Politics of interdependence: an analysis of Turkish-Greek economic relations

Abstract

Over the last two decades, there has been a dramatic increase in bilateral relations between Greece and Turkey in many areas from trade to tourism. This increase has taken through both state and non-state level initiatives. It has become difficult to ignore the existence of the economic interactions between the two countries.Previous studies in the literature have mostly ignored the political economy of relations.The purpose of this thesis is to examine the current state of economic relations between Greece and Turkey, and how these affect the two states‟ political relations. Therefore it asks the question “to what extent do economic ties reflect on the evolution of political relations between Greece and Turkey?”This research studies bilateral economic relations by focusing onthe fields of trade, foreign direct investment, energy and tourism interactions between the two countries and revisits liberal/neoliberal approaches of economic interdependence to explore their relevance in the Turkish-Greek case. It aims: 1. To examine the scope of economic interdependence between two countries, 2. To ascertain the limitations and opportunities in fields of economic interaction, 3. To determine the extent to which economic interactions between the two countries can be helpful in transforming relations and whether increasing economic interdependence provide opportunities for the resolution of their bilateral political problems.