Europeanization of State Capacity and Foreign Policy: Turkey in the Middle East

Abstract

Turkey's growing regional presence in the Middle East has been at the centre of several debates recently. This article approaches the debate on Turkey's foreign policy towards the Middle East from a Europeanization perspective. The article assesses the Europeanization of state capacity in relation to Turkey's foreign policy towards the Arab Middle East from 1999 to 2010. It is argued that Turkey's EU accession process has transformed the state, business and increased state capacity to implement Turkey's foreign policy towards the Middle East. This transformation enabled the Turkish government and business actors to improve Turkey's political and economic relations with the Arab Middle East.

Acknowledgements

The research on which this article is based was funded by the Overseas Research Students Award Scheme and The University of Sheffield. I am indebted to Simon Bulmer, Ian Bache, Ali Tekin, Pınar Gözen Ercan and three anonymous reviewers for their invaluable feedback.

Notes

¹ See Radaelli (2004) for inertia and retrenchment as possible outcomes of Europeanization.

² For a study linking Turkey's Europeanization in the area of rule-of-law to state capacity, see Noutcheva and Aydın Düzgit (2012) and for an overview of how the EU accession process strengthened the regulatory capacity of the state in Turkey see Öniş and Bakır (2007).

³ This approach does not rule out the potential impact of other factors; however, the goal of this paper is to demonstrate the impact of the EU integration process on Turkish foreign policy towards the Arab Middle East.

⁴ For a critique of strong state argument in Turkey, see Dinler (2003).

⁵ This scope covers the Mashreq countries – Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon and Syria.

⁶ IKV homepage. The financial assistance, in the form of grants and credits in this period, was to be used to address priority reform areas raised in the Accession Partnership Document for Turkey. Available at http://www.ikv.org.tr (accessed 20 December 2011).

⁷ Although the TAF is still an important actor regarding Turkey's foreign policy toward Northern Iraq in the context of the fight against PKK terrorism; it has pursued consensus with the civilian government and therefore did not cause concern for the EU (Commission of the European Communities, 2008: 82). Interview with a former civil servant at the EU Secretariat General of Turkey, Ankara, Turkey, May 2010.

⁸ Bülent Arınç, a founding member of the AKP, has stated in an interview that the successive military interventions triggered him and the others who founded the AKP to pursue the EU target (Yetkin, 2005).

⁹ Previous Islamist parties were dissolved by the state elite. The Nationalist Order Party was dissolved in 1971 and the WP in 1998 by the Constitutional Court for violating the principles of laicism.

¹⁰ SME development projects were increasingly funded by the EU especially after 2001. The EU–Turkish Business Centres (ABIGEM) were established by the TOBB and numerous projects were financed by the SME Development Organization (KOSGEB) with EU funds since 2002. See Turkish Small and Medium Scale Enterprises Development Organization (KOSGEB) website. Available at http://www.kosgeb.gov.tr.

¹¹ The AKP amended the Public Procurement Law that had been a condition of EU membership in order to favour its domestic SME constituency. Also the change in the Labour Law to allow firms with fewer than 30 employees to make employees redundant at will was another significant benefit for the SMEs. Civelekoğlu (2011: 75–6) explains these cases in detail.

¹² There have been other periods of active foreign policy in the Middle East; however this was the first step since the 1990s.

¹³ It is the SMEs rather than big business that were significant drivers of Turkey's economic activism towards Africa and the Middle East (Özcan, 2010). Interview with a Turkish civil servant of EU affairs, Ankara, Turkey, May 2010. Almost 60 per cent of total exports in 2009 were by SMEs (Hurriyet Daily News, 13 January 2011).

¹⁴ Such as the free trade agreement signed with Syria in 2004 and visa exemption agreement in 2009; free trade and visa agreements with Jordan in 2009; visa exemption agreement with Lebanon in 2010. Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs website. Available at http://www.mfa.gov.tr. For the bilateral air service agreements, see Turkish Directorate General of Civil Aviation website. Available at: http://web.shgm.gov.tr/kurumsal.php?page = haberler&id = 1&haber_id = 1013