International Interventions and Turkish Foreign Policy Discourses Regarding Libya and Syria

In her chapter, Birsen Erdoğan analyses Turkish elites’ discourses regarding the situations in Libya in 2011 and in Syria after 2011. Utilising tools provided by post-structuralist discourse theory and the Essex School, she argues that the political elite’s interpretation of changes and events in the region is constituted by and constitutes their perceptions of Self and Other. She agrees that political subjects interpret changes (or crisis) in their social environment as threats (dislocation) or as opportunities. Discourses of crisis perceived as threat usually require policies aimed at more securitisation and even militarisation. They re-enforce the sense of nation, create enemies, and reconstitute borders. However, these changes can also be positive in elite`s interpretations. In such situations of crisis perceived as opportunity, the elite seeks possibilities to expand its influence and the sense of “us”. Thus, how a crisis is articulated may tell us how the elite will respond to it: either with more nationalist and aggressive policies or with welcoming discourses. In short, support for military interventions usually depends on the articulation of the situation by the political elite.