Emotions and norms in the Syrian refugee crisis: the comparative responses of the EU and Turkey

ABSTRACT

This paper delves into the evolving research area of emotions and norms within international relations, focusing on the EU-Turkey dynamics amid the Syrian refugee crisis. Utilizing Emotion Discourse Analysis (EDA), it examines discourses from key EU and Turkish leaders between 2011 and 2023 to understand how their emotional responses to Syrian refugees influence the universal norm of human rights. Since the specific interconnection between leadership emotions and human rights norms remains largely unexplored, this study seeks to fill this gap by examining how emotions expressed by leadership in Turkey and the EU variously challenge, protect, or construct human rights norms related to Syrian refugees. Preliminary findings reveal contrasting emotional expressions: while President Erdoğan’s discourse often aligns with the protection and construction of human rights norms, EU leaders’ emotions reflect a tension between human rights commitments and border security priorities.

KEYWORDS:

• Migration
• EU
• Turkey
• discourse analysis
• emotions
• Human Rights

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the guest editors, anonymous reviewers and all the authors involved in the special issue for their great work over the last two years and for their valuable contributions and feedback.

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1. In this paper, even though we acknowledge the fact that the official status of Syrian refugees in Turkey are defined as the Syrian nationals under temporary protection, we use the terms ‘refugee’ and ‘migrant’ for Syrian people fleeing from the civil war to Turkey, notwithstanding the legal differences of the terms since this topic is beyond the scope of this paper.

2. All speeches are numbered from the newest to the oldest and randomly selected through lot out of a sample of speeches containing the words ‘migration’ and/or ‘göç’. This is done to limit biased sampling of discourses and to equivalate the number of samples for all leaders in the analysis.

3. For Erdoğan’s last term in the analysis between 2019 and 2023, only 3 speeches have been found which contains the word ‘göç’ (migration). For this reason, the word ‘Suriyeli’ (Syrians) have been searched with 51 results because of the majority of textual context revolves around Syrian migrants.

4. European Commission. 2010. ‘José Manuel Durão Barroso President of the European Commission State of the Union 2010 Strasbourg, 7th September 2010.’ https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/SPEECH_10_411 (Accessed 27 July 2023).

5. Presidency of the Republic of Türkiye. 2014. ‘Dünya Ekonomik Forumu’nda Yaptıkları Konuşma, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.’ https://www.tccb.gov.tr/konusmalar/353/2938/dunya-ekonomik-forumunda-yaptiklari-konusma (Accessed 10 March 2022).

6. For another exemplary speech, please see “NTV. 2012. ‘Erdoğan’dan Suriyelilere: Zaferiniz uzak değil.’ https://www.ntv.com.tr/turkiye/erdogandan-suriyelilere-zaferiniz-uzak-degil,eh4IpDgi20OApyeeBVBIdQ# (Accessed 15 July 2023).

7. European Council. 2013. “’Post-Wall Europe’ – ‘Nach-Mauer Europa’.” https://www.consilium.europa.eu/media/25933/139438.pdf (Accessed 3 April 2022).

8. Presidency of the Republic of Türkiye. 2015. ‘7. Atlantik Konseyi Enerji ve Ekonomi Zirvesi’nde Yaptıkları Konuşma, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.’ https://www.tccb.gov.tr/konusmalar/353/36063/7-atlantik-konseyi-enerji-ve-ekonomi-zirvesinde-yaptiklari-konusma (Accessed 15 March 2022).

9. European Commission. 2015. “Speech by President Jean-Claude Juncker at the debate in the European Parliament on the conclusions of the Special European Council on 23 April: ‘Tackling the migration crisis.” https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/SPEECH_15_4896 (Accessed 2 March 2022).

10. Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Cumhurbaşkanlığı. 2016. ‘“UNESCO Gastronomi Kenti: Gaziantep” Programında Yaptıkları Konuşma.’ https://www.tccb.gov.tr/konusmalar/353/39884/unesco-gastronomi-kenti-gaziantep-programinda-yaptiklari-konusma.html (Accessed 20 July 2023).

11. European Council. 2015. ‘Address by President Donald Tusk at the 70th UN General Assembly debate.’ https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2015/09/29/tusk-address-un-general-assembly/ (Accessed 22 June 2023).

12. European Commission. 2020. ‘State of the Union Address by President von der Leyen at the European Parliament Plenary.’ https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/SPEECH_20_1655 (Accessed 6 August 2023).

13. State of the Union (SOTU) Speeches of 2013, 2012, and 2011.

14. State of the Union (SOTU) Speeches of 2018, 2017, and 2015. 2016 full text was not accessible.

15. van Rompuy’s video speeches are stored in the Council’s official website, though their written transcripts are not accessible. For this reason, three accessible random speeches have been included in the analysis.