Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T09:33:13.188Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Understanding Turkish water nationalism and its role in the historical hydraulic development of Turkey

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2019

Ahmet Conker
Ahmet Conker*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science and International Relations, Yildiz Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey
*
* Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Turkey is fully engaged in its “hydraulic mission,” very extensively and rapidly “developing” water resources throughout its territory. The extensive hydraulic development attempts conducted by the Turkish government create local, national, inter-state, and transnational contestations among the different interest groups. A great deal of scholarly literature has analyzed the rationale behind Turkey's massive-scale hydraulic development. While some studies link Turkey's hydraulic mission to its energy and food security, others highlight the importance of domestic conflicts, as in the case of the Kurdish issue in the southeast. However, few works examine the relationship between hydraulic development and state- and nation-making processes in the early period of the republic. This paper seeks to analyze the role of hydraulic development in state- and nation-making in the context of Turkey by looking at the institutional documents published by official authorities and speeches made by key politicians. Drawing mainly upon the theory of water nationalism and its related conceptual frameworks, this study argues that hydraulic development has formed one of the important components of the modernization process in Turkey, thereby playing a significant role in its state- and nation-making processes.

Keywords

water nationalismTurkeyhydraulic development
Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 46 , Issue 5: Special Section: Between the wars , September 2018 , pp. 877 - 891
Copyright
Copyright © 2018 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abdullaev, Iskandar, and Rakhmatullaev, Shavkat. 2015. “Transformation of Water Management in Central Asia: From State-Centric, Hydraulic Mission to Socio-Political Control.” Environmental Earth Sciences 73 (2): 849–861.Google Scholar
Akdemir, İhsan. 1992, July 26. “GAP Gururumuz” [GAP Is Our Pride]. Milliyet Daily News.Google Scholar
Alam, Z. Undala. 2002. “Questioning the Water Wars Rationale: A Case Study of the Indus Waters Treaty.” The Geographical Journal 168 (4): 341–353.Google Scholar
Allouche, Jeremy. 2005. “Water Nationalism: An Explanation of the Past and Present Conflicts in Central Asia, the Middle East, and the Indian Sub-Continent.” PhD Diss., University of Geneva.Google Scholar
Allouche, Jeremy. 2010. “The Multi-Level Governence of Water and the State-Building Process: A Longue Durée Perspective.” In The Politics of Water, edited by Wagerich, Kai, and Warner, Jeroen, 45–67. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Amiralay, Omar. 2005. “A Flood in Baath Country.” In. France.Google Scholar
Anderson, Benedict. 1991. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Bagis, Ali Ihsan. 1997. “Turkey's Hydropolitics of the Euphrates-Tigris Basin.” International Journal of Water Resources Development 13 (4): 567–581.Google Scholar
Banknotes in Circulation During the Republic. 2017. Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey. Accessed January 9.Google Scholar
Bari, Z. 1977. “Syrian-Iraqi Dispute over the Euphrates Waters.” International Studies 16 (2): 227–244.Google Scholar
BBC. 2000. “Thirsting for War.” BBC World Service, 29 September. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/correspondent/958132.stm.Google Scholar
Beschorner, Natasha. 1992. “Water and Instability in the Middle East.” In Adelphi Paper. London: International Institute for Strategic Studies.Google Scholar
Bilen, Ozden. 2009. Turkey and Water Issues in the Middle East. Ankara: DSI Idari ve Mali isler Dairesi Baskanligi, Basim Foto Film Sube Mudurlugu.Google Scholar
Buzan, Barry, Waever, Ole, and de Wilde, Jaap. 1998. Security A New Framework for Analysis. London: Lynne Rienner.Google Scholar
Cascão, Ana Elisa, and Zeitoun, Mark. 2010. “Power, Hegemony and Critical Hydropolitics.” In Transboundary Water Management: Principles and Practice, edited by Earle, Anton, Jagerskog, Anders, and Ojendal, Joakim, 27–42. London: Earthscan.Google Scholar
Cizre, Ümit. 2001. “Turkey's Kurdish Problem: Borders, Identity and Hegemony.” In Right-Sizing the State: The Politics of Moving Borders, edited by O'Leary, Brendan, Lustick, Ian S., and Callaghy, Thomas, 222–252. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Conker, Ahmet. 2014. “An Enhanced Notion of Power for Inter-State and Transnational Hydropolitics: An Analysis of Turkish-Syrian Water Relations and the Ilisu Dam Conflict Between the Opponents and Proponents of the Dam.” PhD Diss., University of East Anglia.Google Scholar
Conker, Ahmet. 2016a. “The Power Struggle in the Layer of Transnational Hydropolitics: The Case of the Ilisu Dam Project.” Eurasian Journal of Social Sciences 4 (4): 14–34.Google Scholar
Conker, Ahmet. 2016b. “The Role of Water in the Eruption and Evolution of the Syrian Uprising: A Historical Perspective.” Paper presented at the Second Annual International Conference on Social Sciences, Istanbul.Google Scholar
Çarkoglu, Ali, and Eder, Mine. 2005. “Developmentalism alla Turca: The Southeastern Anatolia Development Project (GAP).” In Environmentalism in Turkey: Between Democracy and Development, edited by Fikret, Adaman, and Murat, Arsel, 167–183. Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Demir, Abdullah. 2001. Su ve DSI Tarihi [Water and the History of the DSI]. Ankara: Devlet Su Isleri Vakfi.Google Scholar
Demirel, Siileyman. 1994. “GAP Türkiye İçin Altin bir Çağin Habercisidir Gelin Bu Çaği Hep Birlikte El Ele Gönül Gönüle Karşılayalım.” [GAP Is a Messenger of Turkey's Coming Golden Age: Let Us Welcome this New Era Together with Integrity] GAP Dergisi [Gap Journal] 4:3–4.Google Scholar
Demirel, Siileyman. 2005. Bir Ömür Suyun Peşinde [A Life in Pursuit of Water]. Vol. 1. İstanbul: ABC Medya Ajansı.Google Scholar
DSI. 2015a. 2015–2019 Startejik Plan Hazırlık Raporu [2015–2019 Strategic Plan Preperation Report)]. Ankara: State Hydraulic Works.Google Scholar
DSI. 2015b. DSİ Faaliyet Raporu [DSI Annual Report]. Ankara: State Hydraulic Works.Google Scholar
DSI. 2016. DSI 2016 Yılı Performans Planı [DSI Performans Plan 2016]. Ankara: State Hydraulic Works.Google Scholar
DSI (State Hydraulic Works). 2014. DSI Yillik Faaliyet Raporu [DSI Annual Report]. Ankara: State Hydraulic Works.Google Scholar
Eder, Mine, and Carkoglu, Ali. 2001. “Domestic Concerns and the Water Conflict over the Euphrates-Tigris River Basin.” Middle Eastern Studies 37 (1): 41–71.Google Scholar
Firat'in Suyunu Çok Ucuza Sattın. 1987. [You Have Sold the Waters of the Euphrates Cheaply]. Milliyet Daily. July 17.Google Scholar
Freeman, Kevin. 2001. “Water Wars? Inequalities in the Tigris-Euphrates River Basin.” Geopolitics 6 (2): 127–140.Google Scholar
Furlong, Kathryn. 2006. “Hidden Theories, Troubled Waters: International Relations, the “Territorial Trap,” and the Southern African Development Community's Transboundary Waters.” Political Geography 25 (4): 438–458.Google Scholar
Hobsbawm, Eric J. 1992. Nations and Nationalisms Since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
İçduygu, Ahmet, and Kaygusuz, Özlem. 2004. “The Politics of Citizenship by Drawing Borders: Foreign Policy and the Construction of National Citizenship Identity in Turkey.” Middle Eastern Studies 40 (6): 26–50.Google Scholar
İmer, Sencer. 2015. “21. Yüzyilda Uluslararası Su Politikaları ve Su Yönetimi Riskler-Fırsatlar Paneli” [International Water Policies in the 21st Century and Water Resources Managment: Risks and Opportunities]. Panel presentation, 24 March, Ankara University.Google Scholar
Jaggers, Keith. 1992. “War and the Three Faces of Power: War Making and State Making in Europe and the Americas.” Comparative Political Studies 25 (1): 26–62.Google Scholar
Julien, Frederic. 2012. “Hydropolitics Is What Societies Make of It (or, Why We Need a Constructivist Approach to the Geopolitics of Water).” International Journal of Sustainable Society 4(1/2): 45–71.Google Scholar
Kaika, Maria. 2006. “Dams as Symbols of Modernization: The Urbanization of Nature Between Geographical Imagination and Materiality.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 96 (2): 276–301.Google Scholar
Khagram, Sanjeew. 2004. Dams and Development: Transnational Struggles for Water and Power. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Kushner, David. 1998. Türk Milliyetçiliğin Doğuşu [The Rise of Turkish Nationalsm]. Translated by Zeki Doğan. Istanbul: Fener Yayınları.Google Scholar
Kut, Gün. 1993. “Ortadogu Su Sorunu ve Cozum Onerileri.” In Su Sorunu, Turkiye ve Ortadogu, edited by Sen, Sebahattin, 473–487. Ankara: Baglam Yayincilik.Google Scholar
Linz, Juan J. 1993. “State Building and Nation Building.” European Review 1 (4): 355–369.Google Scholar
MacQuarrie, Patrick. 2004. “Water Security in the Middle East: Growing Conflict over Development in the Euphrates-Tigris Basin.” Master's thesis, International Peace Studies Trinity College, Dublin.Google Scholar
Maden, Tuba E. 2013. “Havzalararası Su Transferinde Büyük Adım: KKTC İçme Suyu Temin Projesi.” [A Major Step in Inter-Basin Water Transfer: TRNC Drinking Water Supply Project]. Ortadogu Analiz 5 (50). http://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/31254850/ortadogu_analiz_tugba_subat_2013.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1488558422&Signature=W5WrV%2Fx8KbhE2%2Bdf3K6nZ%2BWS1e4%3D&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DHavzalararasi_Su_Transferinde_Buyuk_Adim.pdf.Google Scholar
Menga, Filippo. 2015. “Building a Nation Through a Dam: The Case of Rogun in Tajikistan.” Nationalities Papers 43 (3): 479–494.Google Scholar
Menga, Filippo, and Mirumachi, Naho. 2016. “Fostering Tajik Hydraulic Development: Examining the Role of Soft Power in the Case of the Rogun Dam.” Water Alternatives 9 (2): 373–388.Google Scholar
Mirumachi, Naho. 2010. “Study of Conflict and Cooperation in International Transboundary River Basins: The TWINS Framework,” PhD Diss., King's College, London.Google Scholar
Molle, Francois. 2008. “Why Enough Is Never Enough: The Societal Determinants of River Basin Closure.” International Journal of Water Resources Development 24 (2): 217–226.Google Scholar
Okyar, Osman. 1984. “Atatürk's Quest for Modernism.” In Atatürk and the Modernization of Turkey, edited by Landau, Jacob M., 45–56. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Özer, Ahmet. 1998. Modernleşme ve Güneydoğu [Modernization and the Southeast]. Ankara: İMGE Kitabevi.Google Scholar
Paralari, Turk. 2018. “1 000 000 Lira 7. Emisyon.” Accessed 30 May 2018. http://www.turkparalari.com/?Syf=15&blg=1&ncat_id=3308610&pt=1.000.000+Lira.Google Scholar
Reisner, Marc. 1990. Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water. London: Seeker and Warburg.Google Scholar
Schultz, Michael. 1995. “Turkey, Syria and Iraq: A Hydropathical Security Complex.” In Hydropolitics, edited by Leif, Ohlsson, 91–112. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Seale, Patrick. 1995. Asad: The Struggle for the Middle East. London: I. B. Tauris.Google Scholar
Selby, Jan. 2007. Beyond Hydro-Hegemony: Gramsci, the National, and the Trans-National. London: Occasional Paper No. 94 SOAS/KCL, Water Issues Group.Google Scholar
Seton-Watson, Hugh. 1977. Nations and States: An Enquiry into the Origins of Nations and the Politics of Nationalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Shaw, Stanford J., and Kural-Shaw, Ezel. 1977. History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey: Reform, Revolution, and Republic: The Rise of Modern Turkey, 1808–1975. Vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Swyngedouw, Erik. 1999. “Modernity and Hybridity: Nature, Regeneracionismo, and the Production of the Spanish Waterscape, 1890–1930.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 89 (3): 443–465.Google Scholar
Tilly, Charles. 1985. “War Making and State Making as Organized Crime.” In Bringing the State Back In, edited by Theda, Skocpol, Peter, Evans, and Dietrich, Rueschemeyer, 169–192. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Topdemir, Ramazan. 2009. Atatürk'ün Doğu-Güneydoğu Politikası ve GAP. Istanbul: Truva Yayınları.Google Scholar
Warner, Jeroen. 2004. “Plugging the GAP Working with Buzan: The Ilisu Dam as a Security Issue.” Water Issues Study Group, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Occasional Paper 67.Google Scholar
Warner, Jeroen. 2008. “Contested Hydro-Hegemony: Hydraulic Control and Security in Turkey.” Water Alternatives 1 (2): 271–288.Google Scholar
Warner, Jeroen. 2010. “Hydro-Hegemonic Politics: A Crossroads on the Euphrates-Tigris.” In Politics of Water, edited by Warner, and Wagerich, 119–141. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Wester, Philipus, Rap, Edwin, and Vargas-Velazquez, Sergio. 2009. “The Hydraulic Mission and the Mexican Hydrocracy: Regulating and Reforming the Flows of Water and Power.” Water Alternatives 2 (3): 395–415.Google Scholar
Wittfogel, Karl. 1957. Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power New Haven. CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Yavuz, Hakan M. 2001. “Five Stages of the Construction of Kurdish Nationalism in Turkey.” Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 7 (3): 1–24.Google Scholar
Yeğen, Mesut. 2007. “Turkish Nationalism and the Kurdish Question.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 30 (1): 119–151.Google Scholar
Yıldız, Dursun. 2009. GAP Bölgede Ekonomik, Stratejik ve Siyasal Gelişmeler. İstanbul: Truva Yayınları.Google Scholar
Zeitoun, Mark. 2015. “Palestinian-Israeli Water: Secure or Violated? Securitization, Opportunitisation and Violation along the Jordan River.” Research Gate (user profile Mark Zeitoun), June 15. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/242045033_PALESTINIAN-ISRAELI_WATER_SECURE_OR_VIOLATED_SECURITIZATION_OPPORTUNITISATION_AND_VIOLA_TION_ALONG_THE_JORDAN_RIVER.Google Scholar
Zeitoun, Mark, and Mirumachi, Naho. 2008. “Transboundary Water Interaction I: Reconsidering Conflict and Cooperation.” International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics 8: 297.Google Scholar
Zeitoun, Mark, and Warner, Jeroen. 2006. “Hydro-Hegemony — Aa Framework for Analysis of Trans-Boundary Water Conflict.” Water Policy 8:435–460.Google Scholar
Zürchrer, Erik J. 2010. The Young Turk Legacy and Nation Building: From the Ottoman Empire to Atatürk's Turkey. New York: I. B. Tauris.Google Scholar