The meta-geography of the Middle East and North Africa in Turkey's new geopolitical imagination

Abstract

This article critically analyses Turkish security discourses connected to the meta-geography of the Broader Middle East and North Africa (BMENA) before and after the developments of the Arab Spring. A critical geopolitics approach and critical security theories in international relations provide the theoretical framework as security discourses are considered to be a product of geopolitical imaginations and codes that in turn shape the making of foreign and security policies. First the article examines the invention of BMENA as a meta-geography within Turkey's new geopolitical imagination as well as the new geopolitical codes underlying the new security discourses. Then the article assesses the impact of the Arab Spring which led to major changes in Turkey's newly established geopolitical codes formulated in the pre-Arab Spring period and analyses the ruptures and continuities in Turkey's security discourses in the light of those developments. Finally the article concludes that the Arab Spring especially the Syrian crisis shifted the focus of Turkey's foreign policy in BMENA from cooperation to conflict. This has led to a resecuritization of Turkey's geopolitical codes discourses and security practices in the region revealing the limitation of Turkey's current geopolitical imagination.