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than these groups and, in reality, are less integrated. 69 As such, the lack of collective identity and organisational capacity across Turkish immigrant groups is more likely to explain Turkish Muslim leaders’ absence from French politics until recently. After the 1980 coup, the Turkish state showed some interest in uniting the Turkish expatriate community in France. However
Turkey has shown an unprecedented interest in its diaspora only since the early 2000s. This book provides the first in-depth examination of the institutionalisation of Turkey’s diaspora engagement policy since the Justice and Development Party’s rise to power in 2002 and the Turkish diaspora’s new role as an agent of diplomatic goals. It also explores how Turkey’s growing sphere of influence over its overseas population affects intra-diaspora politics and Turkey’s diplomatic relations with Europe.
The book is based on fourteen months of fieldwork in Turkey, France and Germany. Drawing on more than 110 interviews conducted with representatives of a wide range of diaspora organisations originating in Turkey as well as with Turkish, French, German and EU policymakers and journalists, supplemented with an analysis of official documents and news sources, it argues that Turkey has conceived of the conservative elements of its diaspora as a tool of political leverage, mobilised towards enhancing Turkey’s official diplomatic endeavours. At the same time, however, Turkey’s selective engagement with its expatriates has complicated relations with disregarded diaspora groups and Europe.
This study contributes to the growing literature on diasporas and diplomacy. Diasporas have become identified as influential actors that transform relations at the state-to-state level and blur the division between the domestic and the foreign. A case study of Turkey’s diasporas is thus a significant study at a time when emigrants from Turkey form the largest Muslim community in Europe and when issues of diplomacy, migration, citizenship and authoritarianism have become even more salient.
This chapter explores how the German government has responded to Turkey’s diaspora engagement policy and diaspora diplomacy, and demonstrates that Turkey’s new diaspora agenda has generated backlash and complicated expatriate Turks’ relations with policymakers, more so in Germany than in France. By drawing from interviews with German diplomats and policymakers, news sources, national censuses and existing surveys, the chapter argues that Germany’s traditionally more interventionist stance towards Turkey can be explained by several factors. First, Turks in Germany form the largest and, therefore, the most visible immigrant group. Second, Germany covered most of its need for labour from bilateral worker agreements signed with Turkey rather than from former colonies. Therefore, migration and Islam debates have focused on Turks. Third, despite an official separation between church and state, religion still plays an important role in German politics. However, the German state has favoured other religions over Islam, and its relationship with Muslims has been intrusive and securitised. In summary, the chapter delves into Germany’s immigration, citizenship and integration policies as well as state policies towards religion, focusing on its complex ties to the Turkish community.
This chapter explores how the French government has responded to Turkey’s diaspora engagement policy and diaspora diplomacy, and demonstrates that Turkey’s new diaspora agenda has generated backlash and complicated expatriate Turks’ relations with policymakers, more so in Germany than in France. By drawing from interviews with French diplomats and policymakers, news sources, national censuses and existing surveys, the chapter argues that France’s traditionally less interventionist stance towards Turkey can be explained by several factors. Turks have a privileged status in the eyes of French policymakers vis-à-vis North Africans because of their smaller numbers. Turks also have a less contested historical relationship with France than that of North Africans who suffered under French colonialism and its inherent racial hierarchies. Turks’ exemption from this placement stems not only from the lack of a colonial relationship between Turkey and France but also from the popular conception of Turkey as a country like France (both with strong state traditions and a secular regime) and of Turks as people with a liminal position between Europe and the Middle East. The chapter also examines France’s laïc regime and relations with the Muslim community to account for the historically greater Turkish influence in the French territory. In summary, the chapter delves into France’s immigration, citizenship and integration policies as well as state policies towards religion, focusing on its ties to the Turkish community.
Bauböck is ascribing to expatriate voting rights. The second concerns the non-identity of citizenship and authorial membership of the demos. I'll address these in turn. In earlier work explicitly addressing the external franchise, Bauböck ( 2007 ) argues that expatriate voting is neither required nor forbidden by justice. Consider two sets of remarks. In the first, Bauböck reiterates the stakeholder principle
‘Anyone who says anything about our country, what happens to them?’ Nabila Makram, Egypt's minister for immigration, asked in July 2019, during a private party for Egyptian expatriates in Toronto. ‘We cut’, she said, while making a throat-slitting gesture with her hand (BBC 2019 ). This chilling statement coincided with an increased attention to the management of migration and diasporas by numerous Arab and non-Arab states in the Middle East. This book has argued that a fruitful approach to understanding the international relations of
strong regional power, and the preservation of a distinct Turkish identity in Europe; (4) the disempowerment of Kurdish and Gülenist groups abroad; and (5) combating Islamophobia and racism in Europe. Turkey’s diaspora outreach policies have also aimed to consolidate the political power of the incumbent AKP and its leader, Erdoğan, by drumming up expatriate votes. Chapter 2 argued that
capacity-development programmes have urged the Turkish expatriate community to participate in European elections, obtain dual citizenship and learn the language of their host country. Through its nationals abroad, Turkey now presents itself as a rising great power, extends the state’s legitimacy and ‘soft power’ beyond borders and lobbies against host-state policies and developments that are deemed
is a relatively new phenomenon. The Palgrave Macmillan Dictionary of Diplomacy defines it as collaborating with expatriate communities, which can provide political, financial and even moral support for the home state. 12 Other scholars refer to the concept as ‘engaging a country’s overseas community to contribute to building relationships with foreign countries’ 13 or ‘a collective action that is
could arise from its citizens’ freedom of movement? Algeria was the first state in the Middle East to develop an institutionalised mechanism aimed at reconciling the economic need for large-scale emigration with the security imperative for control over expatriates’ political behaviour. The strategy involved the transformation of the Federation de France organisation belonging to the National Liberation Front (Front de Libération Nationale, or FLN, a major party in the Algerian war of independence) into the Friendship Society of Algerians in France