the absence of such re-engagement, there is little doubt that a Turkey facing ethnic conflict will significantly exacerbate instability in both Europe and in the Middle East. The European Union’s reengagement with Turkey as well as with the uprisings in the Arab world is essential, even though the two regions will require different modes of engagement. In this essay, we try to dis-entangle the threads of the Western condition in the case of Turkey and the new Middle East in three phases. We start with the current state of play in the region, analysing above all the shift taking place around the Sunni-Shia axis and what this means for the use and misuse of ‘Turkey as a model’. We move on to a historically informed lay-out of the three phases of AKP foreign policy, which also correspond to three fundamental logics of Turkey’s “western condition”, namely “Europeanisation”, “Autonomisation” and “Americanisation”. Finally, we ask whether and how these three dimensions may be combined in the current climate, and suggest options for doing so. 7
On the strategic use of the ‘Turkish model’ I. On the Strategic Use of the ‘Turkish model’ The outbreak of popular uprisings across the Arab world since late 2010 has not only fundamentally reshaped the socio-political landscape of the Middle East, but has also opened a geopolitical vacuum, triggering in turn a complex regional power struggle to reshape the region. The collapse of authoritarian regimes in Tunisia and Egypt as a result of these uprisings, and in Libya following external military intervention, the suppression of uprisings in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia and the outbreak of civil war in Syria have created the most profound systemic crisis in the region since the downfall of the Ottoman Empire in the early 20 th century and the subsequent colonial partitioning of the Middle East. In this volatile context, the suggestion that Turkey’s experience under a decade of AKP government could serve as some sort of inspiration or even a model for revolutionary Arab countries is not only an ideational factor but has become a geopolitical stake in the game between regional actors and the West. And the changing degree of enthusiasm expressed for the idea by the Arab publics becomes a factor in these volatile regional dynamics. Turkey-as-a-Model: Variations on a theme In very broad terms, the ‘Turkish model’, in its many different variations since the emergence of the Turkish Republic in the 1920s, stands for a workable arrangement between an Islamic identity and an ostensibly non-western cultural legacy on the one side and a pragmatic course of modernisation, intertwined with membership in Euro-Atlantic structures on the other. Overall, this arrangement has come to be viewed as more inclusive and successful than the political systems in the post-colonial Middle East. Its most recent reincarnation in AKP-governed Turkey is seen as an instance of relative socio-political stability and economic growth within a fairly democratic framework, managed by civilian politicians with a background in political Islam. Supporting references for this idea typically emphasise Turkey’s impressive economic growth over the past decade especially at a time of economic slump in the West, its government’s consecutive electoral victories, as well as its perceived image as an economic and cultural magnet in the region. Beyond this generic definition, however, the ‘model’ remains shrouded in conceptual ambiguity. One way of framing what is meant by the ‘Turkish model’ is to analyse its constitutive elements as part of a ‘grand strategy’ of Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, operating in two interrelated discursive domains and geographical scales. 8
Page 2 and 3: The Western Condition: Turkey, the
Page 4 and 5: 3 The Western Condition: Turkey, th
Page 6 and 7: 5 The Western Condition: Turkey, th
Page 20 and 21: 19 The Western Condition: Turkey, t
Page 50 and 51: 49 The Western Condition: Turkey, t
Page 58 and 59:
The Western Condition: Turkey, the
Page 60 and 61:
Page 62 and 63:
Page 64 and 65:
Page 66 and 67:
Page 68 and 69:
Page 70 and 71:
Page 72 and 73:
Page 74 and 75:
Page 76 and 77:
Page 78 and 79:
show all

The Western Condition - St Antony's College - University of Oxford

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?