A Tale of Love and Hate: A Lacanian Lens on Turkish Foreign Policy towards the West

Abstract

This article serves as an introduction to the Special Issue (SI) titled 'Turkey's Violent Tango with the West: A Lacanian Psychoanalysis of History, Emotions, and Ontological Insecurities.' In a rapidly changing international atmosphere, neither the concept of security itself nor the implicit discussions surrounding it can escape the psychological pressures of identity, geography, history, and emotions, which shape the perceptions of individuals, societies, and states both in word and deed. The contributors of this SI shed light on the relationship between the past and present, memories and traumas, as well as imaginaries and realities informing foreign policy making. Specifically, they apply Lacanian psychoanalysis to various Turkish foreign policy practices whose roots date back to the early Republican era, which arose from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire and its problematic 'love and hate' relationship with the West. Based on the increasingly strong ties between the fields of Political Psychology and International Relations (IR), the arguments presented in this article promise a novel contribution to Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA). They draw particular attention to the ideas of Jacques Lacan and their compelling applicability in Critical Security Studies (CSS) in general and Ontological Security Studies (OSS) in particular.