Diaspora diplomacy: the politics of Turkish emigration to Europe

Abstract

Diaspora diplomacy explores how the Turkish ruling party, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), has engaged with the Turkish diaspora in Europe since its rise to power in 2002. It charts the myriad institutions that the AKP has created and mobilized to enhance dialogue with selective diasporic organizations in France and Germany. Ayca Arkilic follows this analysis with a multidimensional assessment of the impact of this rapprochement on: the political agency of the diaspora; the relations between Euro-Turks and host states; the intra-diasporic relations; and Turkey's relations with the European Union (EU). The book is a tour de force, based on 14 months of fieldwork in Turkey, France and Germany. It includes hundreds of interviews with Turkish diaspora leaders, as well as Turkish, French and German policy-makers and journalists. Arkilic provides a welcome contribution to diaspora and diplomacy studies and to International Relations (IR) more generally. The book gives ample empirical evidence to challenge the domestic–international binary that has shaped the IR discipline for decades. The author skilfully interweaves different levels of analysis, from the sub-national to the national, transnational and international, to provide a nuanced context for the rise of the Turkish diaspora as a diplomatic agent. Thus, the book covers an impressive range of actors and their policies: starting with successive Turkish governments’ institutions and their diaspora engagement policies; exploring Turkish diaspora organizations in France and Germany since the 1960s; and also detailing France and Germany's policies regarding immigration, citizenship and integration. In terms of the wider context, Arkilic examines the effects of 9/11 and the ‘war on terror’, and the related impact of Islamophobia and racism on the political and social fabric of European countries.