Turkey, the Arab Spring and Beyond

Bulent Aras, Fuat Keyman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781317244103
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

It has been almost five years now since a new collective consciousness of Arab masses transformed the political landscape of the Middle East and North Africa. In just a short period of time, the people of the Arab world protested against their rulers, putting an end to long-time authoritarian leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen, while bringing others to the eve of collapse. Although the uprisings were initially successful, the people's strong will to see honour, dignity, rights, and good governance realized within their respective countries was fiercely combated by the ruling strata of these states and their strategies to ensure authoritarian survival. The changing political landscape and the dynamic processes of the Arab Spring have caught the attention of academics as well. There is a blossoming literature being written on the Arab Spring focusing on social protests, authoritarian resilience and learning, opposition strategies, the rise of non-state actors, state failure, foreign policy, and new the geopolitical landscape. Therefore, with the desire to contribute to this literature, this edited volume aims to address the changing political atmosphere and the challenges of the emerging geopolitical order, particularly focusing on Turkish foreign policy and its response to the Arab Spring. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies.

Turkey, the Arab Spring and Beyond

Bülent Aras and E. Fuat Keyman

It has been almost five years now since a new collective consciousness of Arab masses transformed the political landscape of the Middle East and North Africa. In just a short period of time, the people of the Arab world protested against their rulers, putting an end to long-time authoritarian leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen, while bringing others to the eve of collapse. Although the uprisings were initially successful, the people’s strong will to see honour, dignity, rights and good governance realized within their respective countries was fiercely combated by the ruling strata of these states and their strategies to ensure authoritarian survival. This dialectical struggle put an end to early optimist accounts and paved the way for speculations that the Arab Spring had come to an end. However, before we can speculate what a precise ending to the uprisings will look (or had looked) like, it must first be asked, what is the destiny of the Arab Spring?

The political landscape does not always present a clear or promising picture, however, the question of the destiny of the Arab Spring corresponds to some reality on the ground. On the one hand, there is a general consensus that the worst has yet to be seen. The rise of non-state actors, cross-border re-territorialization and the search for state-like entities, sectarian conflicts, proxy wars and state failure paint a bleak picture for the future of these countries. On the other hand, there is a new psychological threshold for resisting authoritarian rule and an emerging collective consciousness to change the political landscape for the betterment of political rights and good governance. Although it seems that there will be some challenging periods ahead, revolution is a difficult process, and it is certainly not over. The Arab masses have bridged the time lag between their authoritarian setting and current world realities, and they are not likely to accept anything less than what the rest of the world has asked for in terms of seeing international standards of human dignity and rights realized in their homeland.

The changing political landscape and the dynamic processes of the Arab Spring have caught the attention of academics as well. There is a blossoming literature being written on the Arab Spring focusing on social protests, authoritarian resilience and learning, opposition strategies, the rise of non-state actors, state failure, foreign policy and the new geopolitical landscape. Therefore, with the desire to contribute to this literature, this special issue aims to address the changing political atmosphere and the challenges of the emerging geopolitical order, particularly focusing on Turkish foreign policy and its response to the Arab Spring.

This special issue is a part of our research on the Arab Spring, namely, POMEAS (Project on the Middle East and Arab Spring), at Istanbul Policy Center, Sabancı University. For this issue we have chosen to focus on recent changes in Turkish foreign policy, Turkey’s policy toward the Arab Spring, its engagement and interaction with regional developments, Turkey’s relations with Qatar and Iran, and the overlapping and conflicting policies of Turkey, Qatar and Iran on the Arab Spring.

Bülent Aras discusses the transformation of Turkish foreign policy, taking the changes in the structure of Turkey’s Foreign Ministry as a case study. Turkey’s institutional adaptation of its foreign policy framework is exemplary in showing that policymakers have indeed succeeded in bridging the gap between ideas and institutions to some extent. Aras points out that despite considerable progress, work still needs to be done toward the institutional adaptation of the idealistic perspective of foreign policy.

Emirhan Yorulmazlar and Ebru Turhan discuss the orientation of Turkish foreign policy in the Arab Spring. They argue that Turkish foreign policy is caught in between regional disorder and Western disengagement from the region; meanwhile, Turkey is trying to reconcile its own Western orientation and regional priorities. Yorulmazlar and Turhan suggest an alternative foreign policy trajectory to preserve an active policy in the post-Arab Spring atmosphere.

E. Fuat Keyman and Onur Sazak discuss both the Turkish and the Iranian modes of engagement in the Arab Spring. In the Iranian case, the mode has relied on resistance to change in the region, as well as at home. In the Turkish case, there has been a more positive attitude towards regional transformation in the region. To reconcile these two modes, Keyman and Sazak suggest that each country follow a trajectory toward resolving their domestic problems and engage in the region through ethical, moral and constructive values.

Özgür Pala and Bülent Aras utilize the concept of geographic reasoning to explain the convergence in Turkish and Qatari policies toward the Arab Spring. According to Pala and Aras, Qatar’s new activism is the result of its search for a regional role, while Turkey’s various engagements aim to secure an international position at large. They conclude that Turkey and Qatar, despite minor differences, seem to have matured their partnership despite shifting alliances.

Pınar Akpınar focuses on another level of Turkish, Iranian and Qatari involvement in the Arab Spring, namely, each country’s mediation effort to solve the conflicts in the new emerging political environment. She examines why and how these states mediate and argues that their attempt to present themselves as effective mediators has achieved different results. Akpınar concludes that the sustainability of this role in each country’s foreign policy depends on their commitment and reliability as mediators.

Larbi Sadiki contextualizes the change after the Arab Spring, addressing how politics is organized in the Arab political landscape. He puts a specific focus on Qatar’s response, having the Gulf Cooperation Council’s ‘story’ at the background, to the Arab Spring.

Mediation as a Foreign Policy Tool in the Arab Spring: Turkey, Qatar and Iran

Pınar Akpınar

This paper investigates to what extent mediation has been a relevant foreign policy tool during the Arab Spring by looking into the mediation attempts of Turkey, Qatar and Iran. To answer this question, the paper examines why and how these actors mediated, to what extent they were able to apply mediation as a tool of foreign policy, whether their mediation attempts could deliver any results and whether there was a receptive audience with respect to their mediation. Despite certain setbacks, mediation has been a relevant foreign policy tool during the Arab Spring. The uses of mediation by these actors run parallel to their foreign policy priorities. In addition, during the Arab Spring, mediation has proved more effective in small-scale conflicts, such as hostage crises, rather than large-scale ones, such as those between regimes and oppositions. Despite considerable potential for regional powers to take on mediator roles, the effectiveness of their mediation attempts depends on their commitment and reliability as mediators.

Introduction

The Arab Spring has triggered several disputes in the Middle East that have been multidimensional in nature, often involving issues of ideology, identity, territory, sovereignty and resources. These have been intrastate, asymmetric, low-intensity conflicts that are unpredictable and difficult—if not impossible—to fight by conventional ways. The Arab Spring also witnessed the emergence of several factions and new actors within the opposition, all entering the stage with different interests and positions. The deepening gap among different factions fuelled fears and fed the attitude of ‘survive or vanish’. This understanding encouraged the use of violence, making the conflicts even more complicated by threatening the security even of countries that have not directly experienced the Arab Spring such as Turkey, Iran and Qatar.

The fall and the weakening of the regimes during the Arab Spring resulted in a gap of authority in the region. This gap was further widened as a result of the rivalries between regional powers fuelling sectarian disputes and radicalism. Different forms of conflict resolution ranging from military intervention to non-violent methods have been applied over the course of the Arab Spring. As a result of its complexity and the multiplicity of the actors, conventional tools have proved ineffective, and mediation has once again come onto the stage as a tool of non-violent conflict resolution.

A number of actors took on mediator roles, some of which have been fruitful while others have proved ineffective. The already-existing doubt and mistrust against the West, coupled with Western reluctance to intervene in the conflicts pertaining to the Arab Spring, created room for regional actors such as Qatar, Turkey and Iran to take on more active roles in regional disputes. This paper analyses the mediation attempts made by these actors aiming to understand to what extent mediation is still a relevant policy tool within the context of the Arab Spring. In order to answer that question, the paper will examine why and how these actors mediated, to what extent they were able to apply mediation as a tool of foreign policy, whether their mediation attempts could deliver any results and whether there was a receptive audience with respect to their mediation.

Mediation as a Tool of Foreign Policy

Definitions of mediation vary across the literature. According to the United Nations (UN), mediation is ‘a process whereby a third party assists two or more parties, with their consent, to prevent, manage or resolve a conflict by helping them to develop mutually acceptable agreements’.¹ While some scholars emphasize the importance of voluntary presence and mutual consent of the parties during mediation,² others underpin the non-binding nature of the process indicating the lack of force and authority of the third party.³

The literature depicts an ideal mediator as a neutral entity that lacks any prior interest in the outcome of a mediation process. As such, neutrality is a primary principle in mediation. However, the literature largely ignores the fact that when the mediator is a state, mediation often becomes a tool of foreign policy, if not the foreign policy itself. As underpinned by Ramsbotham et al., ‘governments are not always willing to shoulder a mediating role when their national interests are not at stake, and, where they are, mediation readily blurs into traditional diplomacy and statecraft’.⁴

Touval criticizes the understanding of international mediation ‘as an autonomous activity that is impacted by politics but is not part of politics’ and rather suggests that mediation should be considered ‘as part of foreign policy’⁵ when practised by states. As such, there is a tendency in the literature to refer to international mediation as a solitary and rather technical activity in isolation from the surrounding po...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Citation Information
• 1. Turkey, the Arab Spring and Beyond
• 2. Mediation as a Foreign Policy Tool in the Arab Spring: Turkey, Qatar and Iran
• 3. Reform and Capacity Building in the Turkish Foreign Ministry: Bridging the Gap between Ideas and Institutions
• 4. Practical Geopolitical Reasoning in the Turkish and Qatari Foreign Policy on the Arab Spring
• 5. The Impact of the Arab Spring on the Gulf Cooperation Council
• 6. Turkey and Iran: The Two Modes of Engagement in the Middle East
• 7. Turkish Foreign Policy towards the Arab Spring: Between Western Orientation and Regional Disorder
• Index