Exploring Emotions in Turkey-Iran Relations

Affective Politics of Partnership and Rivalry

Mehmet Akif Kumral

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9783030390280
• eBook ISBN:
  9783030390297
• Topic: Politica e relazioni internazionali
• Subtopic: Politica comparata

This book explores emotional-affective implications of partnership and rivalry in Turkey-Iran relations. The main proposition of this research underlines the theoretical need to reconnect psycho-social conceptualizations of "emotionality," "affectivity," "normativity," and "relationality." By combining key theoretical findings, the book offers a holistic conceptual framework to better analyze emotional-affective configuration of relational rules and roles in trans-governmental neighborhood interactions. The empirical chapters look at four consecutive periods extending from the end of First World War (November 1918) to the resuscitation of US sanctions against Iran (November 2018). In each episode, global-regional contours and dyadic dynamics of Ankara-Tehran relationship are examined critically. The century-long history of emotional entanglements and affective arrangements exposes complex patterning of "feeling rules." Two countervailing constellations still reign over relational narratives. While the 1514 Çald?ran war myth reproduces sectarian resentment and confrontational climate, the 1639 Kasr-? ?irin peace story reconstructs secular sympathy and collaborative atmosphere in Turkish-Iranian affairs.

© The Author(s) 2020

M. A. KumralExploring Emotions in Turkey-Iran RelationsMiddle East Todayhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39029-7_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction: Historical Psychology of Turkey-Iran Neighborhood Relations

Mehmet Akif Kumral¹

(1)

Independent Scholar, Balıkesir, Turkey

Mehmet Akif Kumral

Keywords

Turkey-Iran relationshipInternational historySocial psychologyNeighborhood normsEmotional practicesAffective structures

End Abstract

Canonical writings tell us that modern history of Turkey-Iran relations has been shaped by security considerations. Ankara and Tehran could hardly escape from strategic challenges embattling the regional countries (Brown 1984: 197–277; Walt 1987; Ehteshami and Hinnebusch 1997; Hansen 2000). In line with their common “middle-power” characteristics, Turkey and Iran pursued resembling regional policies, dubbed as “omni-balancing” (David 1991), to eliminate simultaneous internal and external threats to their national security and/or state survival (Olson 1998). As a corollary to their similar security calculations, Turkish and Iranian regimes have displayed traditional patterns of geopolitical behavior in regional affairs. Strategic assessments are still common among scholars and historians analyzing Turkey-Iran relations (Olson 2000; Ehteshami and Elik 2011). In these portrayals, balancing of power/threat and aligning of interests over the Kurdish issue are taken for granted as shaping regional dynamics in Turkey-Iran relations (Olson 2004; Elik 2011; see also Hentov 2012 and Charountaki 2018).

Available analyses on Turkey-Iran relations, such as those referenced above, mostly provide geopolitical readings of events within the broader history of the Middle East. By and large, conventional security approaches predominate the theoretical framework of historical studies on the subject matter. To a certain extent, strategic studies have covered important aspects of Turkey-Iran relations. However, these past perspectives have failed to fully grasp complex, deeper dynamics of social-psychological exchange in Ankara-Tehran interactions. I argue that the primary reason for this failure has emanated from the analytical preference centering on “patterns of state behavior” rather than “modalities of inter-state relationship.” By starting from unit-level behavioral assumptions, one would have ontological difficulty in building concise conceptual categories and theoretical propositions on modes of relationship that emerge out of inter-actions among those atomistic units. Relational and processual viewpoints (Emirbayer 1997; Emirbayer and Goldberg 2005; Jackson and Nexon 1999, 2013; Dépelteau 2018; Fuhse 2018) provide analytical alternatives to resolve those critical problems. By looking from relational and processual angles, and focusing on the level of relations instead of unit-state behaviors, we would be better equipped to deal with impending theoretical and empirical challenges of interpreting the history unfolding between Turkey and Iran. In many ways, this relational history presents persistent “pathological” (or perhaps pathos-logical) puzzles that still confound the international scholarship. Consider the connotations of confusing remarks extracted from a scholarly work on this topic, in which Turkey-Iran relations were viewed through the prism of middle-power statehood:

As the discussion in previous chapters indicates, the relationship between Iran and Turkey can be characterized as one of mistrust and this largely depends on the past experience and social memory of both the Turkish and Iranian peoples. Though both societies have been faced with the collective amnesia of religious and secularist apostasy, the relationship of conflict and cooperation make up their sub-conscious mindset … This research presumes that Iranian-Turkish trade volume has the potential to reach US$ 100 billion should both neighbors manage to overcome the aforementioned pathologies … Should they be successful in building a constructive relationship with regard to their respective economies, security management and energy infrastructures, these two regional heavyweights will be able to bring peace and stability on a regional level. (Elik 2011: 174–176)

This sample excerpt is representative of perplexing conceptualizations quite common in other works as well. It is an astonishing observation that how ambivalent affective-normative categorizations could be used arbitrarily, without thorough conceptual engagement with theories of social psychology and emotions. Examples include but not limited to some canonical titles portraying Turkey and Iran as “essential friends and natural enemies” (Çetinsaya 2003), “friendly competitors and fierce rivals” (Ayman 2014), “not quite enemies but less than friends” (Akbarzadeh and Barry 2017) or “the best of frenemies” (Tahiroğlu and Ben Taleblu 2015). As some scholars saw, conceptual oversimplifications (Stein and Bleek 2012) and cursory identifications (Hentov 2012) do not capture “uneasy” and “complicated” nature of interactions between two historical neighbors (Özcan and Özdamar 2010). Put in other words, the historical complexity of Turkey-Iran neighborhood relations calls for more systematic psycho-social research.

These preliminary inter-textual evidences constitute a prelude for revisiting Turkey-Iran diplomatic relations and grounding this history-historiography onto the theoretical canvas of international psychology and emotions. This new research space has not been an uncharted territory. Past portrayals still provide significant points of departure for psycho-social reinterpretation of historical interactions between Ankara and Tehran. There are emotional-affective themes found between the lines of prior research. These treatments establish thematic puzzles to be resolved through further theoretical and empirical investigations.

As a matter of fact, this book departs from the past puzzling conceptual ground and moves toward more concise analytical horizons. I adopt a pragmatic (discursive-contextual) variant of relational approaches to reexamine available historical/historiographical data and reinterpret emotional-affective implications of co-extensive partnership and rivalry between Turkish and Iranian governments. For these aims, I provide a compact conceptual framework and comprehensive empirical analyses on past states of psycho-social exchange and relational modalities of rule-making in Turkey-Iran interactions. The affective-normative contours of Turkey-Iran neighborhood relationship help to better understand historical trajectories of international transformation and regional (dis)order in the Middle East.

The inquiry has been designed and conducted by following “pragmatic” procedures of data collection and analyses proposed by “grounded theory” approaches (Timonen et al. 2018; Charmaz 2017; Tucker 2016). The methodological framework has been adopted from historical-textual approaches advanced in critical studies of emotion and affect in international relations, social sciences and humanities (Koschut 2017a, 2018a, b, c, 2019; Rosenwein 2002, 2010; Chatterjee et al. 2017; Wetherell 2015; Rice 2008). Along these lines, the book aims to make theoretically informed empirical contribution to the growing emotions literature in international studies (Markwica 2018; Hutchison 2016; Hall 2015; Ross 2014; Fierke 2013; Eznack 2012; Zarakol 2011).

As a broadly defined topic of key interest, the psycho-social implications of inter-state neighborhood practices and regional/local rule-making structures have not been thoroughly inquired (Chyzh 2017). Quantitative analyses of big data fall short of assisting case-specific conduct of inquiry on neighborly relations (Zhukov and Stewart 2013). Lacking sufficient data, qualitative researchers still seek more comprehensive applications of neighborhood concept in comparative cases covering (geo)political sociology and social psychology of borderlands (McConnell 2011; Doevenspeck 2011). In due course, affective-normative rules of dyadic-regional interactions among neighboring states have been investigated in a limited fashion (Williams and Nguyen 2018; Allen, Bell and Clay 2016; Johnson et al. 2011). That is to say, there is a further intellectual need and scholarly space to broaden conceptual research and deepen empirical analyses on historical transformation of “neighborhood effect” in various locales of world politics (Gartzke 2003; Gleditsch 2002; Rasler and Thompson 2000).

Taken as the topic of a long-term, single case study, the Turkey-Iran dyad reiterates the analytical purchase of examining inter-state neighborhoods as complex social-psychological processes unfolding within a relational spectrum of rivalry and/or partnership . In any case, the relational history of inter-state neighborhood indicates “managed hearts” (Hochschild 1983/2012) in stages of world politics and international diplomacy. Emotional practices, “feeling rules” and affective-normative structures (Hochschild 1979) mutually transform psycho-social history of trans-governmental neighborhood relations. By tapping further insights from historical sociology and psychology of international and regional rela...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction: Historical Psychology of Turkey-Iran Neighborhood Relations
• 2. The Formative Emotional Climate of Turkish-Iranian Relations (1918–1945)
• 3. The Affective Atmosphere of Ankara-Tehran Alignment in Cold War (1946–1979)
• 4. Reformative Psychology in Turkey-Iran Interactions (1980–2000)
• 5. Psycho-Social Revisions in Turkey-Iran Neighborhood (2001–2018)
• 6. Conclusion: Overall Findings and Research Recommendations
• Back Matter