Titles include:
Natasha Underhill
COUNTERING GLOBAL TERRORISM AND INSURGENCY
Calculating the Risk of State-Failure in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq
Abdul Haqq Baker
EXTREMISTS IN OUR MIDST
Confronting Terror
Robin Cameron
SUBJECTS OF SECURITY
Domestic Effects of Foreign Policy in the War on Terror
Sanjay Chaturvedi and Timothy Doyle
CLIMATE TERROR
A Critical Geopolitics of Climate Change
Sharyl Cross, Savo Kentera, R. Craig Nation and Radovan Vukadinovic (editors)
SHAPING SOUTH EAST EUROPE’S SECURITY COMMUNITY FOR THE TWENTY-
FIRST CENTURY
Trust, Partnership, Integration
Tom Dyson and Theodore Konstadinides
EUROPEAN DEFENCE COOPERATION IN EU LAW AND IR THEORY
Håkan Edström, Janne Haaland Matlary and Magnus Petersson (editors)
NATO: THE POWER OF PARTNERSHIPS
Hamed El-Said
NEW APPROACHES TO COUNTERING TERRORISM
Designing and Evaluating Counter Radicalization and De-Radicalization Programs
Philip Everts and Pierangelo Isernia
PUBLIC OPINION, TRANSATLANTIC RELATIONS AND THE USE OF FORCE
Maria Grazia Galantino and Maria Raquel Freire (editors)
MANAGING CRISES, MAKING PEACE
Towards a Strategic EU Vision for Security and Defense
Adrian Gallagher
GENOCIDE AND ITS THREAT TO CONTEMPORARY INTERNATIONAL ORDER
Kevin Gillan, Jenny Pickerill and Frank Webster
ANTI-WAR ACTIVISM
New Media and Protest in the Information Age
James Gow and Ivan Zverzhanovski
SECURITY, DEMOCRACY AND WAR CRIMES
Security Sector Transformation in Serbia
Toni Haastrup
CHARTING TRANSFORMATION THROUGH SECURITY
Contemporary EU-Africa Relations
Ellen Hallams, Luca Ratti and Ben Zyla (editors)
NATO BEYOND 9/11
The Transformation of the Atlantic Alliance
Christopher Hobbs, Matthew Moran and Daniel Salisbury (editors)
OPEN SOURCE INTELLIGENCE IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
New Approaches and Opportunities
Paul Jackson and Peter Albrecht
RECONSTRUCTION SECURITY AFTER CONFLICT
Security Sector Reform in Sierra Leone
Janne Haaland Matlary
EUROPEAN UNION SECURITY DYNAMICS
In the New National Interest
Sebastian Mayer (editor)
NATO’s POST-COLD WAR POLITICS
The Changing Provision of Security
Kevork Oskanian
FEAR, WEAKNESS AND POWER IN THE POST-SOVIET SOUTH CAUCASUS
A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis
Michael Pugh, Neil Cooper and Mandy Turner (editors)
WHOSE PEACE? CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF
PEACEBUILDING
Nathan Roger
IMAGE WARFARE IN THE WAR ON TERROR
Hussein Solomon
TERRORISM AND COUNTER-TERRORISM IN AFRICA
Fighting Insurgecy from Al Shabaab, Ansar Dine and Boko Haram
Aiden Warren and Ingvild Bode
GOVERNING THE USE-OF-FORCE IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
The Post 9/11 Challenge on International Law
Edited by
Rémi Piet
Assistant Professor of Public Policy,
Diplomacy and International Political Economy, Qatar University, Qatar
and
Licínia Simão
Assistant Professor in International Relations,
School of Economics of the University of Coimbra, Portugal
Selection, introduction and editorial matter © Rémi Piet and Licínia Simão 2016
Individual chapters © Respective authors 2016
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2016 978-1-137-49909-7
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this
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permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency,
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Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work
in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2016 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
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Names: Rémi Piet, editor. | Licínia Simão, 1979– editor.
Title: Security in shared neighbourhoods : foreign policy of Russia, Turkey and the
EU / [edited by] Rémi Piet, Assistant Professor of Public Policy, Diplomacy and
International Political Economy, Qatar University, Qatar, Licínia Simão, Head of
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| Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015027811
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(Federation) | European Union – Turkey.
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To Ariane and Joaquim, and to Hugo, our superheroes
This page intentionally left blank
Contents
Notes on Contributors x
Introduction 1
Licínia Simão and Rémi Piet
vii
viii Contents
Conclusion 211
Licínia Simão
Index 221
Preface and Acknowledgements
The editors wish to express their appreciation to the authors of the chap-
ters in this volume, both for the quality of their analyses and for their
willingness to revise and update early drafts of their papers in response to
editorial suggestions for clarification and for the strengthening of the argu-
ments presented. The original idea for a volume examining the compe-
tition for influence over a neighbourhood shared by Russia, Turkey and
the European Union emerged during the International Studies Association
Annual Convention in San Francisco, in 2012, and was further developed
in a conference in Budapest at Corvinus University in June 2013. We wish
to thank the organisers of these stimulating conferences for granting us the
opportunity to come together. The authors of the following chapters were
able to present, share, and comment on the initial drafts of the papers at
the conferences and, therefore, to benefit from the intellectual stimulation
that resulted from these personal interactions. Others joined the process at
other times and partook in the vision and excitement of the project.
The reader may be interested to know that over the past dozen years
many of those involved in this project – authors from Europe, the United
States, and the Middle East – have, along with others, been engaged in a
series of joint efforts to examine Russian, Turkish and European foreign
policies. In most cases the projects have developed much as this one,
with a series of papers originally prepared for and presented at a profes-
sional conference at which the authors were able to share ideas with one
another and to contribute to the improvement of one another’s analyses.
During this time and through these panel sessions we have evolved into
something of an informal research group and have, no doubt, begun to
build together a series of analyses of security issues, regional competi-
tion, economic interdependence and normative definition and percep-
tion between the EU, Russia and Turkey that provides an increasingly
comprehensive picture of this joint research nexus.
On behalf of all the authors, the editors wish to thank the many others
who have made important contributions to the final publication of this
book, in particular Prof. Roger Kanet, from the University of Miami and
Prof. Maria Raquel Freire, from the University of Coimbra, for their inspi-
rational examples and support to this project. We are especially indebted
to Palgrave Macmillan’s exceptional production staff. Their contribution
has helped to ensure the clarity and readability of the final manuscript.
ix
Notes on Contributors
x
Notes on Contributors xi
Maria Raquel Freire is a researcher at the Centre for Social Studies (CES)
and Professor of International Relations at the School of Economics of
the University of Coimbra, Portugal. She is currently co-coordinator of
the Humanities, Migrations and Peace Studies research group at CES and
Vice-Dean of the school. Her research interests focus on peace studies,
foreign policy, international security, Russia and the post-Soviet space.
Her books on these topics include Competing for Influence: The EU and
Russia in Post-Soviet Eurasia; Russia and European Security, and Russia and
Its Near Neighbours: Identity, Interests and Foreign Policy, edited with Roger
Kanet (2012).
the Caucasus, the drug trade in West Africa and patterns of violence in
Latin America.
Licínia Simão is a researcher at the Centre for Social Studies and Lecturer
in International Relations at the University of Coimbra. Portugal. She is
currently Head of the IR Department and of the BA degree in IR, and
she is the national coordinator of the CASPIAN Marie Curie Innovative
Training Network. Her research interests include foreign policy analysis,
security studies, and EU relations with the former Soviet space. His
published works include the special issue co-edited with E. Korosteleva
and M. Natorski, ‘The European Neighbourhood Policy in the Eastern
Region: The Practices Perspective’, East European Politics (2013), several
academic articles in leading peer-reviewed journals, and book chapters.
and Turkish Security Cultures. Üstün’s main areas of research are security
studies, EU Common Foreign and Security Policy, Neighbourhood Policy
with special emphasis on the Black Sea and Mediterranean regions. Her
works concentrate on effects of Europeanisation on Turkish foreign
policy with special emphasis on the Black Sea region, NATO–Turkey
Relations, and comparative security culture studies.
Introduction
Licínia Simão and Rémi Piet
1
2 Licínia Simão and Rémi Piet
Most recently, Moscow has actively sought to recover its central role
in the Middle East and the Mediterranean, as shown during the wave
of recent conflicts in Libya and Syria, as well as in the negotiations
over the Iranian nuclear program and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In the Balkans and Central Asia, Russian influence is such that neither
European nor Turkish foreign policy strategies can avoid addressing
Russia’s reasserted appetite for regional hegemony.
The lack of avenues of cooperation between Russia and Western
countries both through bilateral talks and global institutions has
raised questions about the relevance and effectiveness of the existing
global governance structures as well as the dangerous consequences of
geopolitical competition on regional stability and development. The
ongoing conflict in Ukraine has weakened the security of other Central
and Eastern European countries but has also, above all, raised concern
that global power competition might ruin cooperative efforts in other
regional conflicts (Trenin, 2014). Similarly, relations between Moscow
and Ankara remain rather pragmatic, but the escalation of tensions
has created additional concerns in Turkey regarding the balancing act
between NATO allies and Russia (Elman, 2104). The fragility and interest-
based nature of Turkish-Russian relations poses further challenges and
opportunities for the EU, which need to be addressed (Bechev, 2015).
Finally, Turkey has been among the most active regional actors as
shown by Erdogan keenness on increasing Turkish influence in the
Mediterranean region. Under the AKP leadership, Turkey has indeed
embarked on an active neighbourhood policy, developing a new set
of proactive policies towards the Middle East, Central Asia, the South
Caucasus and the Black Sea. In parallel, the stalling of the Turkish EU
membership has led to the emergence of a more conflictive relation
between Ankara and its Western neighbours. As a result, Turkey’s assertive
role in the region has been reaffirmed since the start of the commonly
labelled Arab Awakening. This new stance, as well as its impact on
European and Russian interests in the region, requires a detailed analysis
at a time of significant instability in the Mediterranean basin.
Despite Ankara’s efforts to have a more prominent foreign policy
profile in its neighbourhood under the AKP leadership, Turkey’s status as
a regional power remains to be acknowledged by regional actors. Turkey
has traditionally sought to advance its interests in the Middle East and
the Mediterranean while remaining careful of American and EU percep-
tions of its role in regional dynamics. Yet recently, those perceptions
have diverged over several issues such as the Turkish recognition of
Palestine and its relations with Israel, its participation in the conflict in
4 Licínia Simão and Rémi Piet
Syria as well as its relations with Russia. Yet, Ankara remains overall
well aware that its NATO membership and EU accession prospects
are still relevant assets to ensure its security (Falk, 2014; Tezcur and
Grigorescu, 2014).
This book covers a wide range of regional relations and debates between
the three regional actors, describing the contours of what otherwise
remains a fluid definition of their common regional neighbourhood,
and reflecting the often antagonistic visions promoted by the three
actors. Through an analysis of the diverging conceptualisation of these
regions within their respective foreign policies, the book provides an
important contribution to the study of the geopolitical balance and the
policies of proximity. The notion of ‘spheres of influence’ and ‘regions
of privileged interest’ have always been present in international affairs
and more specifically in triangular relations between Europe, Russia
and Turkey (Kerr 1995; Trenin, 2009; Berryman, 2011) and this volume
engages with these conceptual frameworks by underlining their imple-
mentation in a context of power asymmetry within a joint security
complex.
The different levels of power each actor has over their shared neigh-
bourhood results both from material resources, such as geography,
population, economic and financial capabilities as well as their respec-
tive military presence and normative historical influence and attractive-
ness. Each geopolitical pole stands as a civilisational model for countries
in the region, adding a complex ideological component to the equation
and reinforcing the need for and relevance of an updated conceptuali-
sation of the triangular sphere of influence over this geostrategic and
unstable territory. These remain, nevertheless, constructed ideas about
geography and politics, and as such require a critical analysis of the
conditions under which such narratives come about and of the effects
they produce regarding the identity of regional actors.
Overall, the volume not only maps these evolving concepts of neigh-
bourhood but also addresses the way in which their approaches towards
these regions of shared influence and the role each aims to play affect
their bilateral relations with each other, both materially and ideation-
ally. Effectively, the nature of relations between the three actors is indeed
a fundamental element in their foreign policy approaches towards their
smaller and less powerful neighbours in the Balkans, the South Caucasus
or the Middle East. The ability to cooperate in seeking common solu-
tions to regional challenges or, alternatively, the promotion of logics
of competition largely find their roots within the quality of bilateral
relations among the three powers. For instance, the difficult relations
Introduction 5
between the EU and Russia have created added levels of pressure for the
countries in the so-called overlapping neighbourhoods, as the respective
programs of economic integration and political association promoted by
both regional hegemons became largely incompatible. Those competi-
tive institutional models should not be perceived as mere mechanisms
to limit the influence of the other; rather they provide frameworks, both
institutional and ideational, to harness and guide the development of a
complex region under the normative and security umbrella of one actor
or the other.
Similarly, Russia and Turkey have a long record of competition for
influence in the Black Sea region and the Middle East, at times destabil-
ising the region itself. Yet both powers have also maintained much less
conflictive relations over other parts of their shared neighbourhood thus
providing interesting insights on the necessary conditions for regional
cooperation. Finally, the analysis of Turkish-EU relations and policies in
the region is rendered more complex by the chaotic accession process
and the modularity of the existing relations between Turkey and indi-
vidual European states. The same can be underlined in the analysis of
Russian-EU relations, for which the diverging perspectives of individual
EU members have a significant impact on the policymaking processes in
regard to their overlapping neighbourhoods.
The chapter written by Licínia Simão and Vanda Amaro Dias addresses
the impact of Russia on the formation of EU policies of securitisation of
its neighbourhood. The authors argue that Russia and its policies towards
the former Soviet Republics have been essential in the EU’s gradually
increasing understanding of the dynamics in its Eastern neighbourhood
as a source of threat to its security. Furthermore, the authors argue that
the securitisation of the EU strategy towards its shared neighbourhood
has been a fundamental element justifying the expansion of European
integration as a stabilisation mechanism.
The chapter from André Barrinha and Laura Bastos analyses Turkey’s
role in the Middle East and how interactions with Russia and the EU have
occasionally shaped Ankara’s self-perception and foreign policy calcula-
tions. The evolving balance of power in the region and the growing
economic and political influence of Turkey in the Mediterranean and
beyond have reshuffled the cards for Ankara. Overall, the Middle East
has emerged as an alternative foreign policy priority to European inte-
gration, raising new questions and responsibilities for Turkey as well as
underlying the need to redefine its role in the regional space and its own
identity.
The third and final part of the book deals with the evolving models
of political and economic integration currently competing in the
different geopolitical spaces encompassed in the constructed concept
of overlapping neighbourhoods. These processes of integration further
and deepen the political and normative influence of the three regional
powers. Each institutional project and integration framework is built on
specific and often exclusive political and economic models. For example,
the steady attempts from the European Union to export its governance
model – through its enlargement processes and the implementation of
its European Neighbourhood Policy framework – clash with Russian
ambitions in the region and Moscow’s desire to reinforce its sphere of
‘privileged interests’ in the former-Soviet countries. This attempt is also
actively contested by Turkey’s domestic dynamics and its vision of the
regional role it should play.
Russia and the European Union advocate for a different set of insti-
tutional constructions and practices, both regionally and domestically.
As a result, they significantly influence the political structures of neigh-
bouring countries. A managed democracy, seen by Russian leaders as
the most beneficial model for itself and its allies, falls far short of the
liberal principles championed by the European Union. Similarly, Turkey
8 Licínia Simão and Rémi Piet
References
Ayoob, M. (ed.) [1981] 2014. The Middle East in World Politics. Oxon: Routledge.
Bechev, D. 2015. Russia and Turkey: What Does Their Partnership Mean for the
EU? EPC Policy Brief, 13 February.
Berryman, J. 2011. Russia, NATO Enlargement, and ‘Regions of Privileged
Interests’. Russian Policy in the 21st Century. Houndmills, UK: Palgrave
Macmillan: 228–245.
Bigo, D. 2002. Security and Immigration: Toward a Critique of the Governmentality
of Unease. Alternatives, 27(Special Issue): 63–92.
Elman, P. 2014. Split Three Ways on Ukraine: Turkey in a Changing Regional
Order. Polish Institute of International Affairs, Strategic File, 10(46), 1–5.
European Council. 2003. A Secure Europe in a Better World: European Security
Strategy. Brussels, 13 December.
Falk, R. 2014. Can the U.S. Government Accept an Independent Turkish Foreign
Policy in the Middle East? Insight Turkey, 16(1), 7–18.
Huysmans, J. 2000. The European Union and the Securitization of Migration.
Journal of Common Market Studies, 38(5), 751–777.
Huysmans, J. 2006. The Politics of Insecurity: Fear, Migration and Asylum in the EU.
London: Routledge.
Kerr, D. 1995. The New Eurasianism: The Rise of Geopolitics in Russia’s Foreign
Policy. Europe-Asia Studies, 47(6), 977–988
Léonard, S. 2010. The Use and Effectiveness of Migration Controls as a Counter-
Terrorism Instrument in the European Union, Central European Journal of
International and Security Studies, 4(1), 32–50.
Oskanian, K. 2013. Fear, Weakness and Power in the Post-Soviet South Caucasus: A
Theoretical and Empirical Analysis. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Popescu, N. 2011. EU Foreign Policy and Post-Soviet Conflicts: Stealth Intervention.
Oxon: Routledge.
10 Licínia Simão and Rémi Piet
Introduction
When the European Union (EU) interacts with Russia, in a setting prior
to the crisis over Ukraine, it does not do so in the first place on the basis
of what Russia has actually done. Rather the EU acts on the basis of
what it believes Russia has become. The Union and its member states
redefine the identity of Russia, aggrandise differences between perceived
‘European’ and Russian identities and eventually – in a context of rather
acrimonious relations – read bad intentions into Russia’s behaviour.
Something similar happens the other way around. Russia is primarily led
by the images it holds of the EU. It redefines the EU’s identity up to the
point where any move is understood negatively as aimed against Russia.
Identities of both actors are not given, but change in the process of
interaction itself. Over roughly the last decade this process has resulted
in a competitive logic between the two big neighbours over their respec-
tive roles and policies in the overlapping neighbourhoods.
Conventionally this competition in the neighbourhood is explained
on the basis of incompatible interests or diverging normative prefer-
ences. By looking at identities rather than interests, this chapter takes a
different approach. It looks at images of ‘Self’ and ‘Other’ of the EU and
Russia as regional actors in their overlapping neighbourhoods: how they
perceive themselves, how they perceive the other and in particular how
they understand their respective roles in the overlapping neighbour-
hoods. The chapter zooms in on the (non-) recognition of identities. It
13
14 Tom Casier
is argued that it is not so much the interests as such that are incompat-
ible, but rather the images of identities through which these interests
are understood.
This chapter starts with the presentation of a theoretical framework,
based on findings from social constructivism and cognitive psychology.
It leads us to the analysis of different dimensions of identities and images
in EU–Russia relations. First the shared understanding of the strategic
environment is explored. Next we address the mutual non-recognition
of the EU’s and Russia’s regional roles. The following section suggests
how hierarchies of identities are created. Finally, we link the concept of
sovereignty to identities, demonstrating how the rhetoric of sovereignty
is affected by identities.
The claim of this chapter is not that EU–Russia relations can be entirely
explained on the basis of identities, but that identities and images are
key factors for understanding these relations. To put it differently,
rather than looking at competition, we focus on how the perception
of competition is interwoven with constructed identities and images.
The current conflict with Ukraine demonstrates vividly how the images
that different parties hold of each other matter and have contributed
to a logic of competition. It equally illustrates how identities are rede-
fined and mobilised within the context of the conflict: strong dichoto-
mous identities are promoted or radicalised (e.g. between ‘European’
and ‘Russian’ or ‘Ukrainian’ and ‘Russian’) and identity choices are
imposed.
It is equally clear that a structural solution to the war in Ukraine will
require a long and tedious process of trust-building. This requires moving
beyond current negative images and reversing a downward spiral. This
chapter, however, will not deal with the most recent developments, but
rather seeks to understand how a logic of competition, driven by nega-
tive images, unfolded and contributed to the direct confrontation in
which the EU and Russia find themselves today.
This chapter moves away from a large part of the literature on EU–Russia
relations that focuses on diverging interests or a gap between an EU norm-
driven agenda and a Russian interest-driven agenda. Such approaches
are based on an essentialist concept of interests. Interests are seen as a
priori given and exogenous. The process of interest formation itself is
not addressed and rationalist approaches ‘either bracket the formation
of interests, treating them as if they were exogenous, or explain interests
Identities and Images of Competition 15
those that are intrinsic to an actor (at least relative to a given social
structure) and those that are relationally defined within a social
structure. ... Put in the language of game theory, intrinsic identities
are constituted exogenously to a game (though they might be repro-
duced or transformed through play of the game), whereas relational
identities (“roles”) are constituted by the game itself. In the latter
case, part of what is “going on” in a game is the reproduction and/or
transformation of identities.1
While this chapter does not study the process of domestic identity
formation as such, it is also seen as a social process (in this sense it is
Identities and Images of Competition 17
As argued above, the EU has come to see itself as a regional power with a
particular responsibility in its neighbourhood. As a result of the enlarge-
ments of 2004 and 2007 and of the ENP/EaP, the EU has given itself a
central role to play in the former Soviet states of Eastern Europe. This
role is driven both by fears of instability and by concerns that enlarge-
ment risks creating new dividing lines in Europe and would thus run
counter to the founding principles of European integration. The EU’s
self-image is very much coloured by the idea that it forms a community
of values, driven by different goals than traditional actors. It sees itself as
a normative actor, actively exporting norms and ‘shaping the conceptions
of the normal’ (Manners, 2002) in the international arena. The resulting
policies, ENP and EaP, can be seen as vehicles to export the EU model
of rules, norms and institutional practices to its Eastern neighbours.
The latter get the chance to associate themselves with the EU and enjoy
Identities and Images of Competition 23
Hierarchies of identities
Conclusion
identities. Identities of both actors are not given, but are constituted
through interaction.
EU-Russia relations have changed from a collective understanding
in the post-communist strategic environment of the 1990s as asym-
metrically EU-driven, but cooperative, to a competitive environment
leading up to today’s radical new stage of confrontation. A large part
of the escalation of mistrust and the perception of competition in the
overlapping neighbourhoods of Russia and the EU in this process is due
to the incompatibility of images they each hold of ‘Self’ and ‘Other’.
The EU sees itself as a benign normative power helping the countries in
the neighbourhood. Russia sees itself as a legitimate regional player, a
country which logically has a leading role to play in the neighbourhood
because of historical, cultural and economic ties. Both self-acclaimed
identities are not recognised by their counterparts and reflect a clear
attributional bias: while they each see themselves as acting on the basis of
external constraints, Russia and the EU see each other as malign regional
players, pursuing their interests and seeking to build spheres of influ-
ence. Russia’s behaviour in the neighbourhood is understood as neo-
imperialist. The EU is seen as an intruder seeking to increase its sphere
of influence under the pretext of norm diffusion. These images have
reinforced the understanding of relations in the neighbourhood as a
competitive zero-sum game. In this context discourses of sovereignty
may be understood, not as an element of Russia’s intrinsic identity, but
as part of its relational identity, rejecting the EU’s normative hegemony
and the interference of international governance structures which it
considers to be non-representative. The process was also characterised
by re-hierarchisation of identities among neighbouring states. Through
its ENP/EaP, the EU projected new images on neighbouring post-Soviet
countries. Some of them seemed to accept this new identity as a member
of the EU-acclaimed ‘European family’ and have tried to prove their
genuine Europeanness by carrying out the reforms demanded by the EU.
This has led to a new hierarchy of identities in Eastern Europe, through
which countries like Ukraine came to be defined as true European part-
ners, sharing values with the EU. Russia, on the other hand, was seen as
a partner by default: a country the EU inevitably had to cooperate with,
not on the basis of shared values or Europeanness, but on pragmatic
grounds. With the EaP facing huge obstacles, it is unclear at this point
whether this decoupling of Russian and East–European identities will
lead to a sustainable redrawing of Europe’s map.
While one may argue that the crisis over Ukraine proves that Russia is
effectively seeking to build a sphere of influence, the argument of this
Identities and Images of Competition 31
chapter would exactly be that it is the Russian image of the West seeking
to increase its influence at the expense of Russia that has pushed it to
this extreme reaction. Reasoning within geopolitical images of zero-sum
game competition, leaders in Moscow may have understood the regime
change in Kyiv as the ‘loss’ of Ukraine to the West. Within the horizon of
such images, this may have prompted them to a radical action, annexing
Crimea and destabilising the new regime in Kyiv. This is not to say that
interests did not matter, but rather that interests were strongly perceived
in the context of antagonistic identities that had grown in a yearlong
logic of competition and escalating distrust.
The implication is that we should not understand EU–Russia rela-
tions in their overlapping neighbourhoods as an inevitable clash of
given interests, but we should understand them primarily as a clash of
identities which fostered a reading of diametrically opposed interests.
Both Russia and the EU pursued identities which were not recognised
by their counterparts. This mutual non-recognition of identities has fed
perceptions of competition, leading to negative interpretations of each
other’s foreign policy and mistrust. Rather than being the root cause of
tensions in EU–Russia relations, the formulation of interests and norms
can be seen as the epiphenomenal outcome of underlying incompat-
ible self-images. For policy-makers this implies that in the longer term,
if the conflict over Ukraine were to come to an end, the restoration of
trust and reversing the logic of competition will be essential. But it goes
without saying that in the current context of confrontation, there is
little hope for such a scenario.
Notes
1. See also Tsygankov (2007) who analyses how Russian foreign policy trans-
formed along three civilisational ideas in reaction to both domestic and
external changes.
2. Russia signed but did not ratify the ECT.
3. The controversial ‘foreign agents law’ was passed in 2012 and forces non-
governmental organisations who are engaged in ‘political activity’ and receive
foreign funding to register as ‘foreign agents’.
4. Hayes-Gries (2005) presents a similar model, distinguishing between four
stages in the evolution from in-group identification to conflict: in-group
identification, in-group positivity, intergroup competition and intergroup
conflict.
5. The term ‘Near Abroad’ was mainly used in the 1990s in post-communist
Russian foreign policy to refer to the other former Soviet states. President
Medvedev referred to the same area as a zone where Russia had privileged
interests for cultural, economic and political reasons (Reynolds 2008).
32 Tom Casier
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the Implementation of the Association Agenda. http://eeas.europa.eu/ukraine/
docs/2010_eu_ukraine_association_agenda_en.pdf [Accessed 1 December
2011].
Brzezinski, Z. 1997. The Grand Chessboard. American Primacy and its Geostrategic
Imperatives. New York: Basic Books.
Chizhov, V. 2011. Lecture at the Brussels School of International Studies, Brussels,
16 February 2011.
Cooper, R. 2004. The Breaking of Nations: Order and Chaos in the Twenty-First
Century. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press.
DeBardeleben, J. 2012. Applying Constructivism to Understanding EU-Russian
Relations, International Politics, 49(4), 418–433.
Diez, T. 2005. Constructing the Self and Changing Others: Reconsidering
‘Normative Power Europe’, Millennium, 33(3), 613–636.
Dragneva, R. and Wolczuk K. 2012. Russia, the Eurasian Customs Union and the
EU: Cooperation, Stagnation or Rivalry? Chatham House Briefing Paper, August
2012.
Feklyunina, V. 2012. Russia’s International Images and Its Energy Policy: An
Unreliable Supplier? Europe-Asia Studies, 64(3), 449–469.
Ferrero-Waldner, B. 2005. Speech to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the
European Parliament, 25 January.
Haukkala, H. 2008. The European Union as a Regional Normative Hegemon:
The Case of European Neighbourhood Policy. Europe-Asia Studies, 60(9),
1601–1622.
Haukkala, H. 2010. The EU-Russia Strategic Partnership: The Limits of Post-Sovereignty
in International Relations. London: Routledge.
Hayes-Gries, P. (2005), ‘Social Psychology and the Identity-Conflict Debate: Is a
‘China Threat’ Inevitable?’ The European Journal of International Relations. 11,
2, 235-265
Jepperson, R., Wendt A., and Katzenstein P. 1996. ‘Norms, Identity, and Culture
in National Security’ In: P. Katzenstein (ed.), The Culture of National Security:
Norms and Identity in World Politics. New York: Columbia Press, 33–75.
Jönsson, C. 1983. A Cognitive Approach to International Negotiation. European
Journal of Political Research. 11(2), 139–50.
Identities and Images of Competition 33
Introduction
The evolution of Russian foreign policy since the end of the Soviet Union
has revealed linkages between the domestic and external dimensions
of the foreign policy agenda, the multiplicity of actors involved in the
shaping and making of decisions, and the variety of instruments avail-
able in both bilateral and multilateral contexts. Russian foreign policy
rests on a multivectoral formula adopted soon after the end of the Soviet
Union. This means it is organised around multiple vectors of a geopo-
litical nature, with the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)
constituting the most important vector, followed by the ‘Western’ (e.g.
European Union (EU) and US) and ‘Eastern’ (e.g. China) vectors. The
international system is understood by Russian foreign policy as polyc-
entric with asymmetric power constellations promoting fundamental
shifts in the international order, as demonstrated for example by the
BRICS alignments. Also, normative considerations based on the United
Nations (UN) Charter principles governing international security, such
as the respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, non-interference
in internal affairs of states, indivisibility of security, human rights and
freedoms, are in line with ‘Russia’s definition of a great power’. This
‘entails a normative dimension based on a type of order enshrining
sovereignty, non-interventionism and a pluralism of regime types’
(Sakwa, 2012: 322).
Over the last 25 years, Russia’s approach to the European space has
been refined to make more explicit its willingness to integrate with
the European order, where Russia might be an active player in secu-
rity matters, economic issues and political decisions. The Organization
for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which emerged as a
35
36 Maria Raquel Freire
‘Greater Europe’?
cases of Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014 (to cite the most extreme
examples), aiming at maintaining and if possible increasing its leverage
in this area of particular interest. Other means, such as energy supplies,
economic diplomacy and economic and political modernisation, have
also been put at play in the complex relations developed by Russia with
neighbouring states.
In the reconfiguration of this space – ‘greater Europe’ –, the inclusion
of Turkey as an active player is interesting. As a candidate country for EU
membership (after the Helsinki European Council of December 1999),
in a process that has been both long and contested, Turkey has had an
active foreign policy in its neighbourhood. Energy issues have been a
centrepiece of Turkey’s geoeconomic positioning in regional terms. Also,
politically, it attempted to pursue a policy of good neighbourly relations
(the ‘zero-problem with neighbours’ policy), which has increasingly
been replaced by the so-called ‘precious loneliness’, in face of political
options that have been facing increased criticism. For example, the posi-
tioning towards Egyptian politics after the ‘Arab Spring’ led to diplo-
matic problems with Israel, Syria and Egypt (Bagci, 2013).
With regard to Russia, relations have reached what the parties call a
‘strategic’ level (TASS, 2014), with economic investment in the area of
construction and trade, tourism and agreement on a visa-free regime for
trips up to thirty days, the negotiation of new pipeline deals after Russia
gave up on the South Stream (to a great extent as a consequence of the
souring of relations with the EU in the context of the Ukrainian crisis),
and the building of the Akkuyu nuclear plant in Turkey by Russian
state-owned company Rosatom (see Adilgizi, 2014; Markedonov, 2011).
These are some examples of how Russia-Turkey relations have become
more interdependent, with Turkey constituting Russia’s second-largest
European importer of natural gas after Germany (Tharoor, 2014). The
negotiations towards the building of the Blue Stream pipeline, which
will bring three billion cubic meters of gas to Turkey, and the agree-
ment reached to lower prices in gas supplies from Russia beginning 1
January 2015, have been important outcomes of Putin’s visit to Ankara
in December 2014 (TASS, 2014). Portrayed by the Russian and Turkish
leaders as a strategic deal in face of uncooperative trends in relations
with the EU, the agreement was described in Western circles as a defeat
of Putin, forcing Russia to review its energy strategy (Roth, 2014). In face
of falling energy prices and a faltering economic situation, the halting of
the South Stream project has political as well as economic implications.
However, President Putin turned his comments onto the disadvantages
Russian Foreign Policy and the Shaping of a ‘Greater Europe’ 41
to EU countries arising from this twist, stating that ‘[i]f Europe does not
want this to be realised, then it will not be realised’, adding that ‘such is
the decision of our European friends. They are, in the end, customers. It
is their choice’ (Putin cited in Roth, 2014).
Nevertheless, the agreement, part of a broader trade project amounting
to $100 billion by 2020 (Cohen, 2014), allows Russia to build on invest-
ments already made within the framing of the South Stream project,
namely sections that are already built and might be included in these
new plans. It also allows Russia to refrain from investing in Ukraine as
a transit country, adding further pressure to that country’s economy. In
this way, Russia is playing a dual game. On the one hand, it is consoli-
dating ties with Turkey, which in the current context of tensions with
relations with the EU, and in face of disparate readings about ‘greater
Europe’, contributes to reinforcing Russian politics in this enlarged area.
In fact, the December agreement signed between Russia and Turkey is a
statement about geopolitics and geoeconomics in Europe. On the other
hand, by changing the route of the gas pipeline, Russia is gaining new
leeway towards Ukraine, using energy as a pressuring mechanism on the
authorities in Kiev. In this regard, Moscow has been acting proactively
to counter Ukrainian integration into Western structures, using both
hard tools, such as the use of force, and softer ones, such as illustrated
by the gas deal implications for Ukraine.
There are, however, evident difficult issues to this bilateral relationship,
including the non-recognition of Crimea by Turkey or opposite positions
with regard to the conflict in Syria. Also, the Islamic dimension of the
Turkish state raises concerns in Russia and the EU, and the diffusion of
Turkey’s influence in the ‘shared neighbourhood’, promoting different
principles of political and social organisation, constitutes a further chal-
lenge to the management of relations. But the pragmatic approach that
has been sustaining Russia-Turkey’s relationship has prevented these
differences from hindering cooperation at various levels. This has been
described as ‘compartmental thinking’ allowing for building on areas
where both parties recognise clear advantages from cooperation, and
leaving aside issues that are divisive (see, for example, Bagci, 2013). This
strategy has been paying off in a context where Russia and Turkey share
a feeling of ‘inequality’ towards the EU, and where relations particularly
between Russia and the EU are at a low level.
According to Richard Sakwa (2012: 315–316), the idea of ‘greater
Europe’ is becoming more explicit in Russian policies, but it has also
been implicitly developed by Turkey. It rests on an alternative vision of
42 Maria Raquel Freire
the European idea, away from the EU’s hegemonic posture, and devising
a more equitable ordering. Sakwa argues that
the two nations [Russia and Turkey] with their rich histories, great
cultures, economic potentials and geopolitical ambitions can hardly
accept the position of being nothing more but a part of the ‘European
periphery’. They claim – and rightly so – more central places in the
emerging system of international relations of the 21st Century. And
they are not likely to agree to an inferior status that Brussels might
want to offer them.
Russian foreign policy has been evolving in the last twenty-five years,
adjusting to a differentiated geopolitical, security, economic and social
Russian Foreign Policy and the Shaping of a ‘Greater Europe’ 43
context. The fact that the first post-Cold War decade was mainly char-
acterised by adjustments to the end of the Soviet Union, implying
structural reforms internally in Russia and the definition of the new
contours of relations with the newly independent states after the Soviet
collapse, as well as with the ‘Western’ world, did not mean that foreign
policy was off the agenda. In fact, the multivectoral blueprint of Russian
foreign policy was defined in the mid-1990s. By late 1992, and into
early 1993, the CIS became a priority in Russian politics. However, in
the second decade after the end of the Cold War, and particularly after
Vladimir Putin became president of the Russian Federation in 2000,
foreign policy consolidated conceptually. This is visible in terms of
both its material and ideational dimensions. In material terms, Russia
defined areas of primary interest (such as the CIS, relations with the
EU, the United States or China for example) as well as sectorial areas
of intervention (military or economic issues). In ideational terms, the
great power status of Russia became a stated goal underlining Russian
policies and actions (FPC, 2000, 2008, 2013). Simultaneously, lines of
cooperation, support, co-optation, competition and coercion, were
established in the Russian foreign policy strategy. These become visible
in the inter-relations developed both in bilateral and multilateral
contexts. Within the CIS or regarding the EU, cooperation and compe-
tition are identifiable. At the bilateral level, for instance, the Russia-
Georgia relationship demonstrates competition and coercion, whereas
the Russia-Armenia relation shows support and co-optation. Relations
with Germany have followed a general trend of cooperation, following
a sometimes conflicting trend with EU policy, while the reverse might
be said about relations with the United Kingdom, for example. This
means Russia pursues different approaches following a pragmatic line
of action.
These disparate responses result from asymmetric contexts and percep-
tions of limits and challenges to Russia’s policies and visions for the
European space.
norms’ (Casier, 2013: 1380). Also, ‘instead of dialogue with Russia and
genuine attempt to understand Russian concerns, the Brussels bureauc-
racy simply prefers to impose its own standards on Moscow without
taking into account the ability of Russia’s economic and social system
to comply with these standards’ (Kazantsev and Sakwa, 2012: 291). This
complex setting for relations is further deepened in distancing logics
by competition over the ‘shared neighbourhood’, with the EaP and the
‘near abroad’ approach, as pursued by the EU and Russia respectively,
conflicting (Makarychev, 2014: 68).
Nevertheless, there is still space for cooperation in this ‘shared neigh-
bourhood’, with issues such as counter-terrorism, energy or technolog-
ical cooperation playing high on the agenda. The transnational nature
of many issue-areas in the working relationship between the EU and
Russia might prove an element of convergence, despite the current deep
divergence trends.
On the one hand, relations between the EU and Russia are highly
structured and institutionalized (with over 30 working groups and
regular meetings) ... On the other hand, however, the EU’s view of
modernization is closely linked to liberalisation, whereas Russia’s
focus has been on innovation ... Furthermore, as the competition
over the former Soviet space between the two partners becomes more
polarized and increasingly focused on trade integration issues, this
will also represent further hurdles to the modernisation partnership.
(Freire and Simão, 2015).
Notes
1. The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) was estab-
lished in 1975, and from 1 January 1995 its name was changed to OSCE.
2. See Casier (2013: 1381) on how the norms identifiable in fundamental Foreign
Policy Concepts of the Russian Federation (FPC, 2000, 2008, 2013) do not
differ much from those stated in the European Security Strategy (ESS, 2003).
3. See Davutoglu (1998) on the perception of unequal treatment by the EU and
how this provides space for different readings about ‘Europe’.
4. The EST proposal emerged first as involving only European states, thus
excluding the United States as a participating member, evolving afterwards to
a more inclusive document, not only extending the possibility of membership
to the United States but also envisaging the possibility of including interna-
tional organisations, such as NATO or the CSTO. Overall, the proposal ended
up in too broad a format which would hardly become an effective working
mechanism; however, its symbolism in terms of its meaning for European
security must be highlighted. Russia demonstrated its willingness to devise a
new European security architecture beyond the Atlantic Alliance’s prevalence,
one that would be inclusive in its design, i.e. allowing Russia a voice and a
vote on European security issues. See for example Baranovsky (2010), Diesen
and Wood (2012).
5. See for example Tsygankov and Tarver-Vahlquist (2009); Kanet and Freire
(2012); Averre (2007).
6. For a discussion on this topic see the special issue ‘The European Union and
the Black Sea: The State of Play’, Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies,
edited by Sinem Akgul Acikmese and Dimitrios Triantaphyllou (2014).
7. The withdrawal of Georgia from the CIS was ratified by the Commonwealth
in November 2008.
References
Acikmese, S. A. and Triantaphyllou, D. (eds.) 2014. Special Issue: The European
Union and the Black Sea: The State of Play. Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern
Studies, 16(3).
Adilgizi, L. 2014. Old Rivals or Regional Partners: Russia, Turkey and Crimea,
Al-Jazeera, 16 March. Available at http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/
opinion/2014/03/old-rivals-regional-partners-r-2014315144016585481.html
[Accessed: 4 May 2014].
Averre, D. 2007. Sovereign Democracy and Russia’s Relations with the European
Union. Demokratizatsiya, 15(2), 173–190.
Bagci, H. 2013. Turkey-Russia Relations: A Partnership of Trust, Despite Some
Differences, Valdai Club, 16 December. Available at http://valdaiclub.com/
asia/65520.html. [Accessed: 4 May 2014].
Russian Foreign Policy and the Shaping of a ‘Greater Europe’ 51
Introduction
After the enlargements of the European Union (EU) in 2004 and 2007,
the importance of the Black Sea region, including the Caucasus (Wider
Black Sea), increased in the agenda of the Union, and Russia became
a geographical neighbour of the EU. Whereas the EU started showing
interest in the region only after its enlargement, Turkey emphasised its
importance by initiating the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC)
already in 1992, immediately after the end of the Cold War. By doing so,
Turkey demonstrated its intention to focus on a multilateral regional
approach, until the international conjuncture and the surprise effect
of the changes in the international scene following the 9/11 attacks
forced Turkey to address other priorities. Similarly, for more than two
decades, Turkey has been making efforts towards strengthening its rela-
tions with Russia while balancing its policies towards the west and the
east. The first part of this chapter analyses Turkey’s regional policies in
relation to the EU, the second part in relation to Russia. The chapter
concludes by answering questions regarding Turkey’s perception of the
EU and Russia in the region, its own role and its EU accession ambi-
tions. The questions that the chapter tackles include: How does Turkey
perceive the other two actors and their policies in its neighbourhood?
How does Turkey see its own role in its neighbourhood? How does
Turkey define its changing foreign policy in relation to its EU accession
ambitions?
53
54 Çiğdem Üstün
The EU has been active in the Black Sea region, especially after its enlarge-
ment in 2007. The fact that the two new members, Romania and Bulgaria,
border the Black Sea made the EU a part of the region and legitimised
it as a regional actor. As was the case in previous enlargements, the EU
was concerned about a negative ‘exclusion effect’ on the neighbours in
these regions and the creation of dividing lines between ‘ins’ and ‘outs’
(Aydın, 2005: 259). As it did when constructing a Mediterranean policy
after the membership of Spain and Portugal, in 1986, or establishing the
EU’s northern dimension covering the EU, Russia, Norway and Iceland
after the 1995 enlargement, the EU designed a Black Sea dimension after
the 2004/2007 enlargement.
The Black Sea has been significant in terms of energy security, since
several member states are heavily dependent on the secure and steady
flow of oil and gas from this region or from Middle Eastern imports
transiting through the region. The region is a bridge between Europe,
the Caspian Sea and Central Asia, working as an energy and transpor-
tation corridor between these areas. The resources of the Caspian Sea
represent ten per cent of world energy resources (NATO Parliamentary
Assembly, 2006)1 and have become strategic for Europe’s energy secu-
rity, especially after the energy crises with Russia, in 2006 and 2009,
increased the significance of diversifying energy resources and alterna-
tive energy projects. Europe imports nearly 50 per cent of its energy
through complicated and dangerous routes, such as the Caspian Basin.
Twenty-five per cent of the EU’s energy imports transit through the
Black Sea region (Middel, 2007). Therefore, the EU gives special impor-
tance to energy and infrastructure projects as the most promising fields
for constructive cooperation in the region (Emerson et al., 2002: 11).
Following the disruptions in energy flows from the region to EU coun-
tries, the EU found it necessary to work on energy security strategies
which focus on internal policies for effective use of energy as well as
diversifying external supplies. But still, cooperation mechanisms such
as the Transport Corridor Europe Caucasus Asia (TRACECA)/Baku
Initiative2 and the INOGATE program3 continue to hold their impor-
tance for cooperation in the energy sector. Through the development of
a Neighbourhood Policy and through securing energy routes, the EU has
thus tried to simultaneously stabilise its external borders and address
demands for further enlargement from its new neighbours across the
Black Sea region, preventing negative feelings (ICBSS, 2006: 1). On the
other hand, the EU has experienced a growing demand from regional
Turkey’s Policies in Its Overlapping Neighbourhood 55
countries and regional countries including Russia stood out as the main
approach of Turkey.
Georgia’s territorial integrity and the safety of the pipelines became
more important for Turkey, particularly after the construction of the Baku-
Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline. In this context, Turkey sided with inter-
national efforts to resolve the conflicts in South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
A press release of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) of Turkey stated
that ‘We follow with concern the events which have started yesterday
afternoon and led to wide-scale armed clashes this morning between
Georgians and South Ossetians’ (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2008). In its
policies during the five-day war, Turkey mainly tried to balance its posi-
tion between NATO, the EU and Russia. Turkey’s position regarding the
Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict however has been rather different from its
balanced position in the case of Georgia.Although Turkey has supported
the international response to the conflict in Nagorno–Karabakh, it has
developed close relations with Azerbaijan, which prevented it from acting
as a mediator in the OSCE Minsk Group, even though it wanted to do so
in the early 1990s. Especially after the exercise of the embargo towards
Armenia in 1993 and suspension of diplomatic relations, Turkey became
an actor rather than a mediator in this conflict. In 2015 President Recep
Tayyip Erdoğan clearly stated during Aliyev’s visit to Ankara that Turkey
will continue to support Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
so that it finds its solution within the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan
(Today’s Zaman, 2015). Turkey’s position regarding the withdrawal of
the Armenian forces from occupied Azerbaijani regions is aligned with
the EU’s. However, the general understanding is that the EU is still a
peripheral actor in the conflict although it has been made a priority
in the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) and Eastern Partnership
(EaP). However, the neighbourhood policies utilising different tools,
such as the civil society, increased trade and economic activities, do not
seem to be successful in making the EU an influential actor on conflict
related issues (Janssen, 2012).
In addition to Turkey’s priorities and preferences, Russia is a deter-
mining factor in Turkish policy towards the region (Kona, 2008: 15).
Since the 1920s, Turkey has been careful and prudent regarding relations
with Russia. Therefore, Turkey underlined its preferences in the region
towards the settlement of conflicts in line with international rules
and regulations set by the United Nations (UN) and/or the OSCE, but
also stated several times that involvement of actors such as the United
States (US) should be minimised while the EU’s involvement in coop-
eration with the BSEC should be increased (Loğoğlu, 2007). Although
58 Çiğdem Üstün
EU member states are also part of the NATO structures, Turkey gener-
ally believes that multilateral cooperation mechanisms such as BSEC
including the EU would create a better environment for conflict resolu-
tion in this region rather than through US involvement.
Despite a number of discrepancies and conflicts between the regional
states – namely Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia – relations
with the EU have been the unifying element among them (Tarkhan-
Mouravi, 2007). The EU is eager to be involved in the resolution of
conflicts in the region for its own sake as well as for the benefit of the
regional states (Grabbe, 2004: 1). However, the EU is hesitating to take
firm steps because of its poor relations with Russia (Grabbe, 2004: 3).
Both the EU and Turkey believe that these conflicts hold the potential
to further destabilise the Caucasus with negative consequences beyond
the region (Hunter, 2006: 123). This multiplicity and diversity of players
and policies complicates the regional conflicts and relations among the
players. However, it has been argued that the EU has the reputation
of an ‘honest broker’ and is known as having a wide scope of instru-
ments for achieving peace and stability (Indans, 2007: 143). Especially
through BSEC, the EU has been seen as the most pertinent actor to
bring a multilateral approach in the region.4 After the Ukrainian crisis in
2014, Enlargement and European Neighbourhood Policy Commissioner
Štefan Füle’s visit to Ukraine was an important step in demonstrating
the EU’s ability to sustain a long term soft power approach. But one
should also consider that the EU is still lacking the political determina-
tion in offering a European perspective in the region, i.e., EU member-
ship, which created a disappointment (euractiv.com, 2014).
In contrast, some argue that the EU would have less chance to influ-
ence the outcome of conflicts in the region since the resolution of the
conflicts is largely dependent on political-military patron states (Nodia,
2004: 7) and the EU’s record in conflict resolution efforts – such as in the
Balkans and Cyprus – is not very promising. In order to be successful,
European initiatives towards conflict resolution in the region should
thus include regional states and organisations such as the BSEC. The
approach that both the EU and BSEC have preferred has been to focus
more on low level politics i.e., transportation and cross-border initia-
tives. Since 2007, EU has been acting as an observer in BSEC and an
environmental partnership was launched in 2010. In 2012, the Turkish
chairmanship of BSEC promoted a meeting of the BSEC Troika and the
Working Party on Eastern Europe and Central Asia (COEST) under the
EU Council of Ministers. Therefore, it is fair to argue that Turkey wanted
to act as a leading regional actor while bringing the EU and the regional
Turkey’s Policies in Its Overlapping Neighbourhood 59
In 2007, steps were taken to further relations with Armenia, and the
EU welcomed the high level meetings between Armenian and Turkish
60 Çiğdem Üstün
co-operation around the Black Sea including the Black Sea Economic
Co-operation Organization and the BLACKSEAFOR. (European
Commission, 2003: 123)
with the election of the Justice and Development Party in Turkey. Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan defined Russia as a crucial friend in trade,
tourism, energy and investment. In the 2000s, with the reformulation of
Turkish foreign policy, instead of a threat factor, Russia became an ally.
In the field of energy security however, Turkey’s closure of the Black Sea
Straits to large oil tankers and potential new energy agreements among
regional countries excluding Russia troubled relations between the two
nations. Thus, when Putin came to power discussions on new pipeline
projects involving Turkey and Russia were driven up in the bilateral
agenda. As energy security became a crucial debating topic in the region
and in Europe, Russia reemphasised its leading role in production, while
Turkey highlighted its strategic geographic situation and role in energy
transit. In 2014, Putin’s statement regarding the abandonment of the
South Stream project to bring Russian gas to Bulgaria under the Black
Sea, bypassing Ukraine, opened debate on the construction of a new
pipeline through Turkey. The main aim of European and Turkish states
is to ensure access to Caspian reserves and bring gas from the Caspian
and the Middle East to European markets, in order to increase European
energy security by using fully commercially run pipeline systems passing
through Turkey and the Balkans (Roberts, 2004: 112). This is crucial in
an era when the EU grapples with the interrelated problems of ensuring
energy security and the provision of energy supplies from multiple
sources at competitive prices (Roberts, 2004: 112). In this environment,
Turkey has realised the necessity of investing in alternative projects to
guarantee an affordable, secure, uninterrupted flow of resources, both
to benefit from its geopolitical position and to become an energy hub
for the EU (Nasirov, 2009), since it is perceived as a natural transit point
(Öğütçü, 2000) for the region.
However, the energy-rich regions of the Wider Black Sea and the Middle
East are politically volatile and impacted by great power politics and
external dynamics, thus limiting the ability to realise projects. Caspian
politics is a complicated poker game that is being played within a global
chess game (Öğütçü, 2000). In this political environment, Turkey, as one
of the biggest investors in the region, is willing to use its close historical,
cultural and economic ties to link European energy-consuming countries
with Caspian energy-producing countries, while increasing its regional
role in the Caspian, Middle East and Europe (Yalçınkaya, 2006).
Although both Turkey and Russia emphasise energy security in their
relations with the EU, their approach to relations with the Union remains
very different. Turkey’s status as a candidate country means that its rela-
tions with the Union have been shaped by the accession negotiation
66 Çiğdem Üstün
process since 2005. On the other hand, Russia has rejected inclusion
in the ENP framework, arguing that the strategic relationship between
the EU and Russia could not follow the ENP’s dynamic (DeDardeleben,
2010: 250). Thus the EU-Russia Partnership and Cooperation Agreement
and the EU-Russia Four Common Spaces8 serve as the relevant insti-
tutional frameworks for energy relations and negotiations. Although
Russia’s most important markets for energy exports, and for trade and
technology acquisitions are in the EU (Ker-Lindsay, 2008: 55), the EU’s
political leverage over Russia has been considerably less important than
its leverage over Turkey.
Also, Russia has been very careful about new actors in this very compet-
itive region, and has attempted to mitigate influence and interference
from the EU, the US, Turkey, Iran and Israel (Aydın, 2004: 6). The region
has become a frontline of global importance (Shaffer, 2010: 54) and
Russia has been concerned about the European enlargement into eastern
and south-eastern Europe. Turkey, in a similar way, has been perceived as
the ‘other’, due to its historical legacy together with cultural and religious
differences. The notion of outsiders is increasingly used in the literature
to describe Russia and Turkey in their relations with the Union (Sakwa,
2010). Thus, Turkey and Russia, both aiming to be the main influencing
actor in the region, have found themselves in an uneasy partnership
(Torbakov, 2007: 9), which has also fueled their economic complemen-
tarity as Russia has become one of Turkey’s largest trading partners with
bilateral trade volume reaching 38 billion US Dollars in 2008 (Aras, 2009:
7). In the first nine months of 2014, trade volume reached 24 billion US
Dollars (International Bussiness Times, 2014).
In 2008, frozen conflicts in the region proved their explosive poten-
tial with the Russian-Georgian War. This conflict affected Turkey’s
relations both with Russia and its neighbourhood, i.e., Georgia and
Azerbaijan. While transportation and trade between Russia and Turkey
were affected negatively, an explosion in the Turkish section of the
BTC pipeline close to the Georgian border a few days prior to the mili-
tary operations raised some concern about the possible targeting of the
pipelines (Coskun and Yevgrashina, 2008). Turkey, as part of the western
security structure and a candidate to the EU, put an enormous effort
towards balancing relations with its western and eastern neighbours
while emphasising the need for creating confidence building regional
mechanisms, not only during the Five Day War but also since the
collapse of the Soviet Union. This has been the reason behind the forma-
tion of BSEC (Micu, 2012), as well as the Turkish-Georgian-Azerbaijani
Turkey’s Policies in Its Overlapping Neighbourhood 67
Conclusions
1. How does Turkey perceive the other two actors and their policies in its
neighbourhood?
2. How does Turkey see its own role in its neighbourhood?
3. How does Turkey define its changing foreign policy in relation to its EU
accession ambitions?
policies towards Russia. Also, Turkey’s increased trade and social rela-
tions with its southern neighbours were similar and mostly in line with
the EU’s neighbourhood policies towards the Mediterranean. Turkey
also demonstrated that it is giving priority to a more regional multilat-
eral approach during the crisis situations, i.e., the Five Day War in 2008,
as a result of its new foreign policy architecture.
In this context, Turkey welcomed the EU’s Black Sea Synergy, since it
has perceived the policy as an opportunity to contribute as an indispen-
sible regional actor. However, when the EU announced its new regional
policy, the EaP, in 2009, Turkey criticised the Union because the policy
excluded Turkey and Russia. Turkey always defended the position that
policies should include Russia and Turkey if the EU wants to be an
effective actor. Besides, Turkey emphasises the importance of including
regional organisations, to create a confidence-based peaceful region
through increased political and social dialogue. Therefore, Turkey reem-
phasises its role in energy, transport, trade, environment and conflict
resolution policies to be applied in the whole region, either through
regional organisations or the EU.
Turkey’s intensified relations with its eastern neighbours created ques-
tions regarding Turkey’s foreign policy axes. Turkey had never given
up its European ambitions, and in 2005 accession negotiations started
with the Union. Since the foundation of the Turkish Republic, balance
between the eastern and western countries has been the main policy in
its external affairs, although relations with the east ceased during World
War II and the Cold War. Resumed relations after the Cold War are still
in the process of development, but it must be admitted that they are
still in their infancy. Also, it needs to be stated that the EU is also trying
to develop its policies towards the region and these two actors do have
converging interests which necessitate cooperation. Thus, Turkey argues
that its developed relations with the region and its membership in the
EU will contribute to further development of the EU’s regional policies
in the Black Sea, since it can play the role of gate keeper.
All in all, as Turkey sees the multilateral approach as the most effec-
tive way to increase its political leverage in the region; it has empha-
sised the importance of the regional approach for regional problems and
conflicts since the 1990s. This approach is also believed to strengthen
Turkey’s hand in controlling the other regional actors; thus it believes
that by increasing multilateralism it would increase its role as a regional
actor. As the EU has become more interested in the whole region and
developed closer relations with Russia, Turkey’s multilateral regional
70 Çiğdem Üstün
approach could be used for the EU’s benefits as well. Thus, the general
argument can be summarised as: Turkey’s increased regional activity
would prevent the EU’s exclusive relations with Russia, but would force
it to include Turkey in its future policies.
Notes
1. Information available at NATO Parliamentary Assembly, ‘Frameworks and
Areas of Cooperation in the Black Sea Region’, http://www.nato-pa.int/
Default.asp?SHORTCUT=918.
2. Information available at http://www.traceca-org.org/en/home/baku-initiative/
3. Information available at http://www.inogate.org/
4. In the Istanbul Summit Declaration in 2012, it was stated that the BSEC
confirms the importance of establishing a strategic relationship between BSEC
and the EU, and that the BSEC is commited to strengthen cooperation with
the EU as well as other international organizations.
5. Interviews conducted by the author, EU4SEAS project, 2007–2010.
6. Luggage trade is unofficial cross-border economic trade especially between
Russia, CIS countries and Turkey. In the 1990s, this type of trade was estimated
at an amount of $10 billion. The visitors are popularly known as luggage
traders because of the huge amounts of goods they buy and pack in their
luggage for the return trip. Laleli, a district of İstanbul, is known as the trade
center for luggage trade.
7. Avrasya ferry was hijacked in 1996 in the Black Sea by five Turkish nationals
and two Chechens as the ferry was departing from Trabzon en route to Sochi.
The group demanded that Russian forces to halt the operations at the border
between Chechnya and the Russian republic of Dagestan.
8. In 2003, EU and Russia agreed to reinforce cooperation covering the economic
space, space of freedom, securiy and justice, space for external security and
space for research and education.
References
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Caspian: Politics, Energy and Security. London: Routledge Curzon.
Aktürk, Ş. 2013. A Realist Assessment of Turkish-Russian Relations 2002–2012: From
Peak to the Dip. Caspian Strategy Institute Center for Politics and International
Relations Studies.
Aras, B. 2009. Turkey and the Russian Federation: An Emerging Multidimensional
Partnership. SETA Policy Brief, no 35.
Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2002. Armenia Objects Turkey’s Obstructionism
in TRACECA. http://www.armeniaforeignministry.com/PR/PR147.html.
Atalay, B. 2006. Speech delivered at the Black Sea Forum for Dialogue and
Partnership, 05 June 2006. Bucharest.
Aydın, M. 2004. Foucault’s Pendulum: Turkey in Central Asia and the Caucasus.
Turkish Studies, 5(2), 1–22.
Turkey’s Policies in Its Overlapping Neighbourhood 71
Aydın, M. 2005. Europe’s New Region: The Black Sea in the Wider Europe
Neighbourhood. Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, 5(2), 257–283.
Aytaç, B. Çelik ve F, and Türe, F. 2007. Ülkemiz Ulaştıma Politikalarının Doğu
Karadeniz Bölgesi’nin Kalkınması üzerindeki Etkileri, 7th Transportation
Conference by Civil Engineers in İstanbul, http://www.e-kutuphane.imo.org.
tr/pdf/3097.pdf.
Babaoğlu, O. 2005. The Black Sea Basin: A New Axis in Global Maritime Security.
Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Policy watch/Peace watch, no 1027, www.
washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?CID=2361.
Benes, V. 2010. Russia’s and Turkey’s Attitudes towards the EU in the Light of Role
Theory. Paper presented in the SGIR 7th Pan European International Relations
Conference: Politics in Hard Times: International Responses to the Financial Crisis,
Stockholm, Sweden.
Brenda, S. 2010. Foreign Policies of the Satates of the Caucasus: Evolution in the
Post-Soviet Period. Uluslararası İlişkiler, 7(26), 51–65.
Bozkurt, G. S. 2011. Security Policy of Turkey and Russia in the Black Sea Basin.
Karadeniz Araştırmaları, 30, 1–13.
Celac, S. and Manoli, P. 2006. Towards a New Model of Comprehensive
Regionalism in the Black Sea Area. Southeast European and Black Sea Studies,
6(2),193–205.
Coşkun, O. and Yevgrashina, L. 2008. Blast Halts Azeri Oil Pipeline through
Turkey. Reuters, 06 August, http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-Oil/
idUSSP31722720080806.
Davutoğlu, A. 2009. Speech delivered at the OSCE Ministerial Council Meeting,
Athens http://www.osce.org/cio/40653?download=true.
DeDardeleben, J. 2010. Revising the EU’s European Neighbourhood Policy: the
Eastern Partnership and Russia. In: Roger E. Kanet (ed.) Russian Foreign Policy in
the 21st Century. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
European Commission 2000. Regular Report Turkey’s Progress towards Accession.
Brussels, 8.11.2000.
European Commission 2001. Communication from the Commission
Environmental Cooperation in the Danube: Black Sea Region Prospects. Baltic
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European Commission 2002. Regular Report Turkey’s Progress towards Accession.
SEC(2002) 1412 Brussels, 9.10.2002.
European Commission 2004. Regular Report Turkey’s Progress towards Accession
SEC(2004) 1201, 6.10.2004.
European Commission 2005. Regular Report Turkey’s Progress towards Accession.
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European Commission 2007. Black Sea Synergy: A New Regional Cooperation
Initiative. COM(2007) 160 final, Brussels: 11.04.2007.
European Commission 2007. European Neighbourhood & Partnership Instrument,
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2007–2010
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3.12.2008.European Council 2003. A Secure Europe in a Better World European
Security Strategy. December, Brussels
72 Çiğdem Üstün
Introduction
The European Union (EU) and Russia have developed an intense dialogue
that has been deepened and enlarged from the year 2000 onwards.
Despite growing misunderstandings, the interaction in the institutional
framework of cooperation has shown that the existence of a dialogue has
been valuable to partially bring together mutual perceptions (especially
the EU28 and the more assertive Russia). In some cases, the dialogue
may be compared to a ‘dialogue of the deaf’ because Brussels would like
to interact with a more European Russia and one which is convergent
with its political values and economic rules; whereas Russia wants to be
recognised as an equal partner, and is willing to redefine some rules of
the international game.
In this context, it can be argued that both actors can benefit from
fostering ‘reciprocity’ to manage interdependence in their relation-
ship and in their shared neighbourhood. This is particularly relevant
because both actors’ pledges for closer relations with the countries of
the neighbourhood are increasingly competitive – as the Georgian 2008
war and the Ukrainian crisis of late 2013 illustrate – thus impacting
on developments in these countries. In International Law, reciprocity
explains why states respect rules without coercion (Keohane, 1986;
Mavroidis, 2008). Thus, reciprocity may promote stability in global poli-
tics. This phenomenon has been explained by game theories, namely
the ‘prisoner’s dilemma’, which explains how cooperation is possible
provided that actors can learn to overcome a dilemma (Devin, 2002: 38;
Rasmusen, 2001). As a consequence, iterated games favour confidence
75
76 Sandra Fernandes
of the Soviet era, during which people had to adapt individually and did
not trust collective solidarity. Despite the existence of NGOs and a struc-
tured civil society large-scale demonstration are unlikely in this context.
Putin’s supporters were the only actors who wanted to take part in the
campaign and electoral game.
The fact that the 2007 and 2008 elections were not observed by the
Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) casts
a serious shadow on the legitimacy of the results. The organisation
declined to send observers alleging that Russian authorities had placed
too many restrictions on its work (Buckley and Belton, 2008). It was the
first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union that the OSCE’s Office for
Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODHIR) cancelled an elec-
tion monitoring mission in Russia (Belton, 2007b). ODHIR is considered
Europe’s main election watchdog and the failure to launch the mission
has casted serious doubts about the poll’s integrity. Additionally, the
Communist Party and a Russian NGO named Golos denounced irreg-
ularities even before the end of voting (Golos, 2008). The Council of
Europe, the only international body sending observers, did not consider
the election as being ‘fair’ and ‘free’ nor that the ballot had attained
its ‘democratic potential’ (Le Monde, 2008). Concretely, the President
and his supporters dominated the national television channels; oppo-
sition parties participated in broadcasted debates in which the ruling
party declined to participate; protesters such as Kasparov were jailed on
unconvincing charges. Additionally, the ‘tiny minority parties, which
hold to values that would be recognised as genuinely democratic outside
Russia, are harassed as if they were a threat to the state’ (Financial Times,
2007). The leader of the liberal party Yabloko declared that United Russia
is a state party that dominates the political scene and that it is very
difficult to organise any kind of resistance (Yavlisnky, 2007). According
to Shevtsova (2008), the Russian population sees political parties that
are cynical and corruptible and a parliament that obeys the executive.
In this context, the population does not expect better outcomes from
an eventual multiparty system considering the fake liberalism of the
executive.
In the specific context of the 2007 legislative elections and 2008
presidential elections, the issues of democracy, freedom of speech and
association, party politics and rule of law were particularly visible in
the agenda of EU-Russian relations. This period is, thus, particularly
interesting in the analysis of the impact of civil society in bridging (or
not) the growing gap between, on the one hand, Brussels’ expectation
of transforming Russia in accordance with the same principles that it
EU-Russia Relations and Norm Diffusion 81
the issue revealed that few people considered that Russia had enemies
and half of the population recognised that the problems were internal.
However, by 2007, 77 per cent of the population was convinced that
Russia had enemies and that a war was possible. In this view, Russian
natural resources are perceived as being especially targeted by external
operations and Putin is seen as a leader who maintains national values
and a return of Russia as a world power. The assessment of Putin’s success
by the population is very much related to his foreign policy and espe-
cially to the new aggressive tone he brought on energy issues. On the
improvement of the quality of life, he is not considered very successful
since social institutions continue to be underdeveloped.6 The positive
perspective on Putin’s role for the external position of Russia and the
defence of nationalism makes it less probable that civil society will strive
for significant changes in norm diffusion to alter the model of political
values. Merlin (2007b) synthesises this paradoxical situation: the process
of ‘de-democratisation’ happens in parallel to genuine popularity of the
President. Merlin contrasts the previous violent shocks experienced by
the population with the greater economic stability under Putin.7 She
considers that Russians have lost points of reference in this evolution.
After the election of Dmitry Medvedev to the presidency in 2008,
European heads of state and governments congratulated him without
paying attention to the conditions under which he was elected (Jégo,
2008b). Angela Merkel, Gordon Brown, Nikolas Sarkozy and the presi-
dent of the European Commission welcomed the new president in order
to overcome the difficult relations with Putin. The US ‘reset’ policy initi-
ated towards Moscow at the time also set a positive tone for the arrival of
Medvedev, arguably undermining previous efforts of support to democ-
ratisation. Neither the EU nor the United States made significant state-
ments about the ballot, contrasting with the St. Petersburg symbolic
rally that gathered to denounce the illegitimacy of the result. Similar
rallies were prevented in Moscow by anti-riot police forces, but the
Kremlin-backed youth movement Nachi walked through Moscow with
ultra-nationalist posters, raising suspicion about an eventual Kremlin
recruitment of these young people to rally (Jégo, 2008b).
The NGO Human Rights Watch (2008) issued a special report on the
2006 Russian NGO law restricting independent civil society activism.
The report also presented recommendations, namely to the EU. The
Union is, in fact, a supporter of Russian civil society, providing them
with financial assistance. Between 2002 and 2006, the EU has granted
over six million euro to NGOs operating in the Russian Federation under
the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR).
EU-Russia Relations and Norm Diffusion 83
The projects have supported local civil society in the fields of human
rights and democratisation and they have not required endorsement
by the beneficiary country. Nonetheless, the European Commission
acknowledges that they ‘have been placed under increased scrutiny from
the Russian authorities’ (European Commission, 2008: 13). On its side,
Russia has been supporting extreme right and populist movements in
Europe as partners who share views on ‘traditional family values, belief
in authoritarian leadership, a distrust of the US and support for strong
law-and-order measures’ (The Associated Press, 2014).
Clément (2007) sheds light on some evolution, particularly regarding
specific regions and issues, in the context of the still overwhelming
tendency of apathy of the Russian population. She observes that, since
2004, protest movements have intensified. An average of 50 collective
actions, mainly about housing and labour issues, takes place each week
in the country, gathering about 10,000 people (2007: 36). The poten-
tial for change is also underlined by other analysts that have observed
regional elections (Eismont et al., 2010). They alert against an oversim-
plified image of Russia as authoritarian and undemocratic. The change is
represented by the election in March 2009 of an unknown candidate for
mayor in Krasnoturinsk, who ran against a member of the United Russia
Party that was in power for 20 years. ‘There is a pretty active civil society
and, in conditions like those in Krasnoturinsk, it can easily show itself
and lead to a failure of the administrative political machine’ (Eismont
et al., 2010). Mens (2007: 29) considers that Putin traded stability for
civil liberties and wonders how long the Russian society will accept to be
censored. Despite the actual focus of the middle class on consumption
and the introversion of rural populations, the potential for opposition is
growing because time is undermining the traumatising memories of the
Yeltsin years. This evolution will push the Russian citizens to be more
demanding at the political level. The 2011–2012 electoral contexts seem
to be a signal in that direction.
On the EU side, the European Parliament (EP) is the most concerned
actor with the issue of rule of law and the political use of justice in
Russia. Eastern European Members of the European Parliament (MEP),
in particular active Baltic and Polish MEPs, have kept a strong focus on
these issues.8 Globally, the EP voices the growing EU disappointment
concerning the Russian democratic path, as the EP recommendation
to the Council about the Magnitsky case illustrates. The EP requested
visa sanctions for the Russian officials who were involved in the pre-
trial arrest and death of the lawyer Magnistky in 2009.9 The text also
included sanctions for serious human rights violations in other similar
84 Sandra Fernandes
cases (European Parliament, 2012). It was the first time that such a
measure was requested and, thus, a clear demonstration of a value-based
approach towards Russia. As the rapporteur mentioned, ‘a European
Magnitsky list ... [is] a carefully targeted affirmation of European values’.
She also stressed that ‘there should be no progress towards visa-free
travel for Russian officials without concomitant moves towards the
adoption of an EU Magnitsky law. It is time for the EU to put some back-
bone in its Russia policy and understand the leverage that it has over
the Kremlin’ (Ojuland, 2013). Russia must also answer ten questions
asked by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in late November
2014 (ECHR, 2014). The Russian reaction has been to claim that the EU
and EU member states are interfering in domestic affairs and failing to
address its own human rights issues (Zakharova, 2013) and to recipro-
cate visa bans towards American nationals (Tass, 2015).
The positive record of Putin as a leader in the international arena is,
thus, a significant element in EU-Russia relations as it legitimises Putin’s
leadership despite curbing of the country’s democratic path and the
greater visibility of oppositional movements. Although the EU, mainly
through the EP, has criticised the last electoral processes and issues of
rule of law in Russia, the strategic interest of EU-Russia relations has
prevailed over the goal of the diffusion of political norms. Rhetorically
and in some projects, Brussels supports civil society initiatives but
the cooperative relation in key domains is prioritised. Nonetheless,
the acknowledgement that Moscow considers visa liberalisation a top
priority in EU-Russia relations raises seriously the issue of reforms in the
area of Justice and Home Affairs that Brussels requires to advance this
agenda.10 Visa talks were suspended in March 2014 in the context of the
Ukrainian crisis, evidencing a shift in the EU’s policy of engagement
with Moscow. Thus, the recent ballots and the agenda of cooperation
significantly raised the issue of common political values and principles
without providing significant diffusion of norms and an enhanced role
for Russian civil society.
sensitive for entrepreneurs and EU member states that are the major
investors (and trade partners) in Russia. We address below how the need
for a favourable investment climate is pursued through norm diffusion
and a preference for non-politicisation of the relation. However, the
issue of non-politicisation has gained new impetus since 2014 with the
impact of the conflict in Ukraine on EU-Russia trade relations (reciprocal
bans have been put in practice) illustrating the linkage between poor
normative convergence between Brussels and Moscow and the evolu-
tion of the countries in their shared neighbourhood. The EU business
sector is represented in Russia by the Association of European Business
(AEB), founded in 1995. It aims primarily at promoting business with
and in the Russian Federation and with fostering EU-Russia relations.
The Association provides investment and economic advice, collaborates
closely with the European Commission and is an important partner of
EU-Russia relations.12 The Commission considers that trade has been
booming in the Putin years and that the task of the Association has
been instrumental in creating convergence. It means that the institution
does not aim at interfering in business but at creating the adequate legal
environment instead, with an emphasis on people-to-people contacts
provided by the AEB, for instance.13
The EU-Russia Industrialist Round Table (IRT) is another institution
dealing with business interests inside the EU-Russia cooperation frame-
work. The IRT defines itself as a ‘business platform’ and provides for busi-
ness dialogue and discussions on economic relations, and gives regular
recommendations to policy makers in the EU and Russia. It promotes
the goal of creating a common EU-Russia integrated economic area. In
2009, the President of the Russian Federation addressed the participants
for the first time. Emerson14 observes that the business sector values the
IRT’s work because it develops a valid activity contrary to what poli-
ticians are able to achieve. They sense that politics are often counter-
productive for relations and that the point is to address business as such.
Prior to the conflict in Ukraine, trade was been booming with Russia and
it evolved without a political framework.15
According to Souza (2008), the EU has played a major role in Russia
developing into a net foreign direct investment destination since its
economic recovery initiated in 1999, with a steady increase in foreign
direct investments from EU 28 countries. The larger European exporters
are: Germany, Italy and Finland (Eurostat, 2008). Souza (2008) under-
lines that there is ‘a consistently very high share of investment in Russia
from EU countries and territories: by September 2007, over 80 per cent
of investment inflow (and a similar figure for the stock) was from the
86 Sandra Fernandes
prior to passing the law (Shupe, 2008). Souza (2008: 4–6) underlines that
the main issue concerning the legal framework for foreign direct invest-
ment in Russia is not related to restrictiveness but to stability. He argues
that a lot of Russian sectors have experienced liberalisation, in particular
the electricity sector (while the gas sector remains mostly unreformed).
Stability is needed to guarantee transparent criteria for foreign investors.
The law was approved in April 2008 by the Duma and the Federation
Council, during the last days of Putin’s term (President of the Russian
Federation 2008).
The Russian visa policy is another concern for business actors. Since
July 2007, the EU and Russia have implemented a visa regime that aims
at facilitating the movement of persons between member states and
Russia. Despite this move, the business sector has encountered difficul-
ties in getting work visas. At the beginning of 2007, a governmental law
limited the number of clinics (owned by the Moscow city) that could
deliver health tests in the city. This move restricted the access to work
permits because the tests are needed to apply. The Russian authorities
argued that their quota had already been fulfilled but the AEB inter-
preted this pretext as a political move since, provided a payment from
the companies, foreigners could work in Moscow despite the quota. The
AEB acknowledged that the pressure was high to employ Russians18 and
that the working visa procedures became more complicated and, thus,
not supportive of stable and common norms in business relations.
Visa liberalisation is a top priority for Moscow but raises EU concerns
for political, security-related and technical reasons (Salimen and Moshes,
2009). Difficulties in smoothly implementing the 2007 agreement come
from the non-application of reciprocity, a core principle of the text. In
concrete terms, a visa request between an EU member state and Russia
might not require the same conditions on each side, resulting from
different criteria to issue a visa. The Commission has produced guide-
lines for the implementation of the agreement but has no means to force
Russia or European member states to implement them. More consist-
ently, one of the causes hindering the implementation of the EU-Russia
visa regime is the issue of corruption (and the lack of a centralised popu-
lation register in Russia that could ensure that one person possesses only
one passport). EU member states often advocate that corruption raises
the probability of purchasing falsified documents (Salimen and Moshes,
2009: 39). Currently, liberalisation is pursued in the framework of the
‘the Common steps towards visa free short-term travel of Russian and EU
citizens’ (European Commission, 2013). At the time of the approval of
the ‘common steps’, the EU argument to convince the reticent member
88 Sandra Fernandes
Conclusion
the EU. Further sanctions might even be opposed by the most affected
EU member states.
There is a new internal dimension the Russian leadership has now
to deal with, whose effects are yet to be revealed. Despite the fact that
the majority party United Russia and Putin comfortably won the last
2011 and 2012 parliamentary and presidential elections, unprecedented
protest movements have emerged. Russian citizens have shown greater
willingness to participate in the political life of the country and, thus,
they contributed to counter the ‘vertical of power’ introduced by Putin
in 2001 and his status of legitimate ‘Czar’. The role of Russian civil
society in the issue of democracy is not yet very visible in terms of norm
diffusion. On the contrary, the role of the European business sector
has been instrumental in fostering more reciprocity in trade relations,
although the politicisation of this domain in consequence of compet-
itive models for their shared neighbourhood has been damaging the
potential achievements.
Notes
1. Author’s translation.
2. In March 2010, United Russia achieved a vast majority in regional and local
elections in 76 of the 83 regions of the Federation. They were the last major
elections before the round of national ballots held in December 2011 and
March 2012. The party managed more than 50 per cent of the votes in only
half of the regions and lost two significant mayoral elections in Irkutsk and
Ust-Ilimsk (Radio Free Europe, 2010).
3. Information gathered in Moscow, on 10 November 2007. The author partici-
pated in a non-public meeting among EU member states diplomats and a high
representative of the Levada Centre. This centre is an NGO founded in 2002 by
officials of the former All-Russian Public Opinion Research Centre (VCIOM).
4. The EU applies conditionality in its relations with the countries of the Eastern
Partnership according to the following principles: rule of law; good govern-
ance; respect for human rights, including minority rights; promotion of good
neighbourly relations; principles of market economy and sustainable devel-
opment (European Commission, 2003). Although Brussels cannot use condi-
tionality with Russia, these values and principles are stated as the basis of
EU-Russia relationship (Fernandes, 2008).
5. Interviews realised in Brussels and Moscow in EU institutions and member
states embassies, in 2007 and 2008.
6. Information gathered in Moscow, on 10 November 2007. The author partici-
pated in a non-public meeting among EU member states diplomats and a high
representative of the Levada Centre.
7. In real terms, Russia’s economy has grown 70 per cent since 1999, helped by
high revenues from energy sales (Buckley, 2007).
8. Interview at the European Parliament Secretariat in Brussels, in September
2012.
9. The United States’ Senate has adopted a similar bill in 2011.
EU-Russia Relations and Norm Diffusion 91
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Part II
Security in the Shared
Neighbourhood
5
The Securitisation of the EU’s
Eastern Neighbourhood:
What Role for Russia?
Licínia Simão and Vanda Amaro Dias
Introduction
97
98 Licínia Simão and Vanda Amaro Dias
Sociological securitisation
how some security problems originate, many develop with little if any
discursive design’ (Balzacq, 2011: 1). Overall, the sociological approach
to securitisation looks at security practices as actions mediated by the
agents’ context and their world-views, thus simultaneously reproducing
and transforming power relations and their social field.1
Balzacq (2005: 178) further argues that ‘securitisation is a meaningful
procedure, in a field of forces, carried out through linguistic impulses,
that strives to establish an unravelling course of events as shared concern
aimed at recommending an immediate political action’. However, it can
also be defined in terms of a field of struggles where different discourses
permanently compete with one another aiming at achieving a hegem-
onic status (Balzacq el al., 2010: 4). Therefore, in order to understand a
process of securitisation one has to analyse the ‘power struggles, strate-
gies of distinction, symbolic “consensus”, and multiple tactics of agents
through a detailed empirical analysis of a specific social universe’ (Bigo,
2011: 234).
In this formulation, agency comes as a central aspect of securitisa-
tion processes. Traditionally, security threats have been defined by states
and their elites, mainly as national security threats (Waever, 1995).
This centrality of the state, both as the agent and the referent object of
security, has been challenged by the EU in many regards. The manage-
ment of security overlaps across different governance levels and insti-
tutional constellations, including at the intergovernmental level in the
framework of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) by EU
member states, but also at the communitarian level where the European
Commission has held an important role promoting and supporting a
more structural view of regional (and global) security (Webber et al.,
2004). As the literature on EU foreign policy has demonstrated, there
has been an increased process of ‘brusselisation’ (Allen, 1998; Juncos
and Pomorska, 2006) of EU foreign policy that has limited the control
of the CFSP by EU member states. This trend is all the more visible in
areas where the EU applies its structural tools, such as the ENP, which
was initially managed by the Directorate General (DG) Enlargement and
the DG External Relations (Kelly, 2006). However, security perceptions
of the neighbourhood in the Council are also filtered through national
preferences’ coordination and bargaining. After the 2004 enlargement,
many of the new member states used their new position to advocate for
closer political relations between the EU and the former-Soviet states.
All in all, the EU’s agency is complex and characterised by competing
dynamics, which affect the ongoing processes of securitisation of the
Eastern neighbourhood.
100 Licínia Simão and Vanda Amaro Dias
the social field itself (Jørgensen and Phillips, 2002: 1; Fairclough and
Wodak, 1997: 258).
In this assumption, discourse is part of agency as well as of power. It
constitutes a sphere of action, where social relations are (re)shaped and
imprinted with content (Balzacq, 2011: 23–25). By focusing on discursive
struggles nested in power relations, critical discourse analysis provides
an overview of social practices related to the construction of threats and
respective security responses (Balzacq, 2011: 41). In that regard, it allows
us to move beyond the strict assessment of texts and language in order
to delve into their practical consequences and the structures of power
and security practices they (re)produce and transform (Jørgensen and
Phillips, 2002: 2).
A further methodological choice made regards the level of analysis,
focusing on the agent level as identified by Balzacq (2011: 35–36) in
order to provide a basis for interpretation of competing securitisation
dynamics. This level concentrates mainly on the actors and power rela-
tions that structure the situation under analysis and sheds light on:
(1) those who contribute to or resist the design of security issues (i.e.
securitising actors and audiences); (2) power relations; (3) social identities
defined by contextual underpinnings that either enable or constraint the
behaviour of securitising actors and audience; and (4) the referent object
(i.e. what is threatened). By looking at the impact of agency, context and
power on this level of analysis, this chapter aims at showing how the
social field within which the EU’s presence in the Eastern neighbour-
hood has been developed is fundamentally a contested one, with an
important role played by Russia.
During the 1990s, the EU’s political and economic relations with
former-Soviet countries were essentially kept at a technical level and
security issues seldom figured on the agenda. It was only in the context
of post-9/11 global security shifts and the ensuing preparations for EU
and NATO enlargements that relations with the Eastern vicinity became
gradually more prominent, thus triggering processes of securitisation of
the neighbourhood.
This prioritisation becomes visible in the debates that preceded the
actual announcement of the ENP. One of the most important docu-
ments in this regard was the letter sent to the Danish Presidency by
then-Commissioner for External Relations, Chris Patten, and then-High
The Securitisation of the EU’s Eastern Neighbourhood 103
citizens’ and its development is a ‘core priority within the EU’s external
action’ (Council of the EU, 2007b: 3).
Another area that slowly became more noticeable in the EU’s secu-
rity agenda was conflict resolution, working as a further stimulus to
the gradual securitisation of the neighbourhood. Conflict resolution
has traditionally been a surprisingly under-securitised issue by the EU.
Although it is frequently referred to in official documents as a source
of instability and an obstacle to regional development (cf. European
Parliament, 2010; European Commission, 2007), EU foreign and security
policies have failed to address conflict resolution as a priority through
concrete policy decisions. The EU has indeed been mainly reactive to
conflict-related developments in the Eastern neighbourhood. References
to conflict resolution in the framework of the ENP mainly focus on
‘addressing the threats to stability created by conflict and insecurity’,
developing capabilities to engage in ‘post-conflict internal security
arrangements’ (European Commission, 2003: 12) and ‘achieve conflict
resolution’ (European Commission, 2004: 3). In practice, however, the
EU adopted a low-profile approach to conflict resolution in the neigh-
bourhood aimed at preventing the spillover of negative outcomes of
conflict into the Union’s territory, including the potential negative
impact on its energy security and on political stability at its borders. This
conservative position from the EU is largely shaped by the post-Soviet
context and the understanding that Russia should have a leading role in
managing security in post-Soviet Eurasia. Linkages between policy areas
in EU–Russia relations, namely between conflict resolution and energy –
the latter ranked higher on the EU’s priorities – also help explain the
weak-securitisation of the protracted conflicts of the Eastern neighbour-
hood by the EU.
However, changes can be witnessed since 2005, including the
appointment of an EU Special Representative (EUSR) for Moldova, the
EU participation in the official ‘5+2’ negotiations, and the deployment
of a Border Assistance Mission to Ukraine and Moldova (EUBAM). In
the case of the South Caucasus, the EU was either working around the
conflicts (South Ossetia and Abkhazia) or not engaged at all (Nagorno-
Karabakh). The Georgian conflicts, as argued by Popescu (2011: 74),
figured more prominently on the EU’s security agenda partly because
Russia was much more actively engaged than in Moldova. This seems to
suggest that Russia’s actions in the shared neighbourhood do play a role
in the EU securitising process of its neighbourhood.
This, nevertheless, falls short of the expectations raised by the official
speech of the EU’s institutions noting that:
The Securitisation of the EU’s Eastern Neighbourhood 107
The Progress Report of the German EU presidency in the first half of 2007
underlines that the strengthened ENP ‘shall make a clearer contribu-
tion to conflict resolution in our neighbourhood, by creating a climate
conducive to dialogue and by playing a more active role in regional and
multilateral conflict-resolution efforts’, though carefully adding ‘to be
decided on a case-by-case basis’ (Council of the EU, 2007b: 9). Therefore,
it was only after war broke out in Georgia in 2008 that the EU secured a
consensus to deploy a Monitoring Mission to Georgia (EUMM).
The war between Georgia and Russia in 2008 marked a turning point
in EU perceptions of its role in regional security. By reinforcing the image
of Russia as a threat to the norms of international and regional security,
it allowed for a greater prioritisation of the conflicts in the Eastern neigh-
bourhood in the EU’s agenda. Reflecting these changing perceptions, EU
member states were finally comfortable with deploying the EUMM and
taking a leading mediating role in the Geneva peace talks. Besides these
high profile moves, the Council was also more willing to support the
strategy developed and promoted by EU institutions, of ‘engagement
without recognition’ with the separatist states of Eurasia (Fisher, 2010).
This is an important step for the EU, aimed at undermining Russia’s
strategy of isolating these entities and consolidating what the former
EUSR Peter Semneby (2012) called a ‘European footprint’ in the region.
The launch of the EaP in 2008, as a response to Georgian–Russian
war (Averre, 2009: 1694), strengthened this process while suggesting a
greater security role for the EU.
note of the first energy crisis on January 2006 and called on the EU ‘to
ensure a coordinated policy which guarantees security of energy supply
and integrity of the pipelines in the transit countries as well as a diversi-
fied source of origin for these vital natural resources’ (§42), endowing
the Commission with a parliamentary mandate to develop a broader
European energy policy (§44).
In practice, this gradual focus on security issues in the EU’s vicinity
facilitates and justifies the expansion of the European integration model
in several domains. This is a fundamental exercise of structural power by
the EU, looking to define the norms guiding regional relations.
The implementation of the EU’s security agenda in the Eastern neigh-
bourhood has, however, broader effects on Moscow’s leverage in the region
and the distribution of power among regional players. As a consequence,
the way the EU structures its relations with the Eastern neighbours is
shaped by power relations with Russia. Russian assertiveness towards the
region and its perception of the EU’s regional role represent competi-
tive narratives of securitisation. EU neighbourhood policies clash directly
with Moscow’s regional strategies combining hard and soft power mech-
anisms and its own normative discourse about the shared neighbour-
hood, aiming at delegitimising the idea of liberal democracy promoted
by the EU (Flenley, 2008: 200; Nitoiu, 2011: 466–471; Finkel and Brudny,
2012). At the same time, it pursues a strategy of divide-and-rule among
EU member states (Léonard and Popescu, 2007: 13). The outcome is a
struggle for power in the region resulting from, and intensifying, the
ongoing processes of securitisation in the shared neighbourhood.
In this context of increased tension between Russia and the EU, can
we see an increased securitisation of the EU’s relations with its eastern
neighbours? A tentative answer is yes. The process of uploading new
member states’ preferences – based on the historical memory of rela-
tions with Soviet Russia – onto the EU security agenda in the frame-
work of the ENP has been a fundamental process in the securitisation
of relations with Russia. Russia and its policies in its ‘near abroad’ have
often been portrayed as a security threat to Europe, especially after the
energy crises in 2006 and 2009, the war in Georgia in 2008 (RFE/RL,
2008; Goliday, 2009: 89–95), and certainly since the Ukrainian conflict
of 2013. The extent to which this discourse was successful in portraying
Russia as the main security threat to Europe can be explained by the
top-down nature of the Europeanisation of the new member states and
their long process of socialisation to EU and NATO norms of consen-
sus-building (Edwards, 2006: 144). Moreover, among the new member
states, especially in countries with large Russian minorities, there is also
112 Licínia Simão and Vanda Amaro Dias
The EU can approach its relationship with Russia with a certain confi-
dence. Economically, Russia needs the EU. The EU is an important
market for its exports of raw materials, notably energy ... The recent
financial crisis has underlined how acutely Russia needs to modernize
and diversify its economy. The EU is a natural partner for this
process, and the main source of its foreign investments. (European
Commission, 2008b: 2)
The Securitisation of the EU’s Eastern Neighbourhood 113
The document clearly states that the EU should actively pursue its own
interests in this relationship, including in the fields of energy secu-
rity and regional stability. A blatant condemnation of the ‘dispropor-
tionate Russian reaction’ in Georgia is also noteworthy, acknowledging
a contested field in the shared neighbourhood. Whereas the EU builds
on the self-assessed success of the EUMM in Georgia to claim more polit-
ical will and operational capability to perform a leading role in conflict
resolution and the transformation of the political and economic envi-
ronment at its borders (European Commission, 2008b: 2); Russia claims
special interests in the region. This reinforces the ongoing processes of
securitisation of the neighbourhood.
Therefore, the macro-context of relations with the neighbourhood
provided the EU with an opportunity to introduce change in the ENP
and replicate its security approach to new domains, such as energy
security and conflict resolution. In this sense, by affecting instances of
agency, power and context, Russia has played a meaningful role in the
processes of securitisation of the EU’s neighbourhood. Russia’s role has
also been used to construct a strategy of reasoning to EU audiences that
made them comfortable with reinforcing the EU’s footprint in the region
seen as essential to guarantee European peace, stability and prosperity.
Conclusion
Even though EU relations with Russia have come across as more impor-
tant than relations with other Eastern neighbours at specific times (i.e.
the Transnistrian conflict), and raised concerns among some EU member
states regarding the consequences that a more robust and coherent
approach eastwards could have on their relationships with Russia, this
analysis revealed interesting security dynamics in the region. It is notice-
able that the more assertive Russia is in the neighbourhood, the more
the EU intensifies its security policies and actions towards the region as
proven in the above-identified nodal points. The tension in relations
between Russia and the EU (and NATO), following the colour revolu-
tions in Ukraine and Georgia, allowed Brussels to denounce Russia’s
strategy of preserving asymmetrical relations in the neighbourhood.
By doing so it provided the EU with grounds to reinforce its policies
towards the East, focusing on political and economic reforms – through
European integration – as a means to guarantee stability and security in
the region.
Securitisation of the Eastern neighbourhood has been a disputed
process within the EU from the very beginning and does not rely on
114 Licínia Simão and Vanda Amaro Dias
the utterance of security (i.e. the speech act). Rather it has been the
adoption of a set of policies aimed at countering the flows of insecu-
rity emanating from the Eastern neighbourhood and especially from
its interactions with Moscow that illustrate the securitisation process.
By actively contributing to the polarisation of regional security, Russia
has shaped the context within which EU security relations within the
ENP are defined. On the other hand, Russia has also been an important
factor shaping some of the EU agents views of regional security, namely
after the EU enlargement to Central and Eastern Europe. Thus, power
asymmetries in the context of the EU’s relations with its eastern neigh-
bours reflect these dynamics shaping EU-Russia relations and Russia’s
relations with the former-Soviet countries covered by the ENP. In all
these dimensions Russia stands out as a significant factor explaining EU
security policies towards its eastern neighbourhood, as this analysis has
sought to illustrate.
Notes
1. ‘The field is a heuristic device that ... allows us to analyze the principles on
which are based distinctions between practices within a space of social posi-
tions, which then becomes a space where positions are assumed and discur-
sive practices occur. Structural homology between the two spaces is possible
through the mediation of the space of dispositions of agents or habitus. This
habitus is then a system of durable dispositions which governs the behaviour
and discourses of agents inside the field. ... By acting in many fields [agents]
transfer practices from one field to another’. (Balzacq et al., 2010: 3)
2. These include respect for state sovereignty, territorial integrity, inadmissibility
of the use of force, equal security and no exclusive rights for any state or
organisation in security issues (Concept of the Foreign Policy of the Russian
Federation, 2013).
3. For a definition of ‘field’ see note 1.
References
Allen, D. 1998. Who Speaks for Europe? In: Peterson, J. and Sjursen, H. (eds.) A
Common Foreign Policy for Europe? Competing Visions of CFSP. London: Routledge,
pp. 41–58.
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The Securitisation of the EU’s Eastern Neighbourhood 115
Introduction
The political turmoil that affected the Middle East and North Africa
since late 2010 caught many by surprise, including Turkey’s political
leadership. It came at a time when Ankara was investing in the region,
both economically and politically, in line with the new foreign policy
principles progressively set in place by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice
and Development Party (AKP).1 These principles were based on Ahmet
Davutoğlu’s concept of Strategic Depth, and they posit Turkey as a leading
regional and international actor, responsible for promoting peace and
development, in particular, within its immediate neighbourhood.
Ankara’s foreign policy activism had, until the eruption of popular
unrest across the region, been focused on the importance of political
stability, presupposing that even authoritarian regimes such as those in
Syria or Libya were solid and stable (Öniş, 2012) and could, therefore,
be seen as perfectly legitimate partners for Turkey on the international
stage. The sudden change in the regional context forced Turkey to revisit
its strategy, with significant consequences, both internally and interna-
tionally: the Kurdish issue has jumped to the top of the political agenda,
the millions of refugees in the country are generating social and political
instability in Turkey and, internationally, Turkey is seen as having an
erratic policy for the region, particularly in how it deals with the Islamic
State (IS) threat.
Until recently, Turkey was seen as a second order emerging power,
usually placed among a list of countries that is topped by China and
India, and that also includes Brazil, Russia, South Africa, South Korea,
and Indonesia, among others (cf. Schweller, 2011). Ankara enjoys being
considered a member of this emerging group of countries as reflected
119
120 André Barrinha and Laura Bastos
Since the birth of the Republic in 1923, Turkish foreign policy has
focused on Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s principle of ‘peace at home, peace
abroad’ (cited in Karaosmanoğlu, 2000: 208). This principle meant that
Turkey would mostly focus on insuring its survival and security as a
nation state with a Turkish identity (idem) and that the young republic
would not pursue any territorial expansion, signalling a clear break
from the Ottoman Empire’s expansionist nature (Aydın, 1999). In prac-
tice, this foreign policy approach led to Turkey’s detachment from the
regional politics of the Arab world (Karaosmanoğlu, 2000), engaging,
after World War I, in a nation-building project that left little room for
Out of Will or Out of Necessity? 121
such as Iran and Libya (Fuller, 2008). However, their impact on Turkey’s
foreign policy was eventually limited by the strong presence of Turkish
armed forces in the country’s external affairs, and their successful ‘post-
modern’ coup aimed at Erbakan’s government in February 1997. This
process did not involve an actual military intervention but the mili-
tary managed to put pressure on the government through the National
Security Council (NSC). In a meeting on 28 February 1997, the NSC
demanded that the government adopt measures against the threat of
‘political Islam’. These measures included banning the headscarf and
closing religious schools (Akyol, 2012) and was aimed at restricting
Erbakan’s government strong religious stand. This was perceived by the
government as an ultimatum and eventually the crisis was solved by
Erbakan’s decision to resign (Güney and Karatekelioğlu, 2005).
Indeed, Turkey’s domestic and foreign policy has historically been
controlled by the bureaucratic and military elites (Aras and Polat, 2008).
The autonomy of the military in Turkish politics and its interference
in the country’s politics has been justified on the basis of its role as
the guardian of national interest and national unity (Cizre-Sakallioğlu,
1997), a defender of the Kemalist principles of modernisation of Turkey
and the preservation of the secular state. Such interference has been a
constant problem in Turkish-EU relations.
Despite the demise of Erbakan’s government, Turkey’s diplomacy
remained active in the Middle East region. Ismael Cem, foreign minister
between 1997 and 2002, attempted to revitalise relations with the Arab
region, for instance with Syria (in 2001), whose relations had often
been tense due to both the Kurdish issue and land and water disputes
between the two countries.3 Cem was particularly aggressive in defence
of Palestinian rights although the opposite view was common among
the military establishment (Inbar, 2002). However, these were limited
efforts in a decade defined by a pragmatic, security-centred relations
with the region (Tschirgi, 2003), in which Turkey was mostly interested
in (a) avoiding any externalities from the regions’ political instability,
(b) ‘managing’ its conflict against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK in
its Kurdish acronym) rebels, and (c) developing relations with the most
sophisticated military force in the region (i.e. Israel). Such a pragmatic
and underdeveloped approach by Turkey to the Middle East, during
most of the 1990s, largely resembled Russia’s, while the EU was taking
its first steps towards the development of the rather unsuccessful Euro-
Mediterranean Partnership (cf. Barrinha, 2013). In that regard, the AKP’s
rise to power in November 2002 signalled – at least discursively – a shift
towards a more effective Turkish presence in the region and a more
124 André Barrinha and Laura Bastos
active international stance. The AKP was able to put forward both a
domestic and a foreign policy agenda supported by strong parliamentary
majorities during consecutive terms, an exception in Turkey since 1961.
As a consequence, since 2003, Turkey has become progressively more
active in the international stage. This diplomatic activity was moreover
strengthened by an impressive economic growth: the country’s GDP has
tripled in the last decade (Gül, 2012).
people were killed, among them nine Turks, and dozens were wounded
(Hürriyet Daily News, 2010). In both Israel and Turkey, popular reac-
tion was strong as were reactions from governments (Meral and Paris,
2010) at a time when diplomatic relations between the two countries
had been interrupted (BBC News, 2011).
Similarly, the flotilla incident generated negative reactions against
Israel from the international community. Representing the EU,
Catherine Ashton condemned Israel’s behaviour and demanded a full
inquiry on the events (EU, 2010). Spain, who held the presidency of
the European Council at the time, represented the events as unac-
ceptable (Hürriyet Daily News, 2010). Russia also condemned the use
of violence by the Israeli forces (ABCNews, 2010). The incident also
contributed to improve Turkey’s image among the Arab countries,
since it seemed to confirm Turkey’s full support for the Palestinian
cause (Samaan, 2013).
Three years later, under US pressure, the current prime minister of
Israel, Binyamin Netanyahu, apologised to Turkey over the loss of the
nine lives in the Mavi Marmara incident (The Guardian, 2013). However,
Ankara’s reaction was not so enthusiastic. President Gül declared that
Israel’s apology came ‘too late’ (Today’s Zaman, 2013) and Erdoğan
ensured that normalising relations with Israel would also depend on
other steps such as compensation for the victims’ families and easing
of the blockade to Gaza (Reuters, 2013). Talks on compensation opened
the gate for the restoration of diplomatic relations labelled as tighter
than ever by Davutoğlu (Hürriyet Daily News, 2014). However, the
2014 Gaza incursion by Israel has resurfaced Ankara’s anger against
Israel. Erdoğan called Israel a ‘terrorist state’, going so far as to criticise
the Obama administration for supporting Israel’s right to self-defence
(Morin, 2014).
Although it is clear that Turkey has significantly invested in the
Middle East, while, simultaneously spreading its ties to other parts of
the globe, the goal of becoming an influential actor in the international
stage within a problematic regional context has proved challenging,
particularly since the so-called Arab Spring.
the deployment of Patriot missiles along its border, and, more recently,
coordinated attacks with the US against IS targets in Syria symbolising to
its Middle Eastern neighbours that, ultimately, it was still a full member
of the Atlantic Alliance.
As expressed in an International Crisis Group (ICG) report, ‘regionally,
the Syrian conflict symbolises how Turkey’s “zero problem” policy has
become a “multiple problems” strategy’ (2013: i). Indeed, the evolution
of the conflict in Syria turned into the worst possible scenario for Turkey
both internationally and at the domestic level. The conflict blocked the
trade routes to the Arab countries with significant economic impact.
It also forced Turkey to develop renewed links with countries such as
Saudi Arabia and Qatar, contributing to the idea that Turkey might be
a small part of a unified Sunni block with hegemonic claims over the
Middle East (ICG, 2013). With Qatar, for instance, Turkey seems to have
developed very close ties, based on a number of common strategic inter-
ests: the support for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the strong stance
regarding Israel’s policy vis-à-vis Gaza and the will to topple Bashar
Al-Assad’s regime in Syria (Daily Sabah, 2014). The fact that Erdoğan
chose Qatar as his third state visit after being elected President (the
previous two were to North Cyprus and Azerbaijan) attests to the impor-
tance of this relationship.
In fact, the Syrian conflict has dragged Turkey into a domestic turmoil.
The IS advance in Syria has eventually affected Turkey. The most striking
example was the attack, officially blamed on IS, of a suicide bomber
in Suruç in the summer of 2015 that killed 31 people. After the rise of
violence in the country, the Turkish government decided to carry out
airstrikes against the PKK and IS in both Iraq and Syria. The government
has justified this action by stating that the fight against terrorism was
to be carried against all terrorist groups (Letsch, 2015). As mentioned
above the attacks against the IS in Syria are being coordinated with the
US who was authorised to use the Incirlik Air-base (Erkuş, 2015).
As a retaliation for what the PKK called a violation of the ceasefire,
in place since 2013, and the bombardment of the camps in Iraq, the
PKK has carried out several attacks on Turkish security forces (Pamuk,
2015). These events have lead Erdoğan to declare that the peace talks
initiated in 2012 were no longer possible (Aljazeera, 2015). There are
speculations that Erdoğan’s purpose of wakening the conflict with the
PKK is to discredit the People’s Democratic Party (HDP)8, a pro-Kurdish
political party, that by gaining 80 seats in the Parliament in the elections
in June 2015, has prevented the AKP from getting the overall majority
(Karadeniz, 2015).
Out of Will or Out of Necessity? 133
Conclusion
Over the last decade, the AKP’s foreign policy strategy has tried to
promote Turkey as a vibrant globalised economy able to contribute
to conflict resolution in its neighbourhood. However, the unexpected
and sudden events that constituted the Arab Spring revealed the diffi-
cult position in which Turkey stands regarding its southern vicinity.
Although, Turkey’s international ambitions go beyond the Middle East
(by 2023 – the centenary of the Republic – Turkey wants to be among
the ten largest economies in the world and have consolidated its pres-
ence worldwide, both bilaterally and multilaterally), the influence in
that region is fundamental for Ankara’s larger power projection project.
It is also an important element in its relations with both Russia and the
EU, its two main trading partners. Despite having opposite interests to
those of Russia in the region, and being constantly criticised by the EU
136 André Barrinha and Laura Bastos
Notes
1. Acronym for Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi
2. Priorities such as the peaceful resolution of conflicts in the region, the promo-
tion of dialogue in international affairs and the positioning of Turkey in key
multilateral organisations and fora that contribute to the consolidation of its
position as an important international actor (Davutoğlu, 2009). Hence, Turkey
has tried to have a greater role in international organizations and intervene
in matters such as the Georgia crisis in 2008 or the nuclear negotiations with
Iran.
3. In this period, Ankara sent a senior diplomat to Syria to express the will to
restart the dialogue between the two countries. Later on, Ismail Cem met
his Syrian counterpart in an Organization of Islamic Cooperation’s meeting
emphasizing the need to improve economic relations between the neigh-
boring countries. However, relations between Turkey and Syria continued to
deteriorate and the two countries almost came to the brink of war in 1998
(Altunışık, 2009). Only later did Turkey and Syria relations enter a period of
improvement with the signing of the Adana agreements, which foresaw the
two countries’ cooperation against PKK. (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the
Republic of Turkey, 2011).
4. A steady rhythm of hosting and participation in multilateral events and bilat-
eral diplomatic summits, designed to increase Turkey’s profile on the interna-
tional scene.
5. The authors would like to thank the editors for pointing out this aspect.
6. The Caucasus Stability and Cooperation Platform is a (failed) proposal from
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan aimed at creating a platform for regional dialogue that
would include countries such as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Russia.
Out of Will or Out of Necessity? 137
7. Russia, for being Turkey’s main energy supplier, and Georgia for geopolitical
reasons in the Caucasus.
8. Acronym for Halkların Demokratik Partisi
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Part III
Competing Political and
Economic Models in the
Shared Neighbourhood
7
The Impact of the Arab Spring
on Central Asia: Regional and
Macro-regional Implications
Ekaterina Koldunova
Introduction
145
146 Ekaterina Koldunova
from the EU or the US. The international players were looking for oppor-
tunities to enhance their stance in the region and acquire economic
benefits while Russia, the previously dominant power in the region, was
mired in its own political and economic problems.
The Islamic factor played an ambivalent role in post-Soviet Central
Asia. Historically, Central Asia had its own tradition of Islam with Khiva
and Bukhara being the most prominent Islamic centres in the region.
However, in the Soviet period, Islam was not practiced openly and
revealed itself only in selective daily activities. In the 1990s, political
elites of Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan tried to incorporate Islam into
nation-building narratives (Hann and Pelkmans, 2009). However, the
religious component in this narrative remained secondary as compared
to ethnic or nationalistic discourses. In Uzbekistan, radical Islamic
groups like the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Hizb-at-Tahrir al-Islami,
formed a radical opposition and became a direct threat to the ruling
regime (Naumkin, 2006).
In the 1990s, Central Asian states witnessed the trends of bringing
back the patterns of traditional relationships to the social sphere. These
relationships actually replaced social security systems disrupted after the
collapse of the Soviet Union. Up to the present not the citizen, but a
traditional group, family or mahalia (neighbourhood), remains the basic
element of Central Asian societies (Zviagelskaya, 2009b). The society
acts like an arena of competing groups of interest though one cannot
consider them as analogues of civil society elements. Traditional social
stratification and regional divisions preserved the traditional type of
patronal relationships both in social and political spheres.
All Central Asian states retained strong paternalistic traditions of
governance based on hierarchical type of social relationship, clientelism
and traditional type of political loyalty (Zviagelskya, 2009b). Moreover,
political elites actively resorted to traditional means of legitimising their
power. One can find such examples in Central Asian authorities’ efforts
to construct national history around legendary or real strong person-
alities. In Uzbekistan, the function of such a historical leader is attrib-
uted to Timur (Tamerlan), in Kyrgyzstan, to epic hero Manas (Borisov,
2010). In Turkmenistan, the first president Saparmurat Niyazov based
his personality cult on the Ruhnama treatise (The Book of Soul), which
mixed history and national narrative with his own outstanding role in
Turkmenistan’s independent development (Denison, 2009). In 2010,
the upper chamber of Kazakhstan’s parliament made amendments to
national legislation in order to confer the special status of ‘national
leader’ on the incumbent president (Kommersant, 2010).
152 Ekaterina Koldunova
Tables 7.1 and 7.2 (see Annex) indicate the similarities in socio-economic
and political developments of Central Asian states and those affected by
the Arab Spring. The level of economic development is measured by GDP
and GDP per capita (both in current US $). According to this indicator, only
Kazakhstan has more or less a satisfactory position with all other countries
lagging behind. The Human Development Index and income GINI coef-
ficient show that the level of human development is not matched with
social justice, both in the Arab and in the majority of Central Asian states
with the exception of Kazakhstan, which in this respect is closer to some
European states. According to the Corruption Perception Index calculated
by Transparency International, countries from both groups occupy the
lowest positions among 176 countries surveyed in 2012.
The political indicators (Table 7.2) used in this chapter to compare the
two groups of states include stateness index, index of institution basis of
democracy and Polity IV scores. Both stateness index and index of insti-
tution basis of democracy are calculated under the project Contemporary
Atlas of the Modern World carried out by MGIMO-University in 2005–
2009. The column titled the ‘results of the last presidential elections’
summarises dates and outcomes of these types of elections as most
important for countries with the institutional framework of patronal
presidentialism. It demonstrates the formal mass support to the incum-
bent presidents in Central Asia in the last elections ranging from 63 per
cent in Kyrgyzstan to 97 per cent in Turkmenistan.
The comparative analysis of countries according to the stateness index
shows that the Arab Spring upheavals took place in countries with rela-
tively high state capacities (in 2009 Egypt had a score of seven, Yemen –
6.77 and Libya – 6.71) but very low performance in institutional
foundations of democracy (scores of about 1–2). In this regard, Central
Asian states fall in the even riskier category as states with low stateness
index (5.31 in Turkmenistan, 5.05 in Uzbekistan, 4.45 in Kazakhstan,
2.01 in Tajikistan, 0.08 in Kyrgyzstan) and weak institutional capaci-
ties (2.10 in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, 1.87 in Uzbekistan, 1.05 in
Tajikistan, and 0.03 in Turkmenistan). To understand thoroughly the
differences between the two groups of states and indicate the possible
results of these different trajectories of autocratic regime developments,
one needs to examine in more detail the trends of regime consolida-
tion in each of the Central Asian states. Based on the features of the
intra-elite interaction in the five countries and previous analyses, it will
be possible to make a conclusion concerning the prospects of and chal-
lenges to democratisation in Central Asia.
154 Ekaterina Koldunova
second son-in-law, and the former Vice-President of the national oil and
gas company KazMunayGas, Timur Kulibayev (Syroezhkin, 2011). This
classification actually reflected the shift towards less politically oriented
and more economy oriented elite. In fact, for the past decade the presi-
dent suppressed any attempt for growing political role by any repre-
sentative of various elite groupings.
However in the case of Kazakhstan, the consolidation of the political
regime and the more or less favourable economic situation still have
not become a remedy for social unrest. Though so far quite limited,
paradoxically, it was the economically stable Kazakhstan where riots of
oil industry workers in Zhanaozen took place in 2011. While the experts
disagree on the reasons behind the riots, this case demonstrates that
the mass movements in this country can originate not in the political
sphere but in the socio-economic one and potentially have important
political implications (Bigo and Hale, 2013).
Political realities of Kazakhstan have now become unfavourable for
effective competition not only between elites, but also between parties.
In 2011, only one party, the pro-presidential Nur Otan, got all seats
in the lower chamber of Parliament (Mazhilis). In 2012, the president
had to initiate out-of-time elections which resulted in redistribution of
seats between Nur Otan and two other parties (Ak Zhol and Communist
People’s Party), labelled by some experts as ‘imitative’ oppositional
parties or quasi-opposition parties (Malashenko, 2012: 25; Franke et al.,
2009). Ak Zhol and Communist People’s Party got eight and seven seats
respectively out of a total of 98 seats (Parline, 2013). In doing this parlia-
mentary reorganisation, Kazakhstan has actually reproduced Russia’s
experience of creating ‘systemic opposition’. The limited representa-
tion in the parliament can help this opposition articulate its interests
through the parliamentary debate, which does not endanger the posi-
tions of the president but demonstrates the formal democratic features
of the political process in Kazakhstan to its European partners. This
becomes particularly important for Kazakhstan’s multivector foreign
policy, which primarily aims at keeping business contacts, especially in
the energy sphere, with both Russia and the EU.
regime and constant criticism from the European Parliament for its
human rights record, Turkmenistan remains an important partner for
the EU in terms of energy cooperation. The same considerations drive
Turkey’s desire to build stronger ties with Turkmenistan (Shlykov, 2014).
In this regard the EU, Turkey, and Russia, which also has its own interests
in the energy sphere of Turkmenistan buying their natural gas, become
competitors for this country’s benevolence thus overlooking the draw-
backs of local political processes.
Despite certain differences, all the examined cases indicate one
common trend. For the past decade the majority of Central Asia states
either moved away from anocracy (with competing elite groups and no
absolute domination of one elite group) towards autocracy, or witnessed
stronger consolidation of previously autocratic regimes. Polity IV
project scores support this trend for all countries except Kyrgyzstan (see
Table 7.2). In some Central Asian states (for example, in Uzbekistan and
Tajikistan), as in the secular Arab states before the Arab Spring, autocratic
regimes apart from keeping the political control, also fulfil an impor-
tant function of containing radical Islamist groups and extremists from
getting to power. While preserving temporary stability, these regimes
eliminate any possibilities for the opposition’s systemic presence in poli-
tics, as they can maintain themselves in a ‘winner takes all’ or dominant
power situation. In addition, a strong rhetoric on the radical Islamic
threat results in the marginalisation of those actively professing Islam
thus creating additional social cleavages in Central Asian states.
Some may argue that these regimes suit the purpose of controlling
competing clans and keeping intra-elite struggle at bay within coun-
tries with social and security problems (Naumkin, 2006). However, the
preceding analysis shows that these regimes have institutional problems
as well. The combination of weak institutional capacities, the distorted
mechanism of intra-elite interaction and the lack of mechanisms of succes-
sion for the aging presidents make Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and to some
extent Tajikistan increasingly vulnerable to any political transformation
and power succession. Moreover, in Uzbekistan Islam can act as a mobi-
lising factor for mass movements in the event of any political turbulence.
The most serious threats here emanate from the immediate proximity to
Afghanistan as well as close relations between the ethnic insurgent groups
in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan. Among all other Central Asian
states, Turkmenistan enjoys relatively stable prospects because, in compar-
ison to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, it lacks both internal and external
challenges and impulses for regime transformation. However, this stability
will make any future reforms for this country even more complicated.
160 Ekaterina Koldunova
itself seemed not to have a clear vision on how to deal with Central Asia
(Malashenko, 2012).
However, in the beginning of this decade the looming large non-
traditional threats like drug trafficking and direct military threats to
Central Asian states emanating from ethnic extremist groups based in
the neighbouring Afghanistan made the Russian political and economic
elite reassess its Central Asian policy. The launch of the Custom’s
Union in 2011 identified Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan as Russia’s key
economic partners in the region while the US partial withdrawal from
Afghanistan in 2014 stirred up Russia’s activities within the CSTO and
the SCO (Koldunova and Kundu, 2014). Thus, within the past several
years Russia set a strategic goal of restoring its geopolitical and economic
presence in Central Asia and the implementation of this goal depends
on smooth relations with the regional political elites. Given this, Russia
will hardly discuss with its Central Asian partners any aspects of polit-
ical reforms in these states, stressing mainly socio-economic and secu-
rity issues. Moreover, Russia is actively seeking support in Central Asia
for its official position that ‘coloured revolutions’ are becoming a new
security threat. The Arab Spring scenario for Central Asia and a possible
connection between extremists groups in Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq
remains a concern, which some regional states, namely Uzbekistan,
may well use instrumentally in gaining economic preferences from
Russia (Kazantsev, 2014).
That being said, Russian socio-economic help and efforts under-
taken within the CSTO and the SCO alone are not enough to promptly
improve the regional situation. In this case the EU seems to be a natural
partner for Russia and Central Asian states. Indeed the EU ‘Strategy for
a New Partnership’ with Central Asia adopted in 2007 addressed key
regional problems like security challenges, economic underdevelop-
ment, environmental and water issues (European Union, 2009). One
of this strategy’s goals was to ensure security and stability in the region
through an intensified cooperation with the EU and bilateral assistance
programmes in the enumerated spheres. At the same time, opposite to
Russia’s approach, the EU strategy also set several value-based priori-
ties like supporting human rights, good governance and democratisa-
tion in the region. However, some researchers voice concern that the
EU’s interests in the energy cooperation with Central Asia and anxiety
about possible regional destabilisation after 2014 actually overshadows
this normative vision of the EU’s Central Asian policy (Bigo and Hale,
2013). The security issues made the EU intensify its contacts with
Central Asia in this sphere launching the EU-Central Asia High Level
162 Ekaterina Koldunova
Conclusion
The previous sections have shown that practically all Central Asian
states are currently facing the same challenge. This challenge arises
from a necessity to find the optimal balance within the political elite or
between various elite groups to enable a non-violent process of power
succession. The ‘strong-weak state’ phenomena and the combination
of strong personalised leadership embodied in patronal presidentialism
and weak political institutions remain distinctive features of all Central
Asian republics.
Despite the differences between Central Asian autocratic regimes and
those regimes which witnessed the Arab Spring turbulence, the violent
regime change scenario should remind Central Asian elites of the neces-
sity to proceed with political modernisation. In the Arab world even
the most enduring political regimes which had managed to survive for
The Impact of the Arab Spring on Central Asia 163
Annex
Table 7.1 Socio-Economic indicators in the countries of ‘Arab Spring’ uprising and
Central Asia
Central Asia
Kazakhstan 188,049,986,359 11,357 0.750 29.0 133 5.8
Uzbekistan 45,359,432,355 1,546 0.649 36.7 170 n.a.
Kyrgyzstan 6,197,765,942 1,124 0.621 36.2 154 n.a.
Tajikistan 6,522,200,291 935 0.618 30.8 157 n.a.
Turkmenistan 28,061,754,386 5,497 0.693 n.a. 170 n.a.
*Syria cannot be considered as a country of the Arab Spring in terms of the social upheaval dynamics, but
it is included in this table as an autocratic country which has witnessed an unsuccessful attempt of political
transformation initiated by the political regime itself under the international pressure.
Source: GDP, GDP per capita, unemployment rate (World Bank Development Indicators, 2013a, b, c), Human
Development Index (HDI), Income GINI Coefficient (UN Human Development Report, 2013), Corruption
Perception Index (Transparency International, 2011). Table compiled by the author.
Table 7.2 Political indicators in the countries of ‘Arab Spring’ uprising and Central Asia
Note: The stateness index evaluates a ‘state’s capacity to maintain its existence, sustain its independent development, and deal with domestic and
external problems’ (Melville, 2009: 53). The stateness index incorporates the following variables: share of foreign aid in a country’s GNI, internal
conflicts and their impact on regime stability, external debt, duration of sovereign stateness, ratio of patent applications by residents and non-residents,
foreign military presence, national currency pegging regime and share of ethnic majority in a country’s total population (Melville, 2009: 53). The
index of institution basis of democracy shows the ‘existence and development level of absolutely essential (even though insufficient) grounds and
conditions for public involvement in and control over decision-making’ (Melville, 2009: 122). This index includes such variables as competition for
the executive, factors reinforcing or weakening the institutional basis of democracy (continuity of democratic tradition after World War I, absence
of disruption of competition for the executive, etc.), duration of uninterrupted minimal electoral tradition (1945–2005), parliamentary competition,
electoral inclusiveness and share of women in the lower house of parliament (Melville, 2009: 130). Both indexes have score from ten to zero with
ten indicating the highest state or institutional capacity and zero indicating the lowest capacity. Polity IV project shows individual country regime
trends for the period from 1946 to 2011 with scores between 10 (democracy) and −10 (autocracy). In between there are several regime types indicating
intermediate conditions like open anocracy (from 5 to 1) and closed anocracy (from 0 to −5).
Source: Melville (2009), the CIA World Factbook (2013), Polity IV Database (2011). Table compiled by the author.
166 Ekaterina Koldunova
Notes
1. This chapter does not set the purpose of analysing the causes and devel-
opment of the Arab Spring per se. It addresses several Arab states, namely
Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain and Syria as a reference group (Haseeb
2012; Naumkin et al., 2012) to single out and compare social and political
characteristics intrinsic both to the named countries and countries of Central
Asia with hybrid autocratic and anocratic regimes.
2. Though Kyrgyzstan presents an exception in this case, under Presidents
Akayev and Bakiyev it also witnessed this tendency.
3. Died in 2012.
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8
Dichotomy of Energy Policies in
the Caspian: Where Two Strive
Another Benefits?
Slawomir Raszewski
Introduction
170
Dichotomy of Energy Policies in the Caspian 171
The history of European policies aimed at the Caspian region date back
to the early 1990s. Regional support from European institutions was
offered in the form of institutional frameworks which were to provide
‘technical assistance’ and were, in essence, aimed at capacity building for
the new market economies which were about to unfold. Owing to their
importance and in order to prevent them from dysfunction following
the collapse of the Soviet Union, the oil and gas infrastructure became
the key area in which the EU initiated its early assistance. With economic
reform in mind, the then Newly Independent States (NIS) of the South
Caucasus and Central Asia had been offered technical assistance and oil
and gas infrastructure support through EU-funded programmes (Adams,
2002: 7). The Transport Corridor Europe-Caucasus-Asia (TRACECA) of
1993 and the Interstate Oil and Gas Transport to Europe (INOGATE)
initiated in 1998 opened up new foreign policy opportunities rein-
forcing the EU vision of what the region should be: a region of ‘contacts
with the Black Sea and Caspian Sea regions, as well as the Caucasus and
Central Asia via the east-west transport corridor’ (Nassibli, 2004: 170).
Those merely technical assistance programmes paved the way towards
policies of political engagement with the Caspian region and were
followed by a reshuffling of the security policy in Europe (Hanson, 1998:
14). NATO and EU expansion had marked a breakthrough in the balance
of power in Europe, leading to Russia’s negative reaction, seen as an
aggression of the Cold War era collective defence alliance towards the
former Eastern Bloc countries (Tsygankov, 2013: 186). The expansion of
the Euro-Atlantic structures coincided with Russia’s increasing reasser-
tion and consolidation of its role and its control over energy security
and transit of hydrocarbons to Europe (Baev, 2012). ‘Freeing’ the Caspian
region from Russian influence, a policy initiated by the US government
in the 1990s, was aimed at ensuring non-Russian and non-Iranian transit
of Caspian energy resources (Nanay and Smith Stegen, 2012: 347). The
Russian transit avoidance and development of alternative supply routes
from the Caspian via Georgia and Turkey coincided with the expansion
174 Slawomir Raszewski
according to the rules of the EU energy market game: playing the role of
a market and transit country for the Caspian natural gas. Yet, Turkey’s
aspiration to become a gas hub – with trans-shipment, storage and resale
of gas attached to the hub model in absence of legal and functional
powers of energy market – would go against the logic of the energy
community. An energy relation between the EU and Turkey based on a
gas hub model would effectively shift balance and comparative advan-
tage towards Turkey should it fulfil all the required elements of a gas
hub. Finally, such a relation would be viewed by the EU as going against
its goal of reducing dependence on supplies and routes.
European Union
Throughout the 2000s, the EU political focus has been on advancing its
strategy towards the establishment of a Southern Energy Corridor (SEC)
with the Nabucco gas pipeline project as its centrepiece. Also known
as the ‘fourth corridor’ where the other three are gas arteries linking
the EU with Algeria, Russia and Norway, the SEC refers to the idea of
building new gas infrastructures that would interconnect the Caspian
energy producers with energy markets in the EU (Raszewski, 2012:
xii). Overseen by the European Commission’s President and Energy
Commissioner, the Nabucco inter-governmental agreement, signed on
13 July 2009 and ratified by all five partner countries – Turkey, Bulgaria,
Romania, Hungary and Austria – fits with the objectives of a consumers’
energy security strategy perspective on the security gas supplies by
building a dedicated interconnecting pipeline and, thus, linking the EU
energy markets with energy producing countries of the Caspian region.
The Nabucco Intergovernmental Agreement granted ‘transit rights to all
signatories, even in the event that one of the partners would withdraw
from the project’ (Socor, 2012). The trouble was that the agreement did
not create a legal benchmark for future alternative pipeline options that
may be conceived in the future. Nor did it guarantee that the actual
Nabucco pipeline would be built (Raszewski, 2012: 240). Finally, the
EU was said to have supported primarily the Nabucco project without
necessary support to other projects (Roberts, 2011) such as the Trans-
Adriatic Pipeline (TAP). While the large-scale Nabucco project received
enormous political support within the EU, the choice of which pipeline
was to deliver gas to Europe was made by the industry. The consortium
180 Slawomir Raszewski
Russia
The central objective of the Kremlin over the last decade has been to
ensure and to maintain intact a regional status quo of Russian leadership
in security and geopolitical dynamics in the Caspian region. The Russian
ambition had been backed by the favourable economic environment
with high hydrocarbons prices in the early 2000s (Drobyshevsky, 2014:
149). The strong economic growth largely fuelled by oil and gas sales
to regional and international markets, in particular the EU, strength-
ened Russia’s role in the Eurasian energy matrix. From the weakness of
the 1990s to the glory of the 2000s, Russia became an actor to be reck-
oned with. However, the two consecutive EU enlargements into Central
and Eastern Europe have made Moscow realise the EU’s neo-hegemonic
status on the continent. Russia’s central role in the post-Soviet space in
economic and socio-political terms came to be challenged by the reori-
entation of some of the former Soviet countries’ foreign policies. With
the Baltic trio already in the EU, Georgia and Ukraine sought to engage
with the EU institutions, inevitably changing political and geopolit-
Dichotomy of Energy Policies in the Caspian 181
Turkey
Turkey has gradually reinvented its vision of the role it plays in the region
alongside Russia and the EU. To understand Turkey’s relation with the
EU in the 2000s it is necessary to underline key forces and evolutions
in Turkish domestic politics. EU-Turkey relations have progressively
moved away from the EU accession narrative. While a full membership
of Turkey in the EU is unlikely in the foreseeable future, close ties in
economic matters are expected to persist (Ferguson, 2013: 362). Yet,
with regard to its energy sector, the slow-down of Ankara’s acquisition
of institutionalised norms and values of the EU, required to successfully
transform its state-dominated energy markets, has been representative
of the increasing lack of momentum and interest from Ankara.
The fatigue of Ankara’s EU bid and dwindling popular support for
the idea of joining the ‘Christian Club’ led to the victory of the Justice
and Development Party (JDP), also known by its Turkish acronym AKP.3
Drawing on Turgut Özal’s policies of the late 1980s, the JDP foreign
policy making has been influenced by what Bilgin and Bilgiç call a ‘new
geographical imagination’ that is ‘based on a new conceptual foundation
that views Turkey not as part of a Western civilisation but as the emerging
leader of its own “civilisational basin”’ (Bilgin and Bilgiç, 2011: 173).
In energy security, because of Turkey’s unique locus stretched between
energy producers and exporters to the East and energy consumers and
importers to the West (Correljé and van der Linde, 2006: 533), the
structure of its energy sector is ambivalent. On the one hand, Turkey
maintains non-liberalised energy trade relations with its neighbouring
regions to the East who are mainly autocratic regimes with a state capi-
talist organisation prevailing as a form of governance. On the other
hand, market-based patterns of energy trade thrive with partners in the
liberalised West where the ‘predominant socio-economic organisation
includes pluralistic democracies and institutionalising or already insti-
tutionalised organisation’ (Özdemir and Raszewski, 2012).
The limits of the Turkish ‘civilisational basin’ are in Central Asia where
Russia holds geopolitical primacy, and advocates a broader framing
Dichotomy of Energy Policies in the Caspian 183
Over the last decade, the Caspian region has witnessed new geopolitical
realities resulting from the increasingly prominent activity from two
actors – Russia and Turkey – at the expense of the EU’s institutionalised
and market-oriented approach. The EU’s ‘norms and values’ approach
towards the region has proved to be a difficult one when dealing with
Central Asian states, in particular Turkmenistan. Attempts on the side of
the EU at a more geo-political approach when dealing with Ashgabat’s
gas policy – selling on its border while avoiding participating in interna-
tional pipeline projects – can be seen as an attempt by the EU to make its
energy policies more flexible. The flexibility of the EU’s policy approach
towards this Caspian country is a function of the troubled relations
with Russia and, to an extent, Turkey’s inability to influence change in
Turkmenistan’s policy. The changing rapport de force between actors and
the resulting impact of both Russian and Turkish integrationist policies
towards the Caspian, and broadly on the Eurasian space, has had and
continues to have an impact on the patchwork of regional instabilities.
Russia’s disengagement from the so-called Minsk Group overseeing
the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict may be seen as a
184 Slawomir Raszewski
Conclusion
Notes
1. Yet despite its non-ratification by Russia until the official decision of Moscow
to refrain from participation in the agreement in July 2009, the provisions
of the Treaty were applied in energy trade on temporary and selective bases
(Westphal, 2011: 2).
2. Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan
(European Union, 2009).
3. Turkish: Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, known among its political supporters as
AK Parti (ak is Turkish for ‘white, clean’) or AKP among its critics.
4. On Eurasian Union see Popescu (2014); Dragneva and Wolczuk (2012).
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Dichotomy of Energy Policies in the Caspian 189
At the center of the Caspian Sea energy complex is a land of the periphery.
A place on the margins, a place between places: Azerbaijan’s identity has
forever been a contested proposition. It is a ‘liminal realm’, a place of the
threshold, existentially ‘neither here nor there’.1 By assuming an iden-
tity defined in terms of energy, Azerbaijan has ‘centered’ its development
on ‘Euro-Atlantic’ geopolitical preferences. But in neither a domestic
order that is aggressively secular at a time of global Islamist mobilisa-
tion, nor a foreign policy that ostentatiously associates a Muslim polity
with the state of Israel, nor a strategic decision to associate a country
of the southern Caucasus with the Euro-Atlantic community, can this
centering be considered a natural development. And, now, amidst crisis
in Eurasia and uncertainty within the Euro-Atlantic system, Azerbaijan
may be tempted, on the strength of its wealth and its attractions, to
convert this centering into a strategic autonomy.
Shaped by the insecurities of a vulnerable actor with a good deal to
lose, Azerbaijan’s ‘unnatural act’ has been purchased both exogenously
with the currency of Euro-Atlantic energy and geopolitical priorities as
well as indigenously through the fashioning of a ‘petro-polity’, in order
to ease the burdens of liminality. Integral to the functioning of this
dialectic is the play of socially constructed threats, weaponized through
the use of what Mary Douglas called a ‘forensic model of danger’, the
process by which the defining of danger, or risk, becomes a political act
(Douglas, 1990; 2002: xix).
Azerbaijan exists within an ensemble of contradictions and dangers: at
the heart of the Caspian energy complex, yet burdened by the contested
identity claims inherent in a frontier space; consigned to a violent
190
Azerbaijan’s Rites of Passage 191
Vanities
About the nature and scope of the energy revolution in North America,
nothing of a consensus exists.2 What has emerged, however, is a
different discourse, a different medley of risk-and-reward calculation
(Yergin, 2012). The vision of the United States as ‘the world’s largest
192 Bradford R. McGuinn
Safety last
Azerbaijan has used its post-Soviet ‘energy identity’ to escape its liminal
status while associating itself with the Euro-Atlantic order. Our concern
here is with the mechanisms by which this centering has been effected.
Perhaps it is to the role of culture and language that we should look for
the best insight into the workings of a discursive politics of Azeri securi-
ty-seeking. At a foundational level, we might ask, with Aaron Wildavsky
(1987: 4), what it is that forms ‘interests’, that ‘mainstay of political
science’, that starting point for most international theory? In this view,
preferences (interests) are ‘endogenous’, they are ‘internal to organisa-
tions’ and ‘emerge from social interaction in defending or opposing
different ways of life’ (Wildavsky, 1987: 5). More specifically still, within
the domain of cultural theory can be located what Mary Douglas called
the ‘forensic model of danger’, with its patterns of politically defined
risk and strategic blaming (Douglas, 1990: 3).3
Security can be viewed, then, not as a concrete proposition, but as an
unstable confection of ideations and interests, shaped by actors through
processes of ‘framing’ and ‘securitisation’ (McDonald, 2008: 566).4 Such
a view requires accord with J. G. A. Pocock’s (1973) insistence that ‘poli-
tics itself is a language system and language itself is a political system,’
the contention that language is performative. Among these perform-
ances is incitement (see the discussion in Kurzon, 1998: 590), language
with the ability to ‘produce certain consequential effects’ upon the audi-
ence (Vandervenken and Kubo, 2001: 3).5
As Mary Douglas argued, objective danger does exist. But her interest
was in the ways in which risks are framed and marketed as political
propositions (Ungar, 2000). She was in accord with social constructivists
194 Bradford R. McGuinn
Margins
Haidar’s way
The Euro-Atlantic bargain was one Haidar Aliyev was keen to take up,
insisting that Azerbaijan’s identity ought to be considered in Euro-
Atlantic terms. Aliyev offered an escape from the insecurity occasioned
by the deterioration of Soviet institutions, the first violent expression
of which was the war involving Azerbaijan and Armenia. The war, its
ensuing chaos and Azerbaijan’s celebrated ascent, would form a powerful
‘transitionalist’ narrative. And if, as Mary Douglas suggests, ‘[c]ommu-
nities tend to be organised on one or another dominant form of expla-
nation’, Aliyev’s ‘energised’ repositioning story has proven a powerful
mechanism for the centering of Azerbaijan (Douglas, 1994: 5).
His ascent began in crisis. It was upon the visit of Leonid Brezhnev
to Baku in September 1982, when he ‘castigated the oil industry for
its failure to meet its targets,’ (Halliday and Molyneux, 1986: 33) that
Aliyev’s moment materialised. Changes were needed, it was argued, and
‘[t]he man responsible in official eyes for this transformation is Geidar
Aliyev,’ observers noted in 1986 (Halliday and Molyneux, 1986: 33). In
the late 1980s, he was a dominant figure in Azerbaijan, a place animated
by the new nationalist mobilisation of the Azerbaijan Popular Front and
confrontation with Armenia.
The new order began with the announcement of Azerbaijan’s inde-
pendence in 1991. After a troubled period, Heidar Aliyev presented
himself as a centering force. His ‘Azerbaijanism’ contrasted favourably
with the previous regime’s ‘Turkism’ as the normative foundation for
the country, especially at the time of the signing of the ‘contract of
the century’ between Baku and a number of the world’s major energy
companies (Tokluoglu, 2012: 323).
Since then, Azerbaijan’s ‘petro-polity’ has largely conformed to the
pattern of inverse relationships that often exist amongst ‘developing’
petroleum-dominated economies on the one hand and pluralism’s
progress on the other (Ross, 2001: 356; Kendall-Taylor, 2012). In one
telling, Azerbaijan is a ‘rentier state,’ built upon the loyalty patterns
associated with old Soviet power structures (Franke, et al., 2009: 112). It
is dominated now by elites who act as ‘rentiers’, an ‘autonomous social
group’, defined by its ‘rent-seeking culture’ (Franke, et al., 2009: 111;
see also Herb, 2005). For the Aliyev order, political risk was contained
through the institutionalisation of an ‘allocation state’, thereby unbur-
dening the government of the trials of seeking to collect income (and
menace) from the society through taxes (Franke, et al., 2009: 112). In a
198 Bradford R. McGuinn
system where ‘oil rents accrue directly in the hands of the state’, loyalty
is less a contract between state and society and more between (and
amongst) ‘patron-client networks’, (Franke, et al., 2009: 112) with its
attendant risks of institutionalising corruption and widening the gap
between state and society (Robinson, 2007: 1221).
The salience of the ‘informal realm’, the networks of interconnected
familial and functional associations, tells us something of importance in
terms of the ways in which sudden energy wealth has given shape to the
power structures in the post-Soviet borderlands (Collins, 2004).9 Still, a
facade of pluralism is important for the Azeri regime. There is, in fact, ‘no
ideological alternative to it’, as Dmitry Furman insists10 (Furman, 2008:
39). An ‘overt authoritarianism’ is the risk of placing Azerbaijan out-of-
bounds for the Euro-Atlantic normative system, for which a ‘pluralist
identity’ is an essential dimension of legitimacy. Overt, however, are
trends falling short of the pluralist ideal (Coalson, 2014). At another
level, demonstrations have been observable in Baku over the question
of headscarves and the government’s jitteriness over Islam’s presence in
the ‘public square’. ‘[L]aw-enforcement agencies will’, an Azeri official
asserted, ‘take objective steps over the protest’ (“Azeri Police Identify
‘Organizers’ Behind Headscarf Protest in Baku”, 2012). These tensions
serve as reminder that the epistemic foundation of the Azeri regime
(and the petroleum and financial expert class at its heart) is aggres-
sively secular, a bearing that has allowed the House of Aliyev to be so
effortlessly integrated into Euro-Atlantic systems (“Azeri Agency Reports
Results of National Survey on Politics, Religion, Economy”, 2012).
If the ‘command state’ is largely a ‘petro-polity’ meant to give
‘centering’ to a liminal realm, how can we speak of its institutionalisa-
tion? For Azerbaijan, when the bargain of socialism collapsed, it took
with it an active sense of the political and left a cascade toward de-polit-
icisation. A pattern of de-institutionalisation ensued, in which person-
ality (and dynastic power) has defeated process as informal networks
of power have replaced old Soviet organs of control (Mydans, 2003).
The ‘Azerbaijan state’, in contrast with the historic role of the old
interventionist ‘Moscow state’, is perhaps withdrawing from society,
leaving behind only its ‘mentality of control’ (Tokluoglu, 2012: 327).
The ‘command state’ can then be seen as a ‘regime’ of powerful fami-
lies, associations such as State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic
(SOCAR) and powerful ‘clans’.
How might a cultural approach, such as that advanced by Mary
Douglas, account for the way such an actor might consider its security?
In her framework of ‘grid and group’, she identified ‘cultural biases’ in
Azerbaijan’s Rites of Passage 199
Happy highways
This matter was made vivid in 2009 and 2010, when during a period
of tension between Russia and Ukraine, Gazprom cut Russian exports,
instigating an energy crisis for Europe (Pirani, Stern and Yafimava, 2009).
This episode reinforced the view that Ukraine was indeed a ‘transit space’,
making obvious its ‘liminal’ status and its attendant perils (“Ukraine
Investigates Tymoschenko over Russia Gas Deal”, 2012). It underscored
also the dependency felt by Europe upon Russian supplies and made
urgent the need for alternative sources of gas and their transit mecha-
nisms (“EU Backs Nabucco Pipeline to Get off Russian Gas”, 2009).
Russia’s concern not to have its influence obviated by the realisa-
tion of ‘Southern Corridor’ schemes such as ‘Nabucco’ (named after the
opera by Giuseppe Verdi, and meant to travel lyrically into southern
Europe), an EU-led project to provide alternative energy supplies to
Europe, prompted the advancement of its ‘South Stream’ project.
Envisaged to travel underneath the Black Sea and find its way to south-
eastern Europe, South Stream was an uncertain proposition (Marson,
2013). But the yield on the plan’s ‘forensic uses’ became tangible.
‘[T]he more that South Stream appears real,’ Christian Egenhofer
observed, ‘the more Russia can beguile Europe into thinking that
alternatives to Russian gas are unnecessary’ (Kanter, 2011). The mere
spectre of South Stream had about it the additional benefit of casting
‘doubts among Central Asian countries about the viability of Nabucco’
(Kanter, 2011). In its original form, Nabucco’s happy highway was to
reach Iran, Iraq and Turkmenistan, travel the length of Turkey then on
to southeastern Europe and complete its course in Central Europe. But
by June 2013 doubts became manifest with the ultimate rejection of
the Nabucco concept. ‘The United States’, Vladimir Socor argued upon
Nabucco’s rejection, ‘formerly a vocal supporter of the Nabucco project,
seemed to lose focus on this project, and some of its earlier interest in
the wider region’ (Socor, 2013). The American focus on such schemes
became softer still as its own energy story developed into 2015, while
Russia’s economic position weakened amid the softening of energy
prices. Nabucco and South Stream both can be seen as victims of the
North American story. What then of Azerbaijan?
Arts of association
suggests, ‘[b]laming is a way of manning the gates and at the same time
of arming the guard’ (Douglas, 1994: 19), the question of Nagorno-
Karabakh, the humiliation that attended Azerbaijan’s origin, must be an
organising theme in its statecraft (Tokluoglu, 2011).
Azerbaijan has centered itself in the territorialisation of memory. The
conflict with Armenia has afforded a measure of ‘ontological security’
(Giddens, 1984: 50–62; Mitzen, 2006), investing in the government a
‘special mission’ (Tokluoglu, 2011: 1225), one that confers upon the
system a mechanism of mobilisation and the symbolism of suffering. ‘I
am sure’, Ilham Aliyev asserted ‘that we will mark a victory day in the near
future’ (“Azeri Leader Pledges Victory in Karabakh War”, 2012). As with
Turkey, against whom the Armenian community has levelled charges of
enormous gravity, Azerbaijan has been ‘protected’ by America’s execu-
tive branch. Here the ideational question of a claim to human rights is
eclipsed by the material claim of the interests of state.
The securitisation of Islamist movements represent another foun-
dational aspect of Azeri threat mosaic (Mesbahi, 2010: 166). Prior to
11 September 2001, the ‘Islamic threat’ served as a point of conver-
gence between Azeri elites and those in the United States, Russia,
Israel, and Turkey (see the discussion in McGuinn and Mesbahi, 2000).
Recent events (Russia’s reassertion, Turkey’s transformation) have since
reframed the ‘strategic consensus’. Still, ‘Islamist containment’ remains
a central feature of the American-Azeri relationship (“NATO Envoy Says
Azerbaijan One of Most Important Partners”, 2012).
To the questions of Armenia and Islamist movements, can be added
the Azeri perception of the ‘Russian threat’.11 That Azerbaijan has been
able to construct a Euro-Atlantic identity was owed, in part, to Russia’s
structural weakening in the 1990s. Since then, energy wealth permitted
Vladimir Putin’s governments to assert a ‘Eurasian’ framework through
his Eurasian Union construct (Barakhova et al., 2011). Russia’s actions
against Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014, joined with its ability to
animate ‘frozen conflicts’ in the southern Caucasus, served to structure
and align the Euro-Atlantic and Azeri threat assessments (“Baku Rejects
Russian Military Base Plans”, 2012; “Russia Likely to Lose Azerbaijani
Radar Station”, 2012). The association of the Ukrainian crisis with
that of Nagorno-Karabakh, the suggestion that Russia might next
direct martial attentions toward the South Caucasus (Shaffer, 2014), is
meant to further associate Azerbaijan with Europe and NATO in facing
what, in referring to the situation in Ukraine, President Obama called
‘Russian aggression’ (“Remarks by President Obama to the People of
Estonia”, 2014).
202 Bradford R. McGuinn
The Turkish relationship has been more complex. Turkey’s early post-
Cold War attempt at influence seeking in post-Soviet ‘Turkic space’ gave
the secular and neo-liberal Turkish governments of the 1990s a privi-
leged place in the southern Caucasus and Central Asia (Yanik, 2004:
294). Haidar Aliyev was not Turkey’s preference, but as the Baku-Tbilisi-
Ceyhan pipeline question was fully joined by the late 1990s, expressions
of fealty were audible between the systems (quoted in Ivanov, 1997:
3). The Ceyhan route then became the tangible statement of Turkey’s
centrality within the Caspian energy complex (“Nabucco, TANAP Ink
Cooperation Accord”, 2013).
However, the electoral triumphs of the Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi (AKP)
and the foreign policy concepts identified with Ahmet Davutoglu were
problematic for Azerbaijan, especially the ‘zero problems’ theme that
threatened an unwelcome reduction in danger associated with the rela-
tionship between Turkey and Armenia. Worse yet, were the prospects of
Turkey having ‘zero problems’ with the Islamic Republic of Iran (Yinanc,
2012). Yet the Azeri risk inherent in the de-risking of Turkey’s subregional
policies has been balanced by the re-risking inherent in Syria’s crisis.
Its grim evolution has restored something of the integrity of the older
threat assessments animating Turkey’s association with America, Israel
and Azerbaijan (Uslu, 2012). But the deeper sources of affinity between
Azerbaijan and Turkey remain. ‘As the Prime Minister of the Republic
of Turkey and a representative of the entire Turkish people’, Davutoglu
said lavishly, ‘I say that Turkey will continue to be near Azerbaijan in its
fight until each square meter of Azerbaijani lands is liberated’ (quoted
in “Ahmet Davutoglu: Turkey Will Be Near Azerbaijan until Each Square
Meter of Azerbaijani Lands Is Liberated”, 2014).
The forensic utility of the ‘Iranian risk’ is a subtle proposition, informed
as it is by the depth of geographical and historical interdependencies
between Azerbaijan and Iran (“Iran-Azerbaijan Unity Beneficial to
Regional Stability: Aliyev”, 2012; Mammadyarov, 2007). ‘Baku’, Ilham
Aliyev asserted, ‘is a strategic friend of Tehran’ (“Iran-Azerbaijan Unity
Beneficial to Regional Stability: Aliyev”, 2012). ‘No country’, Iran’s
President, Hassan Rouhani said referring to Israel, ‘should be allowed
to spoil Tehran’s relations with Baku’ (Agayev, 2014). Such glad tidings
are, however, often overwhelmed by contention, which has its deepest
stirrings in the historical liminality of Azeri identity and the challenge
that poses to the national projects of both Azerbaijan and Iran (Nuriyev,
2012). Aliyev’s association with American power and Israel can, there-
fore, be seen as a central feature of Iran’s threat culture (“Party Demands
Autonomy for Azeri-Populated Part of Iran”, 2012; Morozova, 2005),
204 Bradford R. McGuinn
Notes
1. It was Victor Turner (1969: 95), who gave modern currency to this term.
‘Liminal entities’, Turner argued, ‘are neither here nor there; they are betwixt
and between the positions assigned and arrayed by law, custom, convention,
and ceremonial’. See the interpretation of Turner’s views in Mathieu Deflem
(1991: 7–8).
2. For general commentary, see U.S. Energy Information Administration (2012);
Ebinger, Massy and Avasarala (2012: 4); and Deutch (2012).
3. About cultural theory and risk, see Tansey and O’Riordan (1999: 73). See also
Van Gorp (2007: 62). On social construction and institutional theory, see
DiMaggio (1998: 700). And, for a treatment of risk and international rela-
tions theory, see Clapton (2011: 281).
4. See, foundationally in this connection, Buzan, Waever and de Wilde (1998);
Stritzel (2007); Watson (2011: 279).
5. See, foundationally, Austin (1962: 8). See also Seale (1969).
6. The term “Azerbaijan,” is itself, a contested proposition. See the discussion in
Saparov (2012: 283).
7. By ‘Turanist’ is meant doctrines expressive of the growing Turkish nationalism
that would find its expression in the ‘Young Turk’ revolution. See Mardin
(1962). On the evolution of these constructs, see Atabaki (2002: 220).
8. The term ‘toiler’, a fixture in Soviet vocabularies regarding ‘worker’s soli-
darity’, reminds us of the First Congress of the Peoples of the East, held in
Baku in September 1920. There, the idea was posited that the Soviet project
would make common cause with the colonized peoples of the east as a
counter to the west.
9. For theoretical perspective on the question of clientelism, see Hamzeh
(2001).
10. Furman warns against the tendency to view the ‘imitation democracy’ as a
‘transitional’ proposition. They are better considered, he argues, as ‘distinct
systems, functioning and developing according to their own logic’.
11. A tangible dimension of this relationship is discussed in Sahadeo (2012:
332).
12. On Iran’s ‘subversive’ activities, see “Four Iran-Linked Azeris Receive Lengthy
Prison Terms for Eurovision Terror Plot” (2012).
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Tansey, J. and O’Riordan, T. 1999. Cultural Theory and Risk: A Review. Health,
Risk and Society, 1(1), 71–90.
210 Bradford R. McGuinn
This book grew out of two major ideas. First, that power asymmetries
in regional contexts lead to the formation of hierarchies and therefore
to the emergence of regional powers. Second, that regional powers tend
to develop policies of proximity in order to structure the environment
around them in a favourable way. In the specific context of post-Cold
War Eurasia, both processes of regional hierarchy formation and of
projection of power towards neighbouring countries and communities
have been actively contested. The debates surrounding the relevance
of a regional hegemon for peace in Europe have taken many forms and
recent developments support John Mearsheimer’s argument that Europe
would be more prone to experience major crisis and war in the absence
of a clear balance of military power between hegemons (Mearsheimer,
1990). Others underlined instead that institutionalism and norms,
linked to domestic factors influencing the formation of preferences,
could provide the necessary means to achieve peace and prosperity
through cooperation (Hoffmann, Keohane and Mearsheimer, 1990;
Russett, Risse-Kappen and Mearsheimer, 1990).
Cooperation has been a major feature of inter-state relations in Europe
for most of the post-Cold War context and regional conflicts such as the
Balkan wars are generally seen as (ethnic and nationalistic) exceptions
to this cooperative approach (van Ham, 2006). Similarly, the so-called
frozen conflicts in the post-Soviet states of Eurasia can be considered as
anomalies in the inter-state system and as marginal security issues in the
overall European security order (Barbé and Kienzle, 2007; Simão, 2014).
In European Union (EU) discourse, the construction of the image of
peace and cooperation in Europe has been strongly linked to the process
of European integration and the diffusion of a rules-based European
society which has emerged within the EU.
211
212 Licínia Simão
This volume addresses two main areas of interaction and mutual interest
driving regional relations in the pan-European context and neighbouring
regions to the East and South. The first is the hard security realm of conflict
resolution and crisis management, including elements of regional polit-
ical, economic and social destabilisation, potentially resulting in armed
violence. In this area, power balance calculations based on hard power
alone are insufficient. Asymmetric warfare, soft-security threats, civilian
dimensions of (in-) security all combine to produce insecurity and drive
political action. The European Union stands as an example of an actor
with limited autonomous military capabilities, which nevertheless
remains a relevant regional security actor. Thus, regional calculations
of security have gained increasing complexity, requiring more advanced
conceptualisations of the dilemmas of merging military and civilian
tools and instruments, as in the case of migration and refugee manage-
ment in the Mediterranean (Financial Times, 2015). Also requiring more
thought are the complex relations between freedom and security, and
between democratic oversight and security operations, as in the case of
the fight against organised crime and terrorism. As different normative
and ethic visions co-exist in the pan-European area, and as mutual influ-
ence and pressure are deployed, these paradigms require comprehensive
analysis and open discussion.
The area of hard security also requires a clearer articulation of the princi-
ples sustaining international peace and security in the 21st Century as these
often rely on the most powerful states for implementation, protection and
diffusion. The value of sovereignty, territorial integrity, self-determination
216 Licínia Simão
This poses a final dilemma, which relates to the need to engage with
critical debates about the ideological nature of politics, often disguised
as technicality and depolitisation, or imposed under the impera-
tive of national security interests. Critical views on discourse and the
deconstruction of interest-formation are fundamental steps for sound
academic research and for responsible and democratic policy-making.
Thus, by addressing these pressing issues and pointing to the limitations
of conventional approaches, we hope to make a small but solid contri-
bution to the untangling of the complex dilemmas of the pan-European
context, pointing to some of the necessary conditions for more collabo-
rative approaches. This volume sets the agenda for further research deep-
ening the analysis of these dynamics and providing further insights on
the possibilities to overcome the dilemmas each regional power faces.
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