Turkey and Greece as frenemies: discourse-historical approach to foreign policy repertoires of the leaders

Abstract

This paper analyzes Turkish-Greek relations during the contentious period of July 2019-2022, when tensions between the two countries have risen due to domestic and conjunctural factors. The study employs a Discourse Historical Approach to reveal the processes of identity construction in Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an and Greece’s Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ political statements. The analysis suggests that the two leaders have developed discursive repertoires of frenemies, which represent interactive processes of logics and practices of amity and enmity between Turkey and Greece, in which they are competitive and mistrustful, but also convinced that collaboration advances their respective and often conflicting interests.