Critical Junctures and Ontological Security in Unrecognized States: The Response of Northern Cyprus to the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

This article will examine the response of the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) to the COVID-19 pandemic from an ontological security approach to illustrate how critical junctures may help de facto states in their quest for status and internal legitimacy. Stressing the pandemic’s role in the reconstruction of political narratives and self-legitimating practices among Turkish Cypriot elites, it sheds light on the effects of this global crisis on domestic power struggles in Northern Cyprus as well as its quasi-foreign relations with its patron state (Turkey), parent state (Republic of Cyprus), and the European Union. The study shows that both nationalist and federalist elites of the de facto entity instrumentalized the pandemic in their legitimation strategies and engaged in opportunistic behavior amid the outbreak. It also reveals how the pandemic enhanced the ontological security of Northern Cyprus while advancing its nationalist leadership’s claims for legitimate authority by enabling state-specific forms of agency and unilateral acts concerning the Cyprus dispute that may jeopardize the resumption of peace talks with Greek Cypriots. Thus, it can be assumed that advanced ontological security of the TRNC is highly volatile given the prospects of further isolation and de-engagement in the post-pandemic era.