A Psychoanalytic Approach to Turkish Foreign Policy: Crisis, Disorder, and Disorientation

ABSTRACT

What explains Turkey’s current foreign policy disorientation, causing the country to swing from one position to another in a relatively short period of time? We argue that rational arguments do not provide comprehensive explanations of the fluctuations in Turkish foreign policy. By utilising a psychoanalytic approach, this study argues that the relentless radical developments that unfolded at home and abroad in the past decade paralysed the Turkish leadership, disrupting their sense of order in international politics while detaching them from important geopolitical realities. Under this neurotic condition, Turkey’s leadership has engaged in a constant seek for recognition as a key regional player irrespective of how controversial these efforts may be. In making sense of this case, this study builds on the ontological security literature in International Relations and contributes to the existing debates on foreign policy crises by integrating a Lacanian notion of jouissance to the ontological security framework. It shows that the jouissance approach offers a productive lens which captures how an ontologically insecure state like Turkey follows disorderly conducts in international politics and gains satisfaction from it as a way to reassure its ruptured sense of actorness at times of multiple crises.

KEYWORDS:

• Turkey
• crisis
• disorientation
• foreign policy
• jouissance

Acknowledgments

The earlier version of this paper was presented at the British Academy funded workshop at Koç University in September 2023. We are grateful for insightful comments of numerous ontological security scholars in the mentioned workshop and feedback of two anonymous reviewers. All remaining errors are our own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. For a detailed take, see https://foreignpolicy.com/2010/05/20/turkeys-zero-problems-foreign-policy/

2. This work employs the words ‘subject’ and ‘agent’ interchangeably. It takes them as a being with the capacity to think, act, and manifest itself.

3. Ejdus (2018) sees crises as rare moments that they surface and end, albeit their end is not easy to locate.

4. In this sense, Lacan even argues that the alienation comes as a ‘basic condition’ for the establishment of subjectivity (Kinnvall and Svensson 2018, 906).

5. It should be underlined that the tensions between Turkey and the US, as well as the problematic relationship with the EU have also created permissive conditions for Turkey’s bold and reckless moves in its close geography. It is safe to argue that the US policies, that instigate tensions and divisions in the region, have contributed to the growing distance between Turkey and the US.

6. The state of emergency was declared following the coup and extended until 2018. Thousands of civil servants were sacked in this period.

7. Some scholars argue that Turkey purchased S-400s in order to include Russia as a security balancing actor against the US that would also help Turkey to safeguard its critical security interests at the lowest cost (Yetim and Hazar 2023). In line with this, Kutlay and Onis (2021) claim that buying S-400s was a strategic choice which would maintain Turkey’s presence in Syria. We agree these assertions. However, we argue that, with such a debatable move, Turkey’s political actorness in Syria has become seriously restrained by Russia’s Putin. This hinders Turkey’s seemingly rational acts as explored in this subsection.

Additional information

Funding

Both authors declare that they have not received any funding during the production process of the article.

Notes on contributors

Umut Can Adisonmez

Umut Can Adisonmez is Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science and International Relations of Izmir University of Economics, Turkey. His main research areas are emotions in IR, critical security studies, and Middle Eastern politics. His works have appeared in various journals such as Political Psychology, Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, Middle East Critique, and Uluslararası İlişkiler. Adisonmez currently serves as an Associate Editor of Alternatives: Global, Local, Political.

Lacin Idil Oztig

Lacin Idil Oztig is Associate Professor at Yıldız Technical University, Istanbul. She teaches Middle East politics and international organisations. She does research on border politics, democratisation, human rights, secularism, and populism. Her work has appeared in various journals including Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, Government and Opposition, Territory, Politics, Governance, Third World Quarterly, European Policy Analysis, Public Health, Middle East Policy, the Social Science Journal, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Journal of Borderlands Studies, and Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies. She is the editor of Alternatives: Global, Local, Political.