Main Determinants of Turkey’s Foreign Oil and Natural Gas Strategy

This paper has the goal of contributing to the academic literature on Turkey’s energy strategy in two ways. Firstly, through explaining the role of and interaction between the most important determinants of Turkey’s foreign oil and natural gas strategy, the paper aims at contributing to further understanding of the strategy. Secondly, while a number of academic studies have analyzed Ankara’s energy policy, they have remained mostly policy-based. Thus, by describing the key determinative elements of Ankara’s external oil and natural gas strategy in the framework of Realism and Liberalism, the paper also aims to fill in this important gap in the academic literature. As shown in this article, both theories are rather helpful in explaining the principal determinants of Turkey’s foreign oil and natural gas strategy. The paper argues that the most crucial determinative elements of the strategy, in terms of the order of their importance, are the concerns of the country over its energy security, its goal of becoming an energy hub, several regional developments, the economic and business partnerships between Turkey and its energy allies, and foreign ambitions of Turkish energy firms