Border Securitization Cycles: Periodizing Turkey’s Management of Its Iranian Border (1920–2020)

Abstract

The return of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan in the summer of 2021 sent a shockwave whose effects were felt far beyond national borders. In Turkey, this event contributed to a renewed physical and discursive securitization of the border with Iran. This article argues that such policies and discourses are part of a long-term process of border securitization that has been underway for at least a century. This article identifies a periodization scheme for this securitization process and proposes the existence of different border securitization cycles within this process. Historical developments in Turkey are provided as a means of identifying, comparing, and contrasting these cycles at the Turkish-Iranian border. This article thus contributes to critical security and border studies by showing how borders can become the objects of securitization in and of themselves.