Dicle Korkmaz - Turkey and the EU in an Energy Security Society: The Case of Natural Gas

Cover illustration: Vladislav Mitic / Alamy Stock Photo

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The journey of this book has been a long one, with many ups and downs. The book has its origins in my PhD thesis and is continued as a book. I am grateful for the support of many people and institutions during this long process each of which helped me to overcome difficult times and share happy moments.

I am indebted above all to my supervisor, Pami Aalto. Without his support and supervision, I would not have been able to reach this stage. His insightful comments and criticism always came at the right time and made me question my thoughts and writing. He did this in such a professional way so as not to deprive me of my independence. I was honoured to have Mert Bilgin and Pekka Korhonen as my external examiners, and Eero Palmujoki as my internal examiner. I am grateful to them and the valuable comments and feedback I received that allowed me to question my approaches and improve the text.

I received funding during and after my PhD from various institutions. I would like to thank Tuomas Forsberg, the Director of the National Graduate School of Political Studies (POLITU), and the administrative staff of the POLITU, which funded me between 2010 and 2014. In addition to POLITU, I received funding from the Centre for International Mobility (Finland) and travel funding from the POLITU, Tampere University, the Finland Peace Research Association and the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK). I had the opportunity to complete a post-doc to update my data and revise the thesis to be published as a book. Adapting the PhD thesis into a book would not have been possible without TUBITAKs post-doc scholarship, which I was awarded for the period of January to June 2019.

I am grateful to the academic and administrative staff of the Tampere University, Faculty of Management and Business for their support in my doctoral studies. It was an incredibly friendly and professional environment that I always felt very lucky to be a part of. Among the academic and administrative staff, I would like to thank in particular Tapani Turkka, who also provided me feedback to improve the text, Minna Hijer, Riitta Lehtimki, Sirke Mkinen, Maija Mattila, Hanna Ojanen and Sanna Tuurnas. During my doctoral studies, I had the opportunity to be a visiting scholar at The George Washington University, Elliott School of International Affairs, Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies between January and June 2012. I am grateful to my supervisor Robert Orttung for his support. Furthermore, I completed two Erasmus work placements, one at the Middle East Technical University, European Research Centre and one at the Ankara University European Research Centre. I would like to particularly thank Serif Onur Bahcecik, Sanem Baykal, Erdem Denk, Atila Eralp, and zgehan enyuva for their belief in my studies.

My post-doc studies would not have been accomplished without the support of Antalya Bilim University. Id like to thank my colleagues at the Department of Politics and International Relations for the invaluable friendship and their contribution to our academic environment, which is a perfect combination of amateur spirit and professional attitude. During the process of adapting the PhD thesis into a book, I had the opportunity to be a visiting fellow at The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies for six months in 2019. I had the privilege to get feedback from Patrick Heather, James Henderson, Anouk Honor, David Ledesma, Simon Pirani, Gulmira Rzayeva, Jack Sharples and Katja Yafimava. I am grateful for their constructive comments on how to improve the related sections. Furthermore, Id like to thank Kate Teasdale for her administrative support and Andrew Hudson for his help in obtaining access to the Institutes rich database. Moreover, I appreciate the support of Erisa Senerdem, Deputy Editor of Argus Media, for finding the recent data.

I conducted interviews with policy makers, representatives of the private sector, non-governmental organisations and think-tanks in Turkey in 2011, 2012 and 2018. I am grateful to all my interviewees whose names need to be kept anonymous. I participated in many doctoral seminars and international conferences during and after my doctoral studies where I was faced with many critical questions and constructive comments which contributed a lot to my thinking. I would like to particularly thank Andrei Belyi, Milja Kurki, Heikki Patomki and Evgeny Roshchin within this context. I would like to thank Ambassador Cagatay Erciyes for his support. I owe special thanks to Virginia Mattila and Ariel Surface for proofreading and improving the language of the text.

I am indebted to my friends in Finland and Turkey for all their help, support and friendship and for the enjoyable times we spent together. I am grateful to Johanna Muukkonen, Achillefs Papageorgiou, Mikko Perki and Tarja Sepp for the wonderful years we had during my stay in Finland. I am lucky to have the friendship of Burak Toygar Halistoprak, who also read some of the chapters and provided feedback to improve the text, Isil Cerem Cenker Ozek and Ozlem Badak. I have felt the support of Emre Temel in different periods of my life. Id like to thank him for his patience, tolerance and encouraging attitude.

The research process and this book not only contributed to my efforts to be a part of academia but also afforded me an opportunity to gain new friends, colleagues and strengthen my relationships.