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Abstract
This research provides insights into regional middle powers’ postures and constraints, showing evidence of a gradually structured peace dividend resulting from networking economic development in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Using three case studies, Turkey/Israel, Iran/Pakistan, and Turkey/Iran, this research demonstrates that external regional constraints and internal capacity needs have facilitated strategic economic relations, including joint electricity, gas, and water projects, joint infrastructure and technology initiatives, and joint R&D and military industries. In turn, this strategic networking of economic development projects has restricted these states’ reactions to tension and conflict, prompting them to negotiate and engage in diplomacy to resolve bilateral disagreements so as to not compromise their mutual economic interests. This research contends that the security dilemma faced by middle power states in MENA is a motivator for economic integration even when there is no clearly expressed desire for peace. Economic integration increases their bargaining leverage with the West, while simultaneously resulting in bilateral conflict reduction behaviour patterns. This research further discusses the implications of categorising regional middle power states as regional stability facilitators, since economic integration can satisfy their security concerns, maintain their middle power statuses, and restrain the possibility of war.
Notes
1 Israel, Pakistan, Iran, and Turkey, as regional middle powers, experience democratic elections at the presidential and parliamentary levels, with documented non-violent transitions of power. Their respective attempts to assert influence in a highly contested region are expressed in the form of strategic hedging, which are strategies employed in light of an uncertain future, where states look for security and resources through general diversification (see Tessman Citation2012, 203). Economic integration and networking development in this sense is an expression of strategic hedging for these states, resulting in a modified foreign policy geared toward reducing tension and resolving bilateral conflicts peacefully.
2 This article refers to the third type of economic integration theory other than the classical first type, which focuses on economic benefits, or the second type that focuses on economic arrangements. The third type focuses on effects, benefits, and constraints of economic integration on developing nations (see Marinov Citation2014).
3 Internally, these states, despite having powerful security apparatuses, experience democratic elections, at the presidential and parliamentary levels, with documented non-violent transitions of power, noting of course the autocratic control of the religious council and Revolutionary Guard in Iran, the dominance of the military establishment in Pakistan, and the amplified presidential powers vested in President Erdoğan in Turkey.
4 Further expansion on Democratic Peace Theory is explored in Daniele Archibugi’s The Global Commonwealth of Citizens: Toward Cosmopolitan Democracy (Citation2015), in which he discusses the inter-democracy non-aggression hypothesis.
5 Hegemonic orthodoxy refers here to the international liberal order led and maintained by the United States through international norms, and intergovernmental financial and economic institutions. These regional middle powers are in constant bargaining mode with great powers as options of alignment where security guarantees are offered by the United States and Europe as well as Russia and China. According to Schelling (Citation1960), bargaining power depends on credibility of threats and promises, pointing out that domestic constraints can serve as an advantage in bargaining situations. Turkey, for example, pointed to its domestic constraints, and the option of ‘leaving the customs union’ and expanding eastward during the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations with the EU in 2015. Trade pressures and other forms of coercive international bargaining were studied extensively by Schoppa (Citation1999), where he investigated the shift in the material and social context which might prompt a smaller power to ‘stand up to’ great power demands.
6 Ikenberry (Citation2016) discussed the strategies followed by ‘middle states’ in East Asia as they adjust to the ‘dual hierarchy’ of America and China in the region, explaining how middle states pursue strategies of engagement and hedging in pursuit of security.
7 Israel’s trade agreements can be found at: http://www.chamber.org.il/38991/39012/israels-trade-agreements, accessed 8 October 2017.
8 Kirisci and Ekim (Citation2015) detail the role of the business communities in Turkey and Israel who exert pressure periodically on state officials to not let politics interfere with business.
9 Law No. 6446 Electricity and Market Law (2013) (Turkey): http://www.lawsturkey.com/law/electricity-market-law-6446, accessed 8 November 2017.
10 See the Bloomberg article on communications with Zorlu Enerji (Ersoy Citation2016) and Iran’s denial of these talks with the Israel-linked Turkish firm in the Press TV article (Press TV Citation2016).
11 Iran and Pakistan are the founders of the 1985 Economic Cooperating Organization (ECO), a Eurasian political and economic intergovernmental organisation set to promote and improve economic development, trade, and investment opportunities and cross-border infrastructure, to establish a single market for goods and services. The ECO secretariat and cultural department are located in Iran, its economic Bureau is in Turkey, and its scientific bureau is located in Pakistan. Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey are also members of the D-8, an alliance of eight Islamic countries focused primarily on cooperation and collaboration in the areas of economics, politics, security, and culture.