Article Title: Turkey Between EU Membership and Global

Aspirations

Author: Ioannis N. Grigoriadis

Institutional Affiliation: Bilkent University

Author’s Contact Details:

Postal Address:

Room T-364

Department of Political Science

& Public Administration

Bilkent University

Bilkent, Ankara TR-06800

Turkey

Phone Number: +90-312-2901855

Fax Number: +90-312-2902742

E-mail: ioannis@bilkent.edu.tr

Word Count: 5486

Keywords: Turkey, globalization, European Union, SCO,

BRICs, AKP

Ankara, 03/01/2015

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Abstract

This study focuses on the transformation of Turkey strategic ambitions in the last decade.

Throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s, Turkey had indexed its aspirations to a stronger role in

global politics to its membership of the European Union. The European Union was expected to act as

both trigger and anchor of reform that could render Turkey a rising power at the regional and global

level. Nevertheless, Turkey's strategic orientations started shifting in the mid 2000s, when EU

membership prospects started dimming, and Turkey's ambitions for an independent role in global

politics started growing. The global financial crisis and the EU sovereign debt crisis lent credibility to

views that the European Union was a "spent force" for Turkey and that it should join BRIC states in

their global governance initiatives, or even the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Yet the

outbreak of the "Arab Spring" pointed at the limits of independent strategic role and raised the need

for a reconsideration of Turkish strategic vision.

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Turkey Between EU Membership and Global Aspirations

By Ioannis N. Grigoriadis

Bilkent University

Introduction

Turkish strategic orientations are a topic that has always attracted a lot of scholarly and

journalistic attention. This is due to the country’s position as a country bridging Europe and

the Middle East, its NATO membership and Western orientation. Turkey’s strategic identity

has become further complicated under the impact of globalization. This study focuses on

the transformation of Turkey strategic ambitions that has transpired during the last decade.

While historically and particularly during the late 1990s and early 2000s, Turkey used to

index its aspirations to a stronger role in global politics to its Western security identity and

membership of the European Union. The European Union was expected to act as both

trigger and anchor of reform that could render Turkey a rising power at the regional and

global level. Nevertheless, Turkey's strategic orientations started shifting in the mid 2000s,

when EU membership prospects turned dim, and Turkey's ambitions for an independent

role in global politics grew bigger. The global financial turmoil and the EU sovereign debt

crisis lent credibility to views that the European Union was a "spent force" for Turkey and

that it should follow a single join BRIC states in their global governance initiatives, or even

the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). On the other hand, the outbreak of the "Arab

Spring" pointed at the limits of independent strategic role and raised the need for a

reconsideration of Turkish strategic vision.

From a theoretical point of view, this paper explores the ways that globalization has

fundamentally affected the processes through which power is projected at the global level

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by organizations such as the European Union and middle powers such as Turkey. Regional

and global governance structures are critical in shaping international cooperation as well as

defining national interest. This paper aims to validate the hypothesis that both the European

Union and Turkey need each other’s strategic partnership in order to successfully address

the challenges that globalization poses on both parties. Turkey will offer the European

Union a much-needed strategic and economic boost, while the European Union can

contribute to Turkey’s institution-building and the consolidation of the economic and

political reform achieved in recent years. From a global perspective, the strategic

cooperation between the European Union and Turkey could contribute to better global

governance and conflict resolution in some of the most volatile regions that surround both

parties. It would give a powerful message against culturalist and “clash-of-civilizations”-

driven approaches of international politics that have the potential of functioning as “self-

fulfilling prophecies”. It could also point towards the compatibility of Islam and democracy

as well as the integration capacity of Islam in a multicultural, multiethnic European

continent.

The European Union, Turkey and the Emerging Powers

The rise of the so-called emerging economic powers, in particular of the four biggest, Brazil,

Russia, India and China (BRIC), is bound to have deep political and strategic repercussions

within the following years.1 The aggregate GDP of the BRICs is expected to overtake that of

1 On this see, Fareed Zakaria, "The Future of American Power-How America Can Survive the Rise of the Rest",

Foreign Affairs, Vol. 87 (2008), Joseph S. Nye, "The Futures of American Power-Dominance and Decline in

Perspective", Foreign Affairs, Vol. 89, no. 2 (2010), Fareed Zakaria, The Post-American World: Release 2.0 (New

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the United States in the very near future, while Chinese GDP alone is expected to overtake

the US one within the following decades. Similar is the trend for the EU aggregate GDP,

despite the positive effects of enlargement. This development is bound to have profound

strategic and political implications. The hegemonic position of the United States,2 The

position of the West as leading global political and economic force is expected to meet with

severe challenges.3 As the economic rise of the United States in the nineteenth century

predated its emergence as a superpower in the twentieth, the rise of the BRIC states in the

post-Cold War era is expected to lead to a challenge of the West’s dominant position in

York: WW Norton & Company, 2011), Pinar Bilgin, "Looking for ‘the International’beyond the West", Third

World Quarterly, Vol. 31, no. 5 (2010).

2 There is a burgeoning literature on the challenges that the United States is bound to face. See, for example,

John J Mearsheimer, "The Future of the American Pacifier", Foreign Affairs (2001), John J Mearsheimer, "The

Gathering Storm: China’s Challenge to Us Power in Asia", The Chinese Journal of International Politics, Vol. 3,

no. 4 (2010), Zbigniew Brzezinski, Strategic Vision: America and the Crisis of Global Power (New York: Basic

books, 2012), Robert J. Lieber, Power and Willpower in the American Future: Why the United States Is Not

Destined to Decline (Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), Robert J. Lieber, "Staying

Power and the American Future: Problems of Primacy, Policy, and Grand Strategy", Journal of Strategic Studies,

Vol. 34, no. 4 (2011), Immanuel Wallerstein, The Decline of American Power: The Us in a Chaotic WorldThe

New Press, 2013), James M. Lindsay, "George W. Bush, Barack Obama and the Future of Us Global Leadership",

International Affairs, Vol. 87, no. 4 (2011), Niall Ferguson, Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American

EmpirePenguin UK, 2012), Gideon Rachman, Zero-Sum Future: American Power in an Age of AnxietySimon and

Schuster, 2012), Susan Strange, "The Future of the American Empire", Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 42,

no. 1 (1988).

3 Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2012), Henry Kissinger, Does America Need a

Foreign Policy?: Toward a Diplomacy for the 21st Century (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2002)

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global politics and economy. A discussion on a “post-Western world” has already risen, and

the role of the BRICs in that new world is heavily debated.4 China5, India,6 Brazil7 and

4 Oliver Stuenkel, "Emerging Powers and Status: The Case of the First BRICs Summit", Asian Perspective, Vol.

38, no. 1 (2014), Oliver Stuenkel, "The Financial Crisis, Contested Legitimacy, and the Genesis of Intra-Brics

Cooperation", Global Governance, Vol. 19, no. 4 (2013a), Simon Serfaty, "The Western Alliance in a Post-

Western World" in Sudeshna Roy, Dana Cooper and Brian Murphy, eds., Transatlantic Relations and Modern

Diplomacy: An Interdisciplinary Examination (Oxford & New York, 2013), Simon Serfaty, "Moving into a Post-

Western World", The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 34, no. 2 (2011), Stephen F Szabo, "Welcome to the Post-

Western World", Current History, Vol. 1 (2011), Stefan A. Schirm, "Leaders in Need of Followers: Emerging

Powers in Global Governance" Power in the 21st Century: Springer, 2012)

5 David Shambaugh, China Goes Global: The Partial Power (Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 2013),

Ivan Tselichtchev, China Versus the West: The Global Power Shift of the 21st Century (Singapore: John Wiley &

Sons, 2011), Shaun Breslin, "Understanding China's Regional Rise: Interpretations, Identities and Implications",

International Affairs, Vol. 85, no. 4 (2009), Ho-fung Hung and Jaime Kucinskas, "Globalization and Global

Inequality: Assessing the Impact of the Rise of China and India, 1980–2005", American Journal of Sociology,

Vol. 116, no. 5 (2011), Niv Horesh and Emilian Kavalski, Asian Thought on China's Changing International

Relations (London & New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014)

6 Jeffrey W. Legro, "The Politics of the New Global Architecture: The United States and India", Strategic

Analysis, Vol. 36, no. 4 (2012), Devesh Kapur, "Introduction: Future Issues in India's Foreign Policy: Ideas,

Interests and Values", India Review, Vol. 8, no. 3 (2009)

7 Oliver Stuenkel, "Rising Powers and the Future of Democracy Promotion: The Case of Brazil and India", Third

World Quarterly, Vol. 34, no. 2 (2013b), Oliver Stuenkel, "Towards the ‘Greater West’or a ‘Post-Western

World’? International Institutions, Integration and Confrontation in India’s and Brazil’s Foreign Policy

Strategy", (Universität Duisburg-Essen, Fakultät für Gesellschaftswissenschaften» Institut für

Politikwissenschaft, 2013c), Robert N. Gwynne and Kay Cristobal, eds., Latin America Transformed:

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Russia8 attract an increasing amount of attention on a scholarly and policy-based level.9 This

is a major predicament not only to the United States but also to the European Union, whose

political and economic accomplishments of the last decades have come under considerable

strain.10 The recent economic crisis in the Eurozone has exposed major weaknesses of the

European sociopolitical model, and questioned the ability of the European Union to

maintain its role as a global actor. As aptly put by a European politician, Europe faces the

risk of becoming the "Switzerland of the 21st century". In other words, the European Union

could become a region with a high per capita income and standards of living, but irrelevant

to global economic and political developments. The ongoing shift of global economic activity

towards the global South threatens to marginalize Europe and condemn it to a long but

irreversible decline. The debate on the rise of a "post-western world" has been burgeoning,

as the West faces formidable challenges, which threaten to push it to the margins of global

politics and economics. While industrial production travels towards the east and the south,

Western economies lose their competitive edge. Eventually Western states face structural

trade deficits against the emerging powers that threaten to impoverish them in the long

Globalization and Modernity (London & New York: Routledge, 2014), Leslie Elliott Armijo and Sean W Burges,

"Brazil, the Entrepreneurial and Democratic BRIC", Polity, Vol. 42, no. 1 (2010)

8 Andrew C. Kuchins and Igor A. Zevelev, "Russian Foreign Policy: Continuity in Change", The Washington

Quarterly, Vol. 35, no. 1 (2011), Richard Sakwa, "‘New Cold War’ or Twenty Years’ Crisis? Russia and

International Politics", International Affairs, Vol. 84, no. 2 (2008), Peter Rutland, "Russia as an Energy

Superpower", New Political Economy, Vol. 13, no. 2 (2008)

9 Amitav Acharya, "Can Asia Lead? Power Ambitions and Global Governance in the Twenty-First Century",

International Affairs, Vol. 87, no. 4 (2011)

10 Randall Schweller, "Emerging Powers in an Age of Disorder", Global Governance, Vol. 17, no. 3 (2011)

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run. Meanwhile, the European Union has to face additional challenges, which emanate from

the transformation of its member state societies in the past decades. Demographic decline

has put additional economic, social and political strains on EU member states. As the crisis

of the European social welfare state is linked with ageing population, immigration becomes

the single solution for the replenishment of the European workforce. This in turn results in

the challenge of addressing diversity in a liberal democratic framework of European

societies. Multiculturalism emerges as a guiding principle, yet its efficacy is often open to

question. Failure to address them effectively leads to the rise of xenophobic, extremist

political parties that claim to represent poor working-class Europeans, prioritize exclusion

and promise a return to “lost national values.” It also contributes to severe integration

problems among second-generation immigrant populations and raises the risk of

radicalization.

Meanwhile, education and innovation remain among the few European comparative

advantages that could bolster European competitiveness. Maintaining the European edge in

these fields has failed to attract the attention it would deserve. The outcome of this will

have a strong bearing on the fortunes of all EU member states, including Germany. While

Germany has displayed a relatively better performance in comparison with other EU

member states and is less affected by the structural weaknesses that have hit severely other

EU member states, it is by no means immune to them. Germany’s long-term economic

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prosperity and social stability is in direct correlation with addressing successfully the

structural shortcomings of the European Union and several of its member states. 11

Turkey’s EU Membership Adventure

In the above-described context, studying Turkey’s strategic partnership with the European

Union acquires more resonance. Turkey’s relations with the West and European states in

particular have always been important. In the context of the Cold War, Turkey was member

of several international organizations in Europe, a NATO member and a key partner for

European security. Since the beginning of the European integration process in the aftermath

of World War II, Turkey has been one of the earliest and most important political and

economic partners for the European Economic Community (EEC) and eventually a candidate

member. Nevertheless, while the roots of this relationship extend to the 1960s, Turkey’s

membership prospects were blurred due to a set of reasons, which were linked to Turkey’s

domestic developments and foreign relations. Turkey’s accession negotiations to the EEC

were suspended by the Ecevit government which objected to the Western, capitalist

11 For some examples of the debate on Europe’s role in globalization, see Jeremy Rifkin, The European Dream:

How Europe's Vision of the Future Is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream (Cambridge & New York: John Wiley

& Sons, 2013), Lord William Wallace of Saltaire, "Europe's Role in Global Governance: Changing the European

Debate", Global Policy, Vol. 5, no. s1 (2014), Martin Ortega, Building the Future: The Eu's Contribution to Global

Governance (Paris: European Union Institute for Security Studies (ISS), 2007), Mushtaq Hussain and Franca

Faes-Cannito, "Surplus in EU Trade in Services with BRIC Countries in 2006", Statistics in focus, no. 40 (2008),

Nora Fisher Onar and Kalypso Nicolaïdis, "The Decentring Agenda: Europe as a Post-Colonial Power",

Cooperation and Conflict, Vol. 48, no. 2 (2013), Joseph S. Nye, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World

Politics (New York: Public Affairs, 2004)

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outlook of the organization. The 1980 military coup of Kenan Evren ended effectively any

prospect for negotiations. When Turkey became again interested in EEC membership in the

late 1980s, the veto power of one of the newest member states, Greece, with whom Turkey

had severe bilateral disputes and fundamentally disagreed on the Cyprus dispute, would

further complicate the smooth development of EEC-Turkey relations. The end of the Cold

War and the signature of the Maastricht Treaty saw Turkey increasing its efforts on

becoming a full member of the European Union. Following a strong disappointment in 1997,

when Turkey was excluded from a long list of EU candidate states, Turkey became an EU

candidate in December 1999. Between 1999 and 2004 impressive political and economic

reforms were recorded under two different governments aiming to help Turkey fulfill the

“Copenhagen Criteria” for EU membership and pave the way for the start of Turkey’ EU

accession negotiations.12 In December 2004 the European Council decided that Turkey

fulfilled the Copenhagen Criteria for EU membership and decided the start of accession

negotiations. These were launched in October 2005.13 While accession negotiations have

stumbled over the last years for a number of reasons linked to both Turkey and the

European Union, the issue lost its initial popularity and political weight. EU membership

ceased to be a key item of Turkey’s political agenda, and public opinion interest waned as

well. Popular support for EU membership bottomed before the outbreak of the Gezi events

in June 2013. Ever since public interest in EU membership has gained some momentum,

12 Ioannis N. Grigoriadis, Trials of Europeanization: Turkish Political Culture and the European Union (New York

& London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008)

13 Ioannis N. Grigoriadis, "Turkey’s Accession to the European Union: Debating the Most Difficult Enlargement

Ever", SAIS Review of International Affairs, Vol. 26, no. 1 (2006)

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while the stance of the Turkish government attitude has not substantially changed. Despite

the vicissitudes in EU-Turkey relations, Turkey remains one of European Union’s closest

economic partners, and its strategic significance has not withered. On the contrary, one

could argue that the logic of closer strategic cooperation between the European Union and

Turkey is stronger than ever. Globalization and Europeanization have never stopped

interacting in shaping a new Turkey.14

Turkey’s Global Aspirations

Meanwhile, Turkey has also benefited from the rising fortunes of the global South and has

acquired a position in the so-called periphery of the BRIC states. Besides Brazil, Russia, India

and China, a group of minor emerging powers, such as Mexico, South Africa, Indonesia,

Vietnam and Turkey have also claimed a growing role in regional and global politics. 15 Due

to its impressive economic growth rate in the last decade, Turkey has won a position among

the world’s top twenty economic powers and increased in importance as a potential EU

partner or member. As a member of the G-20, Turkey has been attempting to put forward

an activist foreign policy and project itself as an emerging global actor.16 This has also raised

a debate about Turkey’s ability to break away from its Western and European orientation

14 E. Fuat Keyman, Transforming Turkey in a Globalizing World: Democratization, Globalization,

Europeanization (London & New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015)

15 Gokhan Bacik, "Turkey and the Brics: Can Turkey Join the Brics?", Turkish Studies, Vol. 14, no. 4 (2013)

16 Ioannis N. Grigoriadis, "Turkey’s Foreign Policy Activism: Vision Continuity and Reality Checks", Southeast

European and Black Sea Studies, Vol. 14, no. 2 (2014b), Ziya Onis, "Multiple Faces of the 'New' Turkish Foreign

Policy: Underlying Dynamics and a Critique", Insight Turkey, Vol. 13, no. 1 (2011)

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and seek an independent strategic role in global affairs.17 Some Turkish experts argued that

following Turkey’s economic success Turkey should not pursue membership of the European

Union. On the contrary, the European Union needs Turkey more than Turkey needs the

European Union. Turkey had all the qualifications necessary to follow an independent path

in global affairs and set its own strategic agenda, which would not necessarily be compatible

with the strategic orientations of the United States and the European Union. In the words of

the then Foreign Minister and currently Prime Minister of Turkey Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey

should be an “order-constituting power”, “set its own axis” and not attempt to position

itself within the order set by the West or define its strategies and tactics in light of Western

strategic and tactical choices. NATO membership was no more a constitutive element of

Turkey’s Western identity, but had to be corroborated through the successful promotion of

Turkish interests.18

Several statements of key AKP officials including Prime Minister Erdoğan seemed to

reinforce that view. In an article published under his name, Erdoğan proposed a

reconfiguration of EU-Turkey relations given the developments since the start of Turkey’s

EU accession negotiations in 2005. He argued that

....emerging powers such as Brazil, India, Turkey, and others are playing

very assertive roles in global economic affairs. The European Union cannot

be the one sphere that is immune to these changes in the balance of

17 Hasan Turunç, "The Post-Westernisation of EU–Turkey Relations", Journal of Contemporary European

Studies, Vol. 19, no. 4 (2011)

18 Tarık Oğuzlu, "Turkey's Eroding Commitment to Nato: From Identity to Interests", The Washington

Quarterly, Vol. 35, no. 3 (2012)

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power. The financial crisis has laid bare Europe’s need for greater

dynamism and change: European labour markets and social-security

systems are comatose. European economies are stagnant. European

societies are near geriatric. Can Europe retain power and credibility in the

new world order without addressing these issues? Meanwhile, as a

candidate for EU membership, Turkey has been putting its imprint on the

global stage with its impressive economic development and political

stability. The Turkish economy is Europe’s fastest-growing sizable economy

and will continue to be so in 2011. According to Organization for Economic

Cooperation and Development forecasts, Turkey will be the second-largest

economy in Europe by 2050.....Turkey is bursting with the vigour that the

EU so badly needs. And it’s not only economics. Turkey is becoming a

global and regional player with its soft power....Turkey has been an active

player in all the major areas of global politics and we do not intend to

surrender this momentum....Sometimes I wonder if Turkey’s power is an

impediment to its accession to the Union.....We are no more a country that

would wait at the EU’s door like a docile supplicant. Some claim that

Turkey has no real alternative to Europe.....However, the opposite is just as

valid. Europe has no real alternative to Turkey. Especially in a global order

where the balance of power is shifting, the EU needs Turkey to become an

ever stronger, richer, more inclusive, and more secure Union. I hope it will

not be too late before our European friends discover this fact.19

19 Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, "The Robust Man of Europe", Newsweek, 17/1/2011.

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This growing self-confidence was expressed in the statements of other key state officials.

Foreign Minister Davutoğlu also stated in an interview that Turkey 'could already set its own

strategic axis'.20 In view of these, Europe appears to no more carry the heavy symbolic

importance which it carried for generations of Ottoman and republican Turkish reformers.

Turkey appeared determined to undertake a more active role in regional politics and test its

capacity in addressing key global challenges.21 Turkey, which used to be a recipient of

foreign aid and was too poor to consider supporting economic development projects in sub-

Saharan Africa, Asia and Latin America, Turkey has recently developed humanitarian aid

programs and built a profile as a donor state. 22

Moreover, adding a normative element to Turkey’s foreign policy emerged as

one of the key features of the AKP foreign policy. Turkey was no longer blindly defending

Western interests, but projected itself as an emerging moral power basing its foreign policy

on values and not interests. While the West was accused of being completely driven by its

Realpolitik interests, Turkey claimed to define its interests on the basis of moral principles.

Defending the rights of dispossessed, marginalized populations across the globe appeared

20 Anatolia News Agency, "Foreign Minister Davutoğlu Says Turkey Sets Its Own Axis", Today's Zaman,

5/8/2010

21 Ioannis N. Grigoriadis, "Turkey’s Foreign Policy Activism: Between Vision Continuity and Reality Check",

Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, Vol. 14, no. 2 (2014a)

22 On this, see Meliha Benli Altunişik, "Turkey as an ‘Emerging Donor’and the Arab Uprisings", Mediterranean

Politics, no. ahead-of-print (2014), Reşat Bayer and E Fuat Keyman, "Turkey: An Emerging Hub of Globalization

and Internationalist Humanitarian Actor?", Globalizations, Vol. 9, no. 1 (2012)

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to be in accordance with this role. Prime Minister Erdoğan emphasized the normative base

of Turkish foreign policy as follows:

The global crisis, which continues today very harshly, as we have stressed

in every platform, is the result of the ambitious, unsatisfied and greedy

feelings to gain more....We implied that if the system goes in that manner,

this will cause much bigger crises in the future and we awakened. On the

contrary, it is a serious threat for our future when the sense of justice

between the states, societies and communities weakens too. This sense of

justice will be eroded, if you make a clear distinction between terrorism

and terrorist organizations. If you make clear-cut division on the nuclear

weapons issue warning some countries and taking no notice of other

countries, the sense of justice is going to decline. If you see in one part of

the world child assassination as defence, while on the other hand, you

arrange campaigns for extinct animals that cost billions of dollars, this also

means that the corruption of the feeling of fellowship. The communities

that perceive themselves as the crushed, worn, propelled, victimized, and

downtrodden, and the communities that have no belief in justice and

sincerity, make it impossible to establish peace and stability on a global

scale. This is what we have emphasized in our foreign policy. We defend

justice, peace, law, and democracy in every area. We, as a conservative and

democratic party, are struggling to hold both real and normative policy

together.23

23 Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, "The Changing Balances and the Rising Importance of Turkey", Paper presented at the

Lecture delivered at the International Strategic Research Organization (USAK) (Ankara, 3/2/2010)

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In that speech, Prime Minister Erdoğan also alluded to popular arguments throughout the

Middle East regarding the Palestinian question and Iran’s nuclear program: it would be,

namely, unfair to demand that Iran freeze its nuclear program, while Israel has not been

sanctioned for its violation of nuclear proliferation treaties and development of nuclear

weapons. Claiming a moral basis for Turkey’s foreign policy found strong resonance in Arab

public opinion. The popularity of Prime Minister Erdoğan reached high peaks in the Islamic

world, in particular in the Arab Middle East. He may indeed enjoy higher popularity rates in

some Arab capitals than in Ankara.24

The Middle East appeared to attract a disproportionate part of Turkey’s

attention. Alongside the improvement of bilateral relations, Turkey’s growing involvement

in the key Middle Eastern conflicts has also led to higher visibility and popularity for the

country and Prime Minister Erdoğan throughout the region. In light of these, Turkey was

ready to undertake the role of the “protector of the oppressed”, whether these may be in

Gaza or elsewhere in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. This normative and overconfident

stance expanded into previously uncharted intellectual waters. Erdoğan came to claim a

fight against Western Orientalism. Arguing that the West has always looked down upon

Islam and the Middle East, he pointed at the Western bias of historiography and appeared

willing to champion some of Occidentalist positions popular within Islamist circles. In a

recent example, Erdoğan argued that it was not Columbus but Arab Muslim sailors that

discovered America, centuries before 1492.

24 Grigoriadis, "Turkey’s Foreign Policy Activism: Between Vision Continuity and Reality Check"

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These fast rising expectations about Turkey’s strategic weight in global affairs

resulted in a sharp capabilities-expectations gap. Despite its rising international influence,

Turkey was far from ready to undertake a multidimensional strategic role on a global level

and fell short of expectations, when it attempted to intervene in questions that affected

even its immediate vicinity. Turkey’s regional and global ambitions were somewhat trimmed

following the 2011 Arab uprisings, which highlighted that initial expectations about Turkey’s

pivotal role in the Middle East were rather exaggerated. Turkey miscalculated about the

course of events in Egypt, Iraq, Libya and Syria and appeared isolated rather than a catalytic

factor in overcoming the crisis. The prolongation of the war in Syria, Iraq and Libya had

substantial economic costs for Turkey. Moreover, Turkey’s own domestic political and

economic deficiencies started becoming more visible, as the democratization reform

process was losing steam.25 The June 2013 Gezi events both manifested substantial

weaknesses as far as human rights protection was concerned and shed light on an acute

crisis of political representation. The December 2013 judicial crisis raised substantial

concerns about the status of the rule of law, as well as about the separation of powers in

Turkey. In other words, G-20 membership could not conceal significant deficiencies, as far as

institutional performance and progress towards democratic consolidation were concerned.

If Turkey were to become a fully consolidated democracy and a competitive extrovert

market economy, it still needed the European Union –and the West in general– more than

the converse.

25 Ioannis N. Grigoriadis, Learning from the Arab Spring: Turkish Foreign Policy in Flux [Working Paper 32]

(Athens: ELIAMEP, 2013)

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Turkey as a Prospective SCO Member

The cooling of Turkey’s relations with the European Union and the rise of its ambitions for a

global strategic role reignited the debate on developing closer strategic relations with the

Russian Federation. Stronger relations with Russia, China and other Asian states had already

been suggested as alternatives to EU membership in the early 2000s from those who viewed

rather suspiciously the prospect of Turkey’s democratization under the influence of the

European Union. Tuncer Kilinc, the Secretary General of Turkey’s National Security Council

(MGK) stated this openly in a statement considered to express the opposition of the civil-

military bureaucracy to democratization reform.26 While the AKP and Prime Minister

Erdoğan objected to such views and put forward the reforms necessary for the promotion of

Turkey’s EU membership chances, the situation changed radically during the third term of

the AKP administration.27 As the prospect of EU membership faded, and Turkey’s

democratization steps were gradually reversed, Prime Minister Erdoğan started looking

positively towards Eurasian strategic alternatives where democratization reform was

anything but a condition of reinforcing cooperation. Cordial economic relations with Russia,

firmly based on energy, continued expanding in a multitude of sectors. The crisis in Russian- 26 Murat Gürgen, "Orgeneral Kılınç: Avrupa Bize Uymaz", Radikal, 8/3/2002

27 Tarik Oguzlu, "Turkey and the West: The Rise of Turkey-Centric Westernism", International Journal, Vol. 66

(2010), Oğuzlu, "Turkey's Eroding Commitment to Nato: From Identity to Interests", Ilter Turan, Turkish Foreign

Policy: Challenges to Turkey's Western Calling (Washington DC: German Marshall Fund of the United States,

2010)

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Ukrainian relations, Russia’s invasion of the Crimea and hostilities in eastern Ukraine did not

substantially affect bilateral relations, even at a time when Russia was facing Western

sanctions. Under these circumstances and during his tenure as Prime Minister Recep Tayyip

Erdoğan more than once referred to Turkey’s prospective membership of the SCO as an

alternative to the European Union. During his meeting with the Russian President Vladimir

Putin, Erdoğan that if no progress is achieved in Turkey’s accession negotiations to the

European Union, Turkey would apply for SCO membership. In a recent interview, the

Russian President revealed that Erdoğan declared that he had abandoned Turkey’s EU

membership project.

While Turkey’s putative SCO membership would raise substantial questions about

Turkey’s NATO membership and Western strategic orientation, it also shed light to a set of

domestic political developments. A great deal of the democratization reforms achieved

during the first two terms of the AKP administration were undone or compromised, as the

AKP government was tightening its grip on the bureaucracy and the judiciary, and the

number and the of human rights violations were rising.

Conclusions

In light of the irrevocable changes that the rise of the BRIC states is expected to bring about

in global politics, Turkey has substantially reconfigured its foreign policy and strategic

planning. While Turkey’s EU membership used to appear the most effective way for the

realization of this potential, alternative paths have been explored since the late 2000s. An

independent strategic role for Turkey, or even its SCO membership have been discussed.

These have raised questions about Turkey’s Western strategic identity. While such choices

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may indeed acquire more appeal in the coming years, they are likely to lead to an

overestimation of Turkish strategic potential. A Turkey seeking an independent strategic

role on the global level or approaching Eurasian security institutions would be taking

significant security risks.

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