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

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 nationalism
• Turkey
• hydraulic development

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers of this article for their helpful and inspiring feedback. All translations are the author’s own unless otherwise stated.

Notes

1 Regarding the link between state-making and nation-building, Linz argues that both state-making and nation-building are inseparable and largely overlapping processes, which can only be separated conceptually (Linz 1993).

2 In the inaugural ceremony of the Atatürk Dam, Demirel stated,

Neither Syria nor Iraq can lay to claim to Turkey’s rivers any more than Ankara could claim their oil. This is a matter of sovereignty. We have a right to do anything we like. The water resources are Turkey’s, the oil resources are theirs. We don’t say we share their oil, and they can’t say they share our water resources. (BBC 2000)

Demirel’s speech is frequently quoted in scholarly literature to stress the link between state sovereignty and water resources (Bagis 1997; Alam 2002; Allouche 2010).

3 Securitization theory is one of the critical approaches to security studies that does take into account security domains such as economic security and environmental security beyond survival of the state (Buzan, Waever, and Wilde 1998). It has a great utility for studies in hydropolitics. Hydraulic development projects are often regarded as matters of national security from different aspects. Therefore, they are securitized by state elites. Securitization theory was extensively applied in hydropolitics (e.g.: Zeitoun and Mirumachi 2008; Mirumachi 2010; Julien 2012; Zeitoun 2015). Moreover, studies in hydropolitics further improve securitization theory. In this regard, Warner proposes the concept of “opportunitization.” Accordingly, in cases where there is a major power gap between stronger and weaker parties, the former takes extraordinary measures to achieve its goals. Here, an offense-opportunity mechanism is at work as in the case of defense-threat mechanisms in securitization theory (Warner 2004; Zeitoun 2015).

4 In his fascinating documentary, “A Flood in Baath Country,” Omar Amiralay (2005) shows how hydraulic development projects are used as propaganda tools in primary school syllabi by the Baath regime.