role of energy security in Turkish foreign policy

What is it about?

This chapter examines how the role of energy security in Turkish foreign policy has been constructed by ideational forces and material interests since 2004, when the Strategy Paper Concerning Electricity Market Reform and Privatization was issued. I argue that that the role of energy security in Turkish foreign policy was constructed both by the foreign policy elite’s normative principles about regional economic interdependence, which defined the social purpose of energy security based on the elite’s beliefs about Turkey’s cultural and historical ties in its neighbourhood, and by the material interests shared within the alliance between the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government and business in the conjunction of neoliberal regulatory reform in the Turkish energy sector. The chapter is divided into two sections. The first section defines Turkey’s energy-import dependency and highlights its puzzling asymmetric interdependence with gas suppliers. It also reviews early pipeline projects, which help us understand Turkey’s initial priorities and the related role of energy security in its foreign policy. The second section presents the interaction between ideational forces defining the social purpose of regional interdependence and material interests, which together have shaped the role of energy security in Turkey’s foreign policy. The last section concludes the chapter, and highlights the findings.

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Why is it important?

Although pipeline projects and Turkey’s geostrategic location between energy-rich countries in the Caspian and Middle East regions have been underlined in Turkish foreign policy for more than two decades, few studies have focused on the role of energy security in Turkish foreign policy. This chapter examines how the role of energy security in Turkish foreign policy has been constructed by ideational forces and material interests since 2004, when the Strategy Paper Concerning Electricity Market Reform and Privatization was issued.