Introduction: The study of Turkey-Syria relations

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Chapter 1
Introduction:
The Study of Turkey-Syria Relations
Raymond Hinnebusch
The dramatic recent changes in relations between Syria and Turkey constitute a
fairly exceptional phenomenon. In less than a decade the two states went from
the brink of war, engaged in a very ‘realist’ power struggle in the late nineties,
to amity, even alliance in the 2005–10 period, and then, after 2011, regressed
again to enmity. These changes arguably had signicant consequences for the
region’s stability and for the ambitions of various actors, including those of the
US hegemon in the region. We seek to describe and explain these changes and
their consequences for the regional system.
As an arguably important and unusual case, Syria-Turkey relations can
contribute to the literature on foreign policy change and on alignments; on the
conditions for movement from conict to cooperation; and on regionalism in an
era of globalization, all major concerns of IR theory. The case can throw light
on major debates in IR theory between rival schools such as realism, liberalism
and constructivism on issues such as the relationship between material and
ideational factors and on the relative weight of systemic and domestic factors as
determinants of foreign policy and alignment change. This introductory chapter
identies and conceptualizes the phenomenon we seek to understand, the Syrian-
Turkish relationship, breaking it down into its distinct phases, trying to locate it on
a conict-cooperation continuum and examining rival explanations of change in
the relationship. Finally, it summarizes the organization of the book.
Describing the Change in Turkey-Syria Relations
Phases and Watersheds in the Changing Relationship
How can we conceptualize and also measure change in the Turkey-Syria relation?
In conceptualizing the relationship, it is rst necessary to disaggregate the
‘variable’ we seek to understand into several distinguishable, even if overlapping,
phases, that ought to be separately explained: 1) the deterioration of relations
leading to near war (mid-80s to 1998); 2) the gradual normalization of relations
(1998–2003), accelerating into a movement toward amity and alliance (2003 to
2010); 3) regression toward enmity over the Uprising in Syria starting in March
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Turkey-Syria Relations
2
2011. Categorization and explanations for one phase would not be adequate to
understand others.
The First Deterioration of Relations: In this phase there was a steady deterioration
of relations over water sharing and Syrian support for the PKK (Partia Karkeren
Kurdistan – Kurdistan Workers’ Party), with repeated failures of diplomacy to
resolve the issue, culminating in the decision of Turkey to threaten war. Watersheds
include the agreement of July 1987 during the visit of Prime Minister Özal to Syria
that Turkey would guarantee release of half the average ow of Euphrates water in
return for a security protocol on terrorism; the 1990 Turkish diversion of Euphrates
water to ll the Atatürk Dam; the 1993 visit of President Demirel to Syria when
he confronted Asad over PKK leader Öcalan’s continuing use of Syrian refuge to
direct terrorism against Turkey; the 1996 movement of Turkey into alignment with
Israel against Syria; the 1998 showdown when Ankara massed 10,000 troops on
Syria’s border; Syria’s submission to Turkey’s threats leading it to expel Öcalan;
and the 1998 Adana security accord. Various aspects of this phase are treated in
the existing literature, including work on the water dispute by Daoudy (2009) and
by Kibaroğlu and Ünver (2000); on the Kurds by James and Özdamar (2009) and
Olsen (2000); and on the dynamics of the crisis, by Aykan (1999), Alantar (2001),
Sezgin (2002) and Aras and Köni (2002).
From Normalization of Relations to Amity: While relations might have remained
tense or cold in the aftermath of the crisis, Turkey took the opportunity to normalize
relations and Syria, despite its humiliating climb-down, responded positively. The
Adana Accord set up a direct telephone line and provided for regular meetings of a
joint security committee. The security agreement proved successful and the 2000
attendance of Turkey’s President Sezer at the funeral of Haz al-Asad consolidated
the normalization of relations. Beginning in the early 2000s, the two states went
beyond simple normalization, toward amity, even alliance. A major turning point
in this was the similar opposition of the two states to the approaching Iraq war and
its outcome, the destruction of Iraq’s central government. In 2004 Bashar al-Asad
made a historic visit to Turkey and declared that the creation of a Kurdish state in
Iraq would cross a ‘red line’ for Syria and Turkey. In 2004 Turkish Prime Minister
Erdoğan refused an invitation to visit Israel from Prime Minister Sharon, owing
to Israel’s repressive policies in Palestine, and visited Syria instead. For Syria, the
most pivotal moment was President Sezer’s visit to Damascus in April 2005 at
the time of US/French pressure on Turkey to isolate Syria over the assassination
of Lebanese Prime Minister Raq al-Hariri. A major innovation was the Turkish
mediation of indirect Syrian-Israel peace talks in 2008. The same year, meetings
of the ‘Trilateral Front’ composed of the Syrian, Iranian, and Turkish leaders
manifested their common interest in preventing the fragmentation of Iraq. In
2009, Turkey’s relations with Israel, already strained over Israeli support for Iraq’s
Kurds and its treatment of the Palestinians, and by Turkey’s attempt to legitimate
and bring Hamas out of international isolation, further declined, symbolized by
Erdoğan’s walking out of a public appearance with Israeli president Shimon
Peres during the Gaza war; then the ‘otilla’ incident of 2010 seemed to end any
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Introduction 3
remnant of a Turkey-Israeli alignment. In 2009 Turkey and Syria launched their
rst joint military exercise; for Syria, this sent a political message to Washington
and Israel while Turkey saw it as contributing to the security of its borders. This
phase is treated in existing literature, particularly by Altunışık and Tür (2006);
Aras (2005); and Aras and Polat (2008).
Back to Enmity? The Syrian Uprising of 2011 interrupted the deepening of the
relationship and introduced severe strains into it. In the initial period of turmoil,
Turkish leaders urged the Syrian president to respond with political reform, rather
than repression; when this advice was not taken, the tone from Ankara became
more hectoring, with hints Turkey might intervene, especially as it had to host
refugees from the ghting and as Turkish public opinion was inamed against the
Syrian regime; in response, the tone from Syria became more resentful. Turkey’s
hosting of conferences of the Syrian opposition; then of defectors from the Syrian
army who had constituted themselves as an anti-Damascus armed force; followed
by its collaboration with the Arab League in trying to get a UN resolution against
Syria, and in June 2012, Syria’s downing of a Turkish warplane, were signposts
in an escalation of animosity between the two regimes. In parallel, co-operative
practices over trade and water suffered, with cross-border trade drying up. The
relationship had gone full circle to the bad old days of the mid-1990s.
Conceptualizing and Measuring the Relationship
In order to measure change in the relationship, it is useful to locate it on a continuum
stretching from high levels of conict to high levels of cooperation. While the
descent into conict in the 1990s and again after 2011 seems self-evident, it is a
matter of some dispute how deep the change from enmity to amity in the middle
2000s ever actually was.
The most minimal change, moving away from the conict pole, is evident
in the fact that the two states that had power balanced against each other in the
1990s ceased, as a result of a rapprochement and normalization of relations at the
end of the decade, to see each other as a threat. The change in relations, however,
arguably went further since the two states not only ceased to balance against each
other but also aligned together against shared threats from US policy in the region
in the mid-2000s. Realists might interpret this as a temporary tactical adjustment
to a shift in the location of threat, a behaviour very familiar to students of MENA
regional politics; Aras (2005) and Altunışık and Tür (2006) had suggested that
if the shared threat from the US in Iraq evaporated, the relation could prove
fragile—as eventually it did. A number of analysts (Sever 2007, Aras 2005) also
hypothesized that the improved relation would not survive a concerted anti-Syrian
convergence by both the US and the EU, relations far too important for Turkey to
sacrice or even damage for the sake of that with Syria; however, the willingness of
Turkey to deepen the relation even after such a Western convergence against Syria
had started around 2005 over its role in Lebanon, suggests that Turkey’s relation
with Syria was more than a temporary tactical alignment. Indeed, additionally,
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Turkey-Syria Relations
4
there was a perceptible move, within a mere half-decade, from relations that had
ranged between cool and hostile for a half century toward marked amity; while
previously the two states had each constructed their identities partly in opposition
to the other, now their identities apparently ceased to be mutually exclusive;
this change, evident in the mid-2000s, was accompanied by a movement from
conict to cooperation over key issues that dened their relationship, including
water and trade, kick-starting, as a result, growing interdependencies at the trans-
state level. This change in relations, apparently both deeper and more durable
than a temporary re-alignment, arguably constituted a great leap forward on the
continuum from conict to cooperation.
The further the move along the continuum, the more it is likely to be paralleled
by wider changes in the whole foreign policy orientation of the states involved,
not just a change in their allies but also in their modes of operation, captured by
Holsti’s (1982) concept of foreign policy re-structuring (see also Hermann 1990).
In Turkey’s case, alignment with Syria was a break both with its long-standing
West-centric deference to the US and with its traditional realist ‘hard power’
balancing against threats in MENA; instead, relations with Syria became the
showcase of a new policy of using soft power and constructing interdependencies
to create ‘zero problems’ with neighbours and even aiming at regional leadership; in
Syria’s case, the relationship was accompanied by a foregoing of irredentist claims
(over Iskanderun/Hatay) and abandonment of its traditional Machiavellian modus
operandi, namely its practice of using bargaining ‘cards’ such as support for the
PKK insurgency in Turkey to get leverage over Turkey regarding Euphrates water.
Finally, at the furthest end of the continuum would be located an incorporation
of the two states into a ‘security community’ based on treaties and institutions
in which war between the two becomes unthinkable, an aspiration articulated
especially by Turkish leaders in parallel to growing trans-state interdependence but
which, if it was ever actually likely, was aborted by the Syrian Uprising beginning
in March 2011. The subsequent sharp deterioration in relations between the two
states underscored the vulnerability of a relationship that had been elite driven,
developing in the rst place at the government-to-government level and then at
the business level, in spite of the differences in the political systems of the two
states. The latter would arguably preclude the possibility of a security community,
which is said to result from a deep normative convergence in political values and
practice, as notable in the case of the EU. For this reason, Oktav (Ch. 15, this
volume) characterizes the relationship as a ‘quasi-alliance’, non-institutionalized,
hence not a stable one based on collective security or shared values.
Given the move in the relationship from conict and power balancing practices
to something well beyond mere normalization and toward amity and practices of
liberal interdependence, but also the rapid breakdown of good relations after only
a decade, we will use the term re-alignment as a shorthand for the ups and downs
in the relationship, keeping in mind that it involved at times more conict and at
other times more cooperation than this term suggests.
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Introduction 5
Approaches to Explaining Syria-Turkey Relations
What factors drive alignment change, and specically the alteration of relations
between enmity and amity? Three factors appear relevant: regional relations
with neighbours, the impact of the global system on regional alignments, and
the internal policy process. At each level, alternative theories, such as realism,
liberalism, constructivism and foreign policy analysis offer different explanations.
The Syria-Turkish case is relevant to three issues in the theoretical debates
between these theories: 1) at the regional level, to what degree re-alignments are
driven by material interests or by identity; 2) how far regional re-alignments are
shaped by the global power balance and periphery dependencies on the core or by
regional factors; and 3) at the internal level, the relative degree of state agency or
autonomy, and hence the importance of the interests of domestic actors as opposed
to external systemic constraints, in shaping alignments.
Regional Level: Material and Ideational Factors:
Realism and liberalism both see material interests as driving conict and alignment,
but while realism expects neighbouring states in particular to see the other as
threats, liberalism sees a potential for cooperation from shared interdependencies.
Constructivism argues that identity matters in the construction of threats, enmity and
amity, hence whether neighbours are seen as threats or appropriate alliance partners.
For realism, conict and alignments are explained by the insecurity of an
anarchic system, inducing power balancing against threats via military build-up,
alliances, a search for spheres of inuence and even bids for hegemony. The main
variable is threat, arising chiey from conicts of interest, notably over territory,
but also from proximity and power imbalances. The distribution of power shapes
the vulnerabilities, constraints, and opportunities states face as they struggle over
conicting national interests; thus, more powerful states (Turkey) are more likely
to follow assertive policies and weaker ones (Syria) to be on the defensive, but
also to attempt to remedy the imbalance. Alignments are a major way of altering
the power balance and states sharing threat perceptions are likely to ally against
the perceived threat, for example, the Syria-Iran alliance against the Turkey-Israeli
one in the 1990s. Alternatively, states perceiving a threat from a more powerful
neighbour may choose to bandwagon with (appease) it. The main explanation
for re-alignments in this tradition is a change in the location or level of threat.
Security, for realists, results when regional alignments produce a balance of power
constraining stronger states.
Liberalism sees interdependencies between states as constituting shared interests
that would be facilitated by cooperation, thus giving greater durability to alignments
than mere balancing against common threats—which may rapidly alter. However,
interdependencies also produce mutual vulnerabilities, hence possible conict.
Since interdependence is usually asymmetrical some actors are more vulnerable
to pressure and the least vulnerable can acquire power leverage over the more
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Turkey-Syria Relations
6
vulnerable (Keohane and Nye 1976). The main issues that generated enmity/conict
in Turkey-Syrian relations are at the transnational level where the severance of
the two states upon the breakup of the Ottoman Empire disrupted economic ties,
cut across river ows and divided territory and ethnic communities (with Kurds
left on both sides of the borders and Arabs in Alexandretta ceded to Turkey).
From the viewpoint of liberalism, the post-2000 political level alignment of the
two states improved prospects that the growth of shared trans-state interests and
interdependencies resulting from trade, water-sharing, and tourism could move the
relationship beyond a mere temporary realignment toward a security community;
this objective was, indeed, explicitly invoked by the two leaderships in the late
2000s—to the scepticism of ‘realists’ in the security establishments of both states.
Constructivism argues against realism that neither threat nor appropriate
alignments are a wholly self-evident matter of material power balances and
interests but rather are interpreted through the lens of identity (Barnett 1998);
similarly, whether interdependencies are seen as vulnerabilities, hence threats
from/leverage over the other or as opportunities for mutual benet via cooperation,
depends on ideational factors. Identities are constructed, not given, in a dual
interaction, internally with constituents and externally among states. A state’s self-
image, often constructed against the ‘Other,’ determines its perceptions of enmity
and amity, hence appropriate allies. Just how identity is constructed both affects
and is affected by conicts or cooperation over material resources and territory
between contiguous states. If identity changes, so do perceptions of mutual amity
or enmity. In our case, while Altunışık and Tür (2006) assessed the relations of
the two states as threat driven zero-sum conict over material issues (territory,
security, water), they also underlined that threats were interpreted through the
lens of historic memory and identity, which in turn were the outcome of domestic
debates and as these changed so did policies. Aras and Köni (2002) went further,
arguing that realism cannot explain the period of conictual relations between
Turkey and Syria which was, rather, the result of constructed images of enmity
used by elites to legitimize their rule within. From a constructivist perspective, the
Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) redenition of Turkey’s identity reshaped
its conception of Turkey’s interests and threats and made Syria a possible ally.
So what does the evidence suggest produced the dramatic improvement in the
two states’ mutual perceptions during the 2000s? Realists would point to a change
in threat, most obviously Syria’s 1998 submission to Turkish demands to cease
support for the PKK and without this it is hard to imagine a move toward good
relations. Yet the reduction in mutual threat after 1998 did not require the subsequent
move toward amity; why did Turkey and Syria not only cease to see each other
as enemies but also come to see each other as friends? If this was the outcome of
an alteration of identity, then it would be expected to be much more durable than
if it was a mere temporary adjustment to changed threat and interests. Here, as
liberalism might anticipate, amity also encouraged cooperative interdependencies
that were expected to blur identity—and territorial—demarcations between the
states. It is evident, of course, that neither identity alterations nor the development
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Introduction 7
of trans-state interests was enough to prevent the rapid deterioration of Turkey-
Syria relations in 2011; for realists, this was to be expected since alignments
are subject to the changing balance of threat. Certainly, in Syria’s case, the new
enmity to Turkey was driven by a renewed sense of threat from Ankara; but a
much weakened Syria did not seem to present a threat to Turkey which sacriced
security cooperation against the PKK and business interests in moving toward
enmity with Damascus; was this a function of identity—of Turkey’s democratic
self-mage or of a Sunni Islamist identity in the ruling coalition? Our contributors
will address these issues.
Core-periphery Relations
The case, involving as it does, interaction between the global and regional levels,
allows us to test arguments about core and periphery. Dependency theory, neo-
realism and globalization theories all tend to assume the dominance of the global
level, the ‘core’ and the great powers over ‘periphery’ states, and to explain
changes in alignments at the regional level as reections of the global system,
either changes in polarity or in the dependency of the periphery. From a realist
perspective, in the bi-polar Cold War, Turkey and Syria were on opposite sides;
hence their relations were naturally hostile. Would the global transformation to
unipolarity transform their relations?
Berthe Hansen (2000) argued that the post-Cold war transformation was directly
reected at the Middle East regional level: with declining regional autonomy,
bandwagoning with the American global hegemon became the normal behaviour in
a unipolar world. By contrast, scholars such as Buzan and Waever (2003) see regions
as having considerable autonomy and their alignments as chiey driven by regional
conicts and security dilemmas. Regional powers, far from being puppets, may
actually use global powers to enhance their position in regional conicts. Consistent
with this is the idea of middle powers that are signicant actors in their regions
where they seek spheres of inuence, regional hegemony, or may play the role of
benign peacemaker to settle conicts in their neighbourhood. Of course, when there
are rival powers in a region their competition enables the global hegemon to act as
an offshore balancer or to co-opt one or the other, enhancing its ability to exercise
regional inuence through them; yet regional powers, feeling entitled to leadership
in their own region, may align in order to constitute a buffer against great power
intervention in the region. Which option regional powers take in today’s unipolar
world may depend on whether US hegemony is seen as legitimate and benign in
the region in question. While proponents of a benign version of hegemonic stability
theory such as Ikenberry (2001) see the US hegemon as a benign source of regional
stability and Wohlforth (1999) sees it as, anyway, irresistible, Layne (2009), Walt
(2005) and Waltz (2000) argue that its move in the Middle East after 9/11 from the
role of off-shore balancing produced regional instability and stimulated forms of
‘soft balancing’ against it.
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Turkey-Syria Relations
8
The global system’s move toward unipolarity certainly affected Turkey and
especially Syria which lost its global patron and while there is some evidence of
their common bandwagoning with the US, this was accompanied, as Altunışık
and Tür (2006) pointed out, by an increase in their hostility in the 1990s over that
during the Cold War. On the other hand, a perception of US behaviour after 2000
as a source of disorder in the region was a major factor in driving Turkey and Syria
into an alignment that soft-balanced against the US.
Structure (System) vs. Agent (State)
The relative weight of structural or systemic factors vs. the agency of the state in
understanding alignment change is contested by rival theories. While structural
theories such as neo-realism and dependency theory see the system level as largely
constraining policy-makers, at least over the long run, theories of agency, such as
foreign policy analysis, assume that there are always multiple ways a state may
respond to systemic challenges or opportunities and that they do so in diverse, not
uniform, ways that may change relatively independent of systemic changes.
Foreign policy analysis does not treat the state as a unitary actor responding in
predictable ways to the system level, but opens the black box of the policy process
to expose factors, such as elite learning and bureaucratic politics, that explain
how states, in their alignment behavior, respond in varying ways to the systemic
context. Holsti’s (1982) study of re-alignment found the most powerful variable
was at the leadership level, that is, changes in elites or their perceptions. Hermann’s
(1990) study of foreign policy change noted that while incumbent leaders are often
too invested in the status quo to change course, some may still learn from past
mistakes or from the costs of current policies or recognize that a change of policy
could exploit new opportunities. But recognizing there is a problem with the policy
may require that elites change the very framework through which they interpret
the world. This is more likely when a new elite comes to power, especially if the
status quo policy is seen as having failed and the new rulers have a self-interest
in differentiating themselves from their predecessors. In our case, the turn from
enmity to amity was paralleled by signicant domestic changes: the succession
of Bashar al-Asad in Syria brought a new generation to power and the rise of the
AKP party in Turkey a coalition of ‘outsiders’ with a different ideology from that
of the establishment.
Another domestic level focused theory, that of omni-balancing (David 1991),
suggests that in fragmented states, where the main threat to elites is within, not
without, alignments are driven by elites’ need to access resources or legitimacy
from global patrons to deal with domestic opposition or attempts to generate
nationalist legitimacy from resistance to external powers. Foreign policy was,
indeed, one of many tools in the conict between Turkey’s Kemalist establishment
and the AKP, which initiated a ‘zero-problems’ policy toward Turkey’s neighbours
after 2000 that diminished the role of the military and made Syria its showcase;
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Introduction 9
Bashar al-Asad also enhanced his domestic legitimacy both by standing against
the US and aligning with Turkey.
In the bureaucratic politics approach, any change in policy, including
realignment, is seen as the outcome of a struggle, most likely a compromise,
between the conicting interests of branches of the bureaucracy. Those particularly
in touch with another country such as diplomats or intelligence ofcers—or in our
case water bureaucrats (see Kibaroğlu, Chapter 12, this volume)—may initiate
learning by reporting on the inadequacies of the current policy or on opportunities
to be exploited by a change of policy. Alternatively, a shift in the balance of power
among the competing branches may empower those advocating change. In Turkey,
the showdown with Syria was partly driven by intimate relations between the
generals and their Israeli counterparts; realignment toward Syria was paralleled
by a relative decline in the power of the military.
In our two states, it is often assumed that public opinion has limited impact on
foreign policy since elites, being either highly institutionalized and/or authoritarian,
are relatively free to respond to systemic factors as they think best. However,
even in authoritarian states, if legitimacy rests on foreign policy performance,
as in Syria, elites may feel constrained to pay attention to public opinion or may
seek to bolster their legitimacy by following policies expected to be popular. In
Turkey, the deepening of democratization increased the importance of public
opinion in foreign policy-making. In both states the US invasion of Iraq was so
strongly opposed by the two publics that their views forced themselves upon elite
calculations. All in all, how a state responds to systemic factors is, at a minimum,
conditioned by the internal policy process.
Organization of the Book
Plausible explanations of what has driven change in the Turkey-Syria relationship
and assessments of its consequences can be identied at multiple levels of
analysis and can be inspired by quite different theoretical approaches. One of the
strengths of this volume is the variety of approaches and disciplinary traditions
brought to bear by the contributors to the case, with each revealing different and
complementary aspects of the relationship. Each of the following chapters focuses
in depth on various different aspects of the Turkey-Syria relation, usually bridging
more than one level of analysis.
First, Berna Süer examines the pivotal 1990s conict between Syria and
Turkey and its resolution in the Adana Agreement. She uses conict resolution
theory to assess why the conict was ripe for resolution via coercive diplomacy in
1998. This provides the immediate context of our story, showing both how the two
states moved toward and then away from enmity. Then, Marwan Kabalan gives an
overview of the next stage, the move toward amity, through an examination of the
geo-political calculations of the two states, showing how changing interests and
the altered location of threats drove re-alignment in the 2000s.
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Turkey-Syria Relations
10
Next, several chapters look within the states, at identity and domestic politics,
to understand the relationship. Reem Abou-El-Fadl examines Syria-Turkey
relations during the Cold War and shows how their hostile encounter in the
1950s was a function of Turkey’s identity-building and development strategies,
specically the Menderes government’s embrace of the US model and its struggle
to access resources from the US to empower this development strategy. Moving to
the current period, Ahmet K. Han interprets the AKP’s regional policy, of which
Syria was a showcase, from a neo-classical realist perspective; he argues that
the AKP’s zero problems approach to Turkey’s neighbours was partly a way of
omni-balancing against its domestic rivals, especially the military, but, he argues,
exceeded Turkey’s power to remake its environment; he exposes, therefore, how
omni-balancing can distort the rationality of foreign policy responses to systemic
factors. Sami Moubayed then looks at how changes in the relation of the two states
were reected in transformations of discourse in Syria, from foe to friend and back
again. Philip Robins examines the way the two leaders, Asad and Erdoğan, sought
to use their relationship to enhance their legitimacy at home, using a case study of
a football match between teams from the two states. Samir al-Taqi and Raymond
Hinnebusch look at the Syrian regime’s perceptions of the geo-economical and
domestic advantages of the alliance with Turkey; as in Han’s analysis of the AKP,
the Syrian leadership tried to use relations with Turkey not only to counter external
threats but also to reconstitute the ruling coalition within.
In the next section, the evolution of trans-state issues is examined, looking at
how changes in the strategic relationship affected these. Emma Lundgren shows
how the dispute over Iskanderun/Hatay was aggravated or muted as a function
of overall Turkey-Syria relations. Marwa Daoudy examines the inter-relation of
the Kurdish issue and water politics in driving the relationship toward enmity,
while Ayşegül Kibaroğlu looks also at water issues, but focuses on the effect of
the move toward amity in high politics in generating trans-bureaucratic relations
that enhanced mutually benecial solutions to water problems. Yasemin Akbaba
and Özgur Özdamar locate Syrian-Turkish relations within the debates over the
internationalization of ethno-religious conict, looking specically at the role of
Kurdish and Sunni Muslim trans-state identities in conicts between Turkey and
Syria. Özlem Tür then looks at how high politics shaped the ups and downs of
trans-state economic relations.
The last two chapters examine the impact of the regional power balance on
the relationship and of the relationship on regional politics. Meliha Altunışık
puts the evolution of the relationship in the regional context, arguing for the
autonomy of regional-level explanations. Özden Oktav focuses more on the
decline of the relationship resulting from the Syrian Uprising in 2011 and, in
particular, the place of Iran in this evolution. Finally, the conclusion summarizes
the ndings for the three IR issues discussed above and indicates the implications
of the case for IR debates.
To pregure the argument that will emerge from the chapters, we nd that the
trans-state level shapes the context and issues in the Syria-Turkey relationship,
978-1-4094-5281-2 hinnebusch.indb 10 2/11/2013 10:31:33 AM

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Introduction 11
the interdependencies that can drive either conict or cooperation and our
chapters examine this issue from a number of perspectives, such as territorial
disputes (Lundgren); securitization of water (Daoudy); cooperation through
water interdependencies (Kibaroğlu) and economic interdependencies (Tür); and
conict over trans-state ethno-religious communities (Akbaba and Özdamar).
To a great extent, states’ identities determined whether such issues became
matters of conict or co-operation and several chapters examine this (Abou-El-
Fadl, Moubayed and Robins). Equally important, domestic politics, notably the
legitimacy needs of leaders, have been important in determining the construction
of amities and enmities (Abou-El-Fadl, Han and Robins); political-economic
factors have also driven Turkey-Syria conicts (Abou-El-Fadl) and alignments
(Tür; al-Taqi and Hinnebusch). State actions, in this case, Turkey’s application
of coercive diplomacy, can decisively affect power struggles and reshape alliance
relations, as Süer shows. Moving to the systemic inter-state level, foreign policies
and alignments are also shaped by and, in turn, shape, the regional power struggle.
Changes in Turkey-Syrian relations had a major impact on the regional balance of
power (Altunışık; Oktav). This, in turn, has been affected by and also has affected
the impact of the global great powers in the region, with particular implications
for US hegemony (Kabalan; Oktav; al-Taqi and Hinnebusch).
978-1-4094-5281-2 hinnebusch.indb 11 2/11/2013 10:31:33 AM