Emre Iseri

The US Grand Strategy and the Eurasian Heartland in the Twenty-First Century

From an offensive realist theoretical approach, this paper assumes that great powers are always looking for opportunities to attain more power in order to feel more secure. This outlook has led me to assert that the main objective of the US grand strategy in the twenty-first century is primacy or global hegemony. I have considered the US grand strategy as a combination of wartime and peacetime strategies and argued that the Caspian region and its hinterland, where I call the Eurasian Heartland, to use the term of Sir Halford Mackinder, has several geo-strategic dimensions beyond its wide-rich non-OPEC untapped hydro-carbon reserves, particularly in Kazakhstan. For my purposes, I have relied on both wartime strategy (US-led Iraq war) and peacetime strategy of supporting costly Baku-Tbilis-Ceyhan (BTC) to integrate regional untapped oil reserves, in particular Kazakh, into the US-controlled energy market to a great extent. This pipelines contribution to the US grand strategy is assessed in relation to potential Eurasian challengers, Russia and China. The article concludes with an evaluation of the prospects of the US grand strategy in the twenty-first century.

The Limitations of Turkey's New Foreign Policy Activism in the Caucasian Regional Security Complexity

Abstract A panoramic outlook on the present global system shows that the US has been failing to preserve its global preponderance against the rise of new contenders from Asia. Turkeys new foreign policy demeanor under the AKP government reflects this shift of global power from the West to the East, leaning on both of these two poles (especially Russia and the US), thereby, aims at creating a ‘zero‐problem’ situation with the neighboring Caucasian states. Yet, this strategy has not achieved its goal, mainly due to the ongoing debates, not only between Moscow and Washington, but also between Azerbaijan and Armenia in the Caucasian Regional Security Complexity. This work tries to read all these developments by applying insights from the neoclassical realist standing and argues that there are two main hindrances to the plans success: the dynamics of the current global system and the security complexity of the Caucasus region.

Islamically oriented humanitarian NGOs in Turkey: AKP foreign policy parallelism

ABSTRACT This paper aims to contribute to the growing Foreign Policy Analysis literature by focusing on the role of non-state actors in foreign policy implementation. Special attention is paid to the case of Turkey, which has emerged as a ‘humanitarian state’ in the last decade. In Turkey, relatively new Islamically oriented humanitarian NGOs (HNGOs) have been providing ever-increasing amounts of humanitarian aid throughout the former Ottoman lands including the Middle East and Africa. Employing a constructivist-realist perspective, this paper asserts that a ‘parallelism,’ if not a complementarity, exists between Turkey’s Islamically oriented HNGO discourse and practice and AKP foreign policy implementation process. Based on primary qualitative data acquired from interviews, this study has identified various degrees of parallelism between the two, calling into question the status of these HNGOs as purportedly non-governmental entities.

Turkey's nuclear energy policy: towards a sustainable energy mix?

To originate new sustainable development policies is a prerequisite for achieving a higher level of worldwide economic and social development. The efficiency of a sustainable development policy could, and should, be measured by a multi-dimensional analysis that comprises all social, economic and environmental factors. Acknowledging the requirement to have a sustainable energy mix, net energy importer Turkey has initiated its nuclear energy programme. However, this move by Turkey also brings forth certain environmental, social and economic issues that have been a matter of ongoing debate. This study aims not only to contribute to the debate by providing a balanced enquiry of nuclear energys pros and cons, but also to determine the pre-conditions for it to prompt Turkey to reach a sustainable energy future. The nuclear option has a significant potential to drive Turkeys transition to sustainable energy as long as several environmental, social and economic risk factors are minimised.

Eurasian geopolitics and financial crisis: transforming Russian–Turkish relations from geopolitical rivalry to strategic cooperation

The economic dimensions of the 2008–2010 financial crisis and its implications for the American-led international economic system on the basis of the US dollar have attracted a lot of attention among economists. Nevertheless, one should also consider the political ramifications of the crisis among rising Eurasian powers, Russia and Turkey, as confidence in American policies has been shrinking at the eve of the multi-polar system or global power shift to the East. Along with the declining confidence of American-led international ordering culminating with the ongoing financial crisis, this paper aims to examine the political ramifications on the rising Eurasian powers, Russia and Turkey. The main contention is that the pattern of their relationship will be a much more challenging one at a time of a tectonic power shift towards the East, mainly due to the fact that these countries are not satisfied with the American dictates more than ever and are beginning to acknowledge the significance of their partnership. The paper is divided into three parts. In the first part, the global power shift towards the East will be elaborated. Concerns of Eurasian powers, in particular Russian, regarding the American-led international economic order will also be stressed. In the second part of the paper, the political determinants of the past and the present of American (petro)dollar hegemony will be examined and it will be argued that sustainability of the hegemony is in jeopardy, mainly due to the fact that key supporters of the dollar are no longer American erstwhile allies, but potential rivals (China and Russia). Accordingly, in the third part, as American economic influence has been declining, two rising Eurasian powers, Russia and Turkey, have begun to realize the mutual benefit of their cooperation freed from the dictates of the USA. It will be concluded with the assertion that their decision to use the rouble, rather than the dollar, will likely intensify their relations, not in a manner to serve the best interests of the USA in the Eurasian landmass.

Contending narratives on the sustainability of nuclear energy in Turkey

Sustainable development recently topped the universal agenda again when the United Nations adopted its Sustainable Development Goals on 25 September 2015. Yet, since the 1990s, the concept has prompted different actors to reformulate their relations with the environment in line with different narratives on the concept. This inherent contradiction becomes all the more salient during sustainable development debates on nuclear, which has often been dominated by the expert-oriented politics prioritizing carbon-free economic growth by “post-politicizing” the issue at stake. In this light, the main objective of this paper is to contribute to nuclear related literature stressing on broader conceptions of sustainability by going beyond those techno-economic discussions. Hinging on the multi-faceted nature of Turkey’s nuclear energy debate, this paper argues that multitude of state and non-state discourse coalitions (i.e. nuclear advocacy, nuclear opposition and ambivalent) has constructed sustainability of nuclear differently through their narratives. To substantiate its argument, through a narrative analysis, this paper examines competing narratives over nuclear energy’s economic, environmental and societal impacts in Turkey. The findings have challenged pro-nuclear techno-economic discourse coalition’s attempt to “post-politicize” Turkish nuclear debate by revealing complex and multi-faceted nature of the debate.

Unexpected Persistence Amidst Enlargement Stasis: Usages of Europe in Turkey’s Nuclear Energy Debate

Abstract Recent studies on European Union (EU) Enlargement have emphasised the importance of usages of ‘Europe’ by domestic actors as a necessary condition for the EU to have an impact on domestic politics. We study the usages of Europe in the critical case of Turkey’s nuclear energy policy. We analyse the narratives and actions of domestic actors in Turkey to identify if they use ‘Europe’ (the EU and the idea of Europe). We reach the counter-intuitive finding of usages by both state and non-state actors, which illustrates that usages of Europe can persist despite enlargement stasis in candidate states.

Political agency of news outlets in a polarized media system: Framing the corruption probe in Turkey

This article aims to determine the stances of media outlets during crises in a polarized media system such as Turkey. Adopting a content analysis methodology, this article analyses the framing strategies of three national newspapers affiliated with certain sociopolitical camps (namely, the pro-government Sabah, the anti-government Kemalist Sözcü and the pro-Gülen Zaman) to observe possible similarities/differences during the critical 17 December corruption probe. The findings not only confirm earlier studies on ‘press-party’ parallelism but also reveal ‘press-sociopolitical camp parallelism’ in Turkey’s polarized media system.