Turkey in Somalia: challenging North/Western interventionism?

Abstract

Turkey’s humanitarian and development intervention in Somalia is unusually illuminating as a case study to investigate the relations between emerging and conventional interveners in conflict zones since, in this case, Turkey’s intervention carries adequate impetus to resist assimilation with conventional North/Western counterparts. Our starting point is the observation that Turkish and conventional humanitarian and development interveners have struggled to coordinate or cooperate in Somalia. This article investigates what this uncooperative and uncoordinated organisational behaviour means, and we root our investigation in 21 face-to-face interviews with officials working inside the Turkish and conventional intervention in Mogadishu and Nairobi to inquire about how they understand and theorise this discordant behaviour. We use a parsimonious analytical framework of trustworthiness that questions the ‘ability’ and ‘integrity’ of counterpart organisations to explore the intentions behind organisational behaviours. Our analysis of interview narratives evidences challenges to conventional methods of intervention by Turkish organisations and the protection of the same by North/Western organisations. Our concluding discussion interprets these findings in relation to consequences for the status quo hierarchy of global governance and its promotion of liberal intervention norms, and for the utilisation of securitised and remote-control intervention methodologies in conflict zones such as Somalia.