Turkey: an emerging hub of globalization and internationalist humanitarian actor?

Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2012.627721

In an era of global turmoil generating significant challenges to global security and requiring global solutions, humanitarian intervention, and assistance become central concerns at the intersection of globalization studies and international relations. In this context, Turkey is emerging as a more proactive and autonomous actor in foreign policy and as a regional and global force in peacekeeping and humanitarian operations, making the country one of the key actors of world politics. In this article, we demonstrate Turkey's contributions to global security through its increasing involvement in humanitarian assistance in different regions of the world, and suggest that in doing so Turkey is not only contributing to global security but also creating new norms of democratic global governance that bridge several seemingly contradictory formations: European integration and Islamic solidarity; global South ascendance and NATO stabilization; Ottoman nostalgia and internationalist modernism. But the primary focus will be Turkish protagonism in peacekeeping interventions in Afghanistan to demonstrate the multilateral manner through which humanitarian assistance norms are implemented.