The analysis of Turkey as a non-Western and emerging humanitarian actor

Abstract

This dissertation explores Turkey as a non-Western and emerging humanitarian actor with respect to its humanitarian policies, goals, actors, and practices. In the literature of International Relations (IR), although there are various scholarly works that analyse Turkey’s humanitarianism, they have not been competent enough to explain how and in what terms Turkey is a different humanitarian actor compared to other humanitarian donors. This dissertation includes a comprehensive research on actors, practices and strategic goals of emerging donors to assess Turkey’s operationalisation of its humanitarianism. While the majority of existing scholarly contributions on today’s ‘emerging donors’ investigate China, Brazil and India, this research focuses on Turkey that has engaged with the international development field through using insights from IR, development studies particularly humanitarianism and development aid, and Turkish foreign policy. Existing scholarly works remain limited to explore Turkey’s humanitarianism in detail from a different angle to develop new conceptual understandings. The dissertation analyses Somalia as the single case study to understand Turkey’s growing activism in the country. To this end, this dissertation asks three major research questions: 1) How does Turkey operationalise its humanitarianism and what does it seek to achieve? 2) How has Turkey become an important humanitarian actor in the world despite its middle-income country status? 3) Why and in what terms does Turkey emerge as a significant actor amongst emerging donors in humanitarianism? In doing so, this dissertation unravels operationalisation of Turkey’s humanitarianism with regard to activities, humanitarian emotions, civilizational geopolitics, Turkey’s geopolitical aid, and its liminal identity.