Turkey's Energy Diplomacy and Instrumentalization of Hard Power

Abstract

Regional instabilities have challenged Turkey's energy diplomacy in its energy-rich neighbourhood. This article examines to what extent and how Turkey instrumentalized hard power politics to secure and diversify its natural gas imports for its domestic market and for its role as a potential export hub in its energy diplomacy. Four cases, namely pipeline projects, which are already under operation or planning to transport crude oil/natural gas from Azerbaijan, Russia, Iraq, and the Eastern Mediterranean, are presented to bring a plausible explanation for Turkey's ascending inclination towards use or threat of force in its energy diplomacy between 2015 and 2022. This article argues that not only rationally calculated strategic interests to manage security-related threats that challenge access to energy resources for pipeline projects but also the foreign policy elite's framing of material interests in energy projects in line with ideational factors in domestic politics function as filters in Ankara's instrumentalization of hard power in energy diplomacy.