Energy and Identity: Geopolitical Imagination of Turkey As an Energy Transit Country

Energy occupies an essential role in Turkey’s geopolitical imagination. Since the early 1990s, Turkey has been perceived as an energy transit corridor between the hydrocarbon reserves to the east and the energy markets to the west. This notion has also been heavily promoted by Turkish policymakers as a strategic asset to achieve political goals ranging from strategic partnership with the US to membership in the EU and rapprochement with Russia. The notion of an energy corridor overlapped with and reframed the traditional image of Turkey as a political and cultural bridge between the east and the west.

Situated at the intersection of energy politics and critical geopolitics, this article traces the evolution of the notion of energy transit as a constitutive aspect of Turkey’s foreign policy identity. By deploying process tracing and content analysis methods to analyze primary sources such as government reports, official statements, and newspaper articles, this article will explain how the image of Turkey as an energy transit country has been reproduced and how this particular aspect of Turkey’s identity shapes its foreign policy.  It will be shown that Turkey’s self-perception as an energy transit country has had a distinct causal impact on how it relates to other powers, including the US, the EU and Russia. Simultaneously, the way Turkish policy makers imagined the country’s role as a energy corridor has been shaped by the geopolitical milieu, ranging from the post-Cold War shifts in spheres of influence to contemporary post-Arab spring security environment.