Federico Donelli - Turkey in Africa: Turkeys Strategic Involvement in Sub-Saharan Africa

Turkey in Africa

Turkeys Strategic Involvement in Sub-Saharan Africa

Federico Donelli

Contents

I want to express my gratitude to the many colleagues with whom I shared this long research journey through a continuous exchange of insights and ideas, from which I benefited both professionally and personally. Among the many people to whom I am grateful, I especially want to thank my friend and trusted advisor Brendon J. Cannon. Second, I want to thank the many people in Turkey who have over the course of many years contributed to designing and improving the structure and content of the book. Between them, without taking anything away from all the others, a warm thanks to Muzaffer enel, a true friend. Third, I want to thank my academic supervisors of the Department of Political Science at the University of Genoa: Professor Giampiero Cama and Professor Elisabetta Tonizzi. Without their constant guidance, I would have probably gotten lost. Thanks also to my mentor and friend Professor Carlo Degli Abbati for the long talks and for helping me in moments of discouragement. My thanks also to the two anonymous reviewers, whose comments and critics have strengthened the book and my arguments. Finally, my most heartfelt thanks go to my family and particularly to my wife Monica. This book would not have been possible without her support.

The post-conflict system promoted by the US administration at the end of the Second World War, based on integrated security and guaranteed by a system of alliances and commercial openness, has undergone a process of adaptation over the past seventy years. At the end of the Cold War, the international system became, effectively, a global order. Several emerging actors or latecomers soon became the main beneficiaries of this system. The rising powers have been favoured especially by the opening to the global market, which has allowed them to grow rapidly and without any disruption. This trend has enabled them to fill the gap with more industrialized economies. Yet, the impressive economic performance has prompted emerging players to claim a greater role in global governance, partly challenging American hegemony. As a result, since the beginning of the new millennium a distinctive feature of global order developments has been the rise of emerging powers that have adopted non-military forms of soft balancing such as economic, diplomatic and multilateral action.

Asserting their new-found influence, these countries seek a reorientation of power towards multipolarity. It is a widespread belief among scholars that the next few years will be characterized by a trend towards a multipolar system in which the gradual downsizing of the Western countries power will correspond to the increase of the emerging powers. Articulated through an economically led diplomacy, the emerging powers have demanded a new set of international norms, a new trade agenda and equitable representation in the multilateral arena. The dynamics will make the regime change of global governance not a long shot.global competition has reached its peak in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) due to its enormous natural wealth, including vast deposits of precious minerals such as diamonds, gold and tantalum.

The huge resources are considered a primary source for fostering the growth of both traditional and rising economies. This demand for raw materials from emerging economies appears to be almost inexhaustible, which will lead them to increase their presence in Africa and strengthen their ties with the continent. The rising engagement of non-Western actors like China, India, Russia, Japan and Brazil, mainly in the economic field, has affected African relations with traditional Western partners on one hand, and it has led them to rethink African future development, on the other. Therefore, the new multipolar balance, although not yet defined, has given back centrality to the continent defeating a belief, assumed for a long time as true, that the position of Africa, and in particular SSA, would be irrelevant in the international arena as a politically empty space. Thus, the competitive and cooperative dynamics of the current multipolar system have been substantiated on the African continent. Nowadays, Africa increasingly appears to be an arena in which old and new extra-regional actors compete to gain important positions, driven by both economic interests and the desire to reflect, at least within the regional framework, the reshuffling of the global political hierarchy.

In an environment where Africas role in international politics is increasing and all traditional and emerging powers are in competition over access to the abundant natural resources of African countries, Turkey is also seeking to enhance its engagement in the continent. In this context, Turkey is a very young extra-regional player; indeed, it has only been operating continuously and effectively since 2005, designated in Turkey as the Year of Africa. In the last fifteen years Turkey has earned a special place among the extra-regional partners, becoming part of the emerging powers that have strengthened their ties with African countries. However, Turkish policy towards the African continent has presented characteristics that are distinct both from the traditional Western powers and from the other emerging players. Since the end of the 1990s Turkeys relations with Africa have shown an increasing revival, gaining momentum following the rise to power of the post-Islamist Justice and Development Party (JDP). In order to encourage this development, a change was necessary in the Turkish geographical imagination of both its own country, today conceived as an Afro-Eurasian state, and Africa, no longer considered a poor and backward place but as a fecund ground full of opportunities. Thus, Turkeys opening to Africa also had a profound psychological effect on Turkish policymakers and society. Since then the Ankara government has launched several initiatives with African states and assumed the role of a strategic partner within regional fora, such as the African Union, and intergovernmental organizations such as the United Nations and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). The active Turkish involvement in the Somali crisis that started in 2011 has deepened Turkeys presence in SSA, changing the nature of the Turkish role in the whole continent. Nowadays, Turkeys presence in the region has particular characteristics that differentiate it from other external powers. The current partnership agenda goes along with the idea of the Ankara consensus that is both an alternative approach to African sustainability problems and a useful political discourse to foster Turkish ambitions as an emerging global power.

The traditional consensus formulae are unable to explain the peculiar set of prescriptions that Turk ey promotes in SSA based on its own development experience, which mainly in light of the gradual democratic regression could be considered a mix of democratic liberalism (Washington consensus) and authoritarian capitalism (Beijing consensus). Besides, the notion of the Ankara consensus lends itself to include and synthesize Turkish public narrative in which the traditional South-South Cooperation rhetoric is mixing with Islamic humanitarianism and third-world discourses.

The book is based on the assumptions that the current reshuffle in the global balance will inevitably lead to changes in the framework of institutions, norms, rules and values on which the international society is based. A further outcome of these developments is the recovered centrality of the single regions and of the regional actors that operate within them. The present and future structures of the emerging international system depend, to a large extent, on the internal dynamics of the individual regions. In other words, it is impossible to understand the new international order without taking into account the role played by the individual regions within it. At the same time, it is impossible to explain the internal dynamics of the individual regional systems without grasping the complexity of the dense interconnections between the international system dimension and the domestic sphere of the actors involved. Among the latter, an increasing role is being played by the emerging powers. In addition to acquiring a primary position or the leadership in their respective regional contexts, these powers also operate beyond their borders with the aim of achieving a global relevance. This is the case of Turkey, which, since the new millennium, has adopted a multidirectional foreign policy with the aim of diversifying its political and commercial relations. Like other emerging powers, such as China and India, Turkey has also chosen to invest significantly in Africa through a distinct approach.