Turkish Efforts in Peacekeeping and the Introduction of the TUBAKOV Dataset: An Exploratory Analysis

ABSTRACT

This study introduces the TUBAKOV dataset, which offers extensive data on 57 peacekeeping operations (PKOs) that Turkey has contributed to between the years 1988–2015. TUBAKOV improves existing data in several ways. First, it draws data from governmental resources that have not been previously used. Second, Turkey's contributions for each PKO are presented both at the levels of PKO and PKO-contribution year format. The website of the dataset also allows access to qualitative data such as primary text sources, hence facilitating qualitative and multi-method research on peacekeeping. Preliminary analyses indicate that the frequency, nature and the geographic focus of Turkey's contributions to peacekeeping operations demonstrate a significant shift with the new millennium. Preliminary findings offer interesting insights to the changing characteristics of Turkey's PKO involvements relating to the content, geography and timing of these contributions over the time period covered by this dataset.

Acknowledgements

This study was funded by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) ARDEB 3001 Grant No 114K985. The authors would like to thank Sibel Kalemdaroglu for her research assistance and Nil Satana for her invaluable advising throughout this project.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

About the Authors

Haldun Yalçınkaya is Professor at the Department of Political Science and International Relations at TOBB University of Economics and Technology (ETU). He is a graduate of the Turkish Military Academy and obtained his Ph. D. from Istanbul University.

Emre Hatipoglu is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Sabancı University, and a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at Columbia University. He obtained his Ph. D. from The Pennsylvania State University.

Dilaver Arıkan Açar completed Ph. D. at the Department of International Relations, Middle East Technical University (METU), Turkey. He currently is Assistant Professor and Vice-chair of the Center for Mediterranean Studies at Yaşar University.

Mitat Çelikpala is Professor of International Relations and the Acting Dean of the Faculty of Economics, Administrative and Social Sciences at Kadir Has University. He obtained his Ph. D. from Bilkent University.

ORCID

Emre Hatipoglu http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5927-4423

Notes

1 Balas et al., “Demanding Peace,” 195–226; Thakur and Schnabel, “Cascading Generations of Peacekeeping,” 3–25.

2 Fortna, Peace Time. Since the increasingly complex nature of missions has been ‘blurring the lines between traditional understandings of peacekeeping, peacebuilding and peace enforcement’, we adopt an encompassing definition of a PKO that covers any of these types, initiated by an IO or a regional actor. See Bellamy and Hunt, “Twenty-First Century UN Peace Operations,” 1277.

3 Stairs, “Of Medium Powers and Middling Roles,” 281–2.

4 Ravenhill, “Cycles of Middle Power Activism,” 309–27; Kenkel, “South America's Emerging Power,” 644–61.

5 Satana, “Turkey,” 371; Black, “Addressing Apartheid,” 118. Nossal, Politics of Canadian Foreign Policy. Also see Bischoff, “External and Domestic Sources of Foreign Policy Ambiguity,” 183–201.

6 TUBAKOV: TUrkiye BArışı KOruma Veritabanı (Turkey Peacekeeping Dataset).

7 Kathman, “United Nations Peacekeeping Personnel Commitments.”

8 See, for instance, Satana, “Turkey”; Oğuzlu and Güngör, “Peace Operations and the Transformation of Turkey's Security Policy,” 472–88; Bağcı and Kardaş, “Exploring Turkey's Role in Peace Operations,” 125–45; Koçer, “Türkiye’nin Barıs Destekleme Harekatlarına Katkısı,” 47–71.

9 See, for instance, Soeters et al., “Turkish–Dutch Encounters in Peace Operations,” 354–68; Yalcinkaya, “Nongovernmental Organizations–Military Security Collaboration Mechanism,” 489–510; Bayer and Keyman, “Turkey,” 73–90.

10 So, “Korea's Middle Power Activism and Peacekeeping Operations,” 287–99; Ravenhill, “Cycles of Middle Power Activism,” 309–27.

11 The dataset is hosted under International Relations Council of Turkey's web page and can be reached at www.uik.org.tr/tubakov.

12 Turkey's first contribution to an international peace operation was during the Korean war in 1950 under the UN mandate, with a view towards becoming a member of the trans-Atlantic alliance. We chose to start our dataset in 1988, however, with Turkey's second PKO contribution, UNIMOG, which was established following the end of the Iran–Iraq war. This decision regarding the Turkish re-involvement also almost coincides with periodization of classical PKOs’ dramatic increase, both observer missions and peacekeeping force deployments in terms of numbers and scale after 1987, while allows as well for a rough overlap with post-Cold War era and render a meaningful periodization for our dataset. See Bobrow and Boyer, “Maintaining System Stability,” 730.

13 This end year is the last year of the overall PKO operation if Turkey remained a contributing state until the operation was formally ceased. Turkey never officially withdrew its contributions, and then, officially rejoined an ongoing PKO.

14 Onis and Yilmaz, “Between Europeanization and Euro-Asianism,” 7–24.

15 Diehl, “Future Directions for Peacekeeping Research,” 481–3.

16 Oğuzlu and Güngör, “Peace Operations and the Transformation of Turkey's Security Policy,” 472–88.

17 For the sake of brevity, observers will refer to both observers and experts on mission in this paper.

18 In 24 of the 57 cases in our dataset, Turkey deployed peacekeepers within the first day of the official start of the PKO.

19 Turkey pulled out of UNAMA on 30 September 2015. The operation was active by the end of the project. Turkey was an active member of 15 other ongoing PKOs by the time the TUBAKOV project finalized.

20 If the operation took place in more than one country, the distance between Ankara and the closest of the capital cities was calculated.

21 The population of all UN peacekeeping operations was taken from the UN webpage at the following link: http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/documents/operationslist.pdf. Turkey contributed to 26 of the 69 UN PKOs (38%) that have taken place between 1948 and 2013.

22 Hofmann, “Why Institutional Overlap Matters,” 101–20; Muftuler-Bac, “Turkey's Role in the European Union's Security and Foreign Policies,” 489–502; Hürsoy, “Regional Dimension to Peace Operations,” 403–4.

23 We do not include EULEX Kosovo in our count since this mission is exclusively civilian and hence fall outside the scope of our interest.

24 Blockmans, “Participation of Turkey in European Security and Defence Policy,” 41.

25 Lipson, “Performance under Ambiguity,” 259.

26 Aras, “Turkey's Rise in the Greater Middle East,” 29–41.

27 Kasapoglu, “Lebanon Mission Launchpad for Turkey's Foreign-Policy Agenda.”

28 Ziyal, “Re-conceptualization of Soft Security and Turkey's Civilian Contributions to International Security,” 1–8.

29 Correlates of War Project, State System Membership List.

30 United Nations World Development Indicators Database, Country Notes.

31 Turkey has simultaneously contributed troops, police officers and observers to UNAMID, TIPH2 and UNMIK missions.

32 The number of official Turkish contributions of observers ranges from 1 to 9 observers for a total of 12 distinct missions.

33 These four missions are listed, in descending order, according to the level of maximum troop contributions. Notable is that UNPROFOR, IFOR and SFOR are consecutive missions in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

34 Greenberg-Lin, “Airpower in Peace Operations Re-examined,” 439–53.

35 de Oliviera, “Naval Peacekeeping and Piracy,” 48–61.

36 See, for instance, Bratt, “Assessing the Success of UN Peacekeeping Operations.”

37 See, for instance, Shimizu and Sandler, “Peacekeeping and Burden-Sharing,” 651–68.

38 The inclusion of the number and type of navy ships and aircrafts committed to PKOs is a key feature that distinguishes TUBAKOV from Kathman, “United Nations Peacekeeping Personnel Commitments.” In addition, TUBAKOV builds in Kathman (“United Nations Peacekeeping Personnel Commitments”) by covering a longer time span, and including data for non-UN PKOs.

39 Romania has given active support to NATO during the 1999 Kosovo campaign, become an official candidate for NATO in 2002 and a full member of NATO in 2004. Poland was invited to NATO in 1997 and was admitted as a full member in 1999. Both countries had signed a PfP Framework Document in 1994 and were party to the PfP Programme before their membership to NATO.

40 Karacasulu, “Reconstruction of Afghanistan and the Role of Turkey,” 48.

41 Clayton et al., “Known Knowns and Known Unknowns of Peacekeeping Data.”

42 Kathman, “Personnel Composition and Member State Contributions to United Nations Peacekeeping Operations,” in Clayton et al., “Known Knowns and Known Unknowns of Peacekeeping Data,” 3–8.

43 We would like to thank an anonymous reviewer for suggesting this improvement.

44 Ruggeri et al., “Winning the Peace Locally”; Townsen and Reeder, “Where Do Peacekeepers Go When They Go?”

45 Wilén, “Capacity-Building or Capacity-Taking?”

46 Interview with a senior Turkish Army Officer, December 12, 2015.

47 Bullion, “India and UN Peacekeeping Operations”; so, “Korea's Middle Power Activism and Peacekeeping Operations” and Abdenur, “Rising Powers in the Stormy Seas.”

48 Kalaycıoğlu, “Public Choice and Foreign Affairs,” 59–83. Kennedy and Dickenson, “Turkish Foreign Policy and Public Opinion,” 171–88.

49 Hatipoglu, Aslan, and Luetgert, “Turkish Foreign Policy.”

50 We would like to thank an anonymous reviewer for pointing out to this potential area of inquiry.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by the Türkiye Bilimsel ve Teknolojik Araştirma Kurumu (TUBITAK) (Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey) [ARDEB 3001 grant number 114K985].