Turkey’s Role in South Caucasus

ანოტაცია

This paper will study Turkey’s influence in South Caucasus. The study applies Barry Buzan and Ole Waever’s Regional Security Complex Theorem (RSCT) to understand Turkey’s politics in the region since the end of the Cold War. The author of this paper shares the belief with the coiners of the RSCT that it is necessary to combine systemic, regional, national, and domestic factors to provide the most accurate description and prediction of potential developments in international politics. Importantly, it is crucial to wisely combine the age-old tenets of Realist theory with important constructivist concepts to better explain security. In this regard RSCT, in the humble opinion of the author, is the most complete theorem in the field of international relations to analyze the behavior of any particular state and/or dynamics of global and regional interaction among states.

For the purposes of the research it is important to place Turkey correctly in the framework of Buzan and Waever’s theory and concepts - that is, classify Turkey correctly according to their taxonomy and fortunately, they help me with this. They have devoted important part of their work to insulator states such as Turkey. Turkey’s role as an insulator state is particularly interesting to me. To paint a comprehensive picture of the geopolitics in Caucasus the roles of the US, Russia and EU will be investigated from the perspective of RSCT. Again, the investigation will be detailed and hopefully, productive.

Theoretical Framework:

Following theories will be presented before the author suggests the goggles that should be fashioned for the purpose of this research:

• "Political realism theory", whose main subject is the state;
• The theory of "cooperative security" - Cohen's concept, which includes recognition of common threats by states and joint efforts on it;
• Complex theory of regional security - RSCT, which is also related to the Copenhagen school.