Esra Dilek: “Turkey’s Contestation of Liberal Peacemaking Norms: Prospects for Peace and Stability in the Eastern Mediterranean”

The webinar, co-organized by Kadir Has University International Relations Department and Jean Monnet Chair, will take place on Tuesday, May 30, with the participation of Esra Dilek (IPC-Mercator Fellow, Istanbul Policy Center at Sabancı University).

You can follow Esra Dilek’s speech, “Turkey’s Contestation of Liberal Peacemaking Norms: Prospects for Peace and Stability in the Eastern Mediterranean”, on Zoom starting at 5:00 pm (Turkey time).

Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88181918596?pwd=Q0ZZVnBGSnZWOSsvaS9uUERKeEpTZz09

Özet: This study focuses on Turkey’s contestation of liberal norms of peacemaking through the investigation of Turkish political actors’ discourse during 2010-2022 in relation to the Cyprus conflict in the Eastern Mediterranean. Recent scholarship on international norms has pointed to increasing contestation (rejection) of liberal peacebuilding norms worldwide and the rise of illiberal approaches to peacemaking with preference for stability instead of peace negotiations. Scholarship debating the rise of illiberal peacemaking approaches has broadly identified three main modes of contestation: ‘liberal mimicry’; ‘civilizational essentialism’; and ‘counter-norm entrepreneurship’. These modes of contestation reveal that political actors’ engagement with liberal norms is not limited to adoption or rejection, but has generative potential in terms of producing counter-norms and redefining the identity of contesting actors. Based on this perspective, the study addresses two main research questions: First, what are the main modes of contestation that Turkey has employed in its peacemaking discourse in the last years and why? Secondly, what are the wider implications of such contestation for peace and stability in the region? Methodologically, the study relies on analysis of political discourse through official political statements which will be complemented with in-depth interviews with decision makers and experts.

Konuşmacı Hakkında: Esra Dilek is IPC-Mercator fellow at the Istanbul Policy Center at Sabancı University. During 2021-2022 she was a Fulbright post-doctoral fellow at the School for Peace and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University, VA, USA. Dilek received her PhD degree in Political Science from Bilkent University in 2019. During 2016-2017, she was a pre-doctoral fellow at the Josef Korbel School for International Studies at the university of Denver, CO, USA. During the spring 2022 term, she was a visiting scholar and adjunct teaching faculty at the Department of Political Science at Bilkent University. Her publications have appeared in journals such as International Negotiation, Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, Peacebuilding Journal, and Middle Eastern Studies. Her main research areas are peace and conflict studies, peace negotiations, international norms, and foreign policy research.