The Southeastern Anatolia Project (GAP) in Turkey: An Alternative Perspective on the Major Rationales of GAP

The Southeastern Anatolia Project (Güneydoğu Anadolu Projesi, GAP) is one of the largest development projects ever undertaken in Turkey. Launched in the 1970s, GAP initially aimed primarily at the construction of 22 dams and 19 hydroelectric power plants on the Euphrates and Tigris rivers and of extensive irrigation networks to produce hydroelectric energy and irrigate 1.8 million hectares of land in south-eastern Turkey. In later decades, the scope of GAP widened considerably as it became a more comprehensive and bold scheme of modernization and transformation. Following this expansion, GAP also aimed at entirely reorganizing the political, social, economic, and cultural landscape of south-eastern Turkey and at transforming the local population therein. Despite these developments, and despite GAP having been intensely examined in the literature, the raison d’être of the project has not yet been adequately examined from a critical perspective. Questions regarding how the state authorities rationalized the inception of GAP and which factors motivated them to undertake development activities remain under-discussed. This article seeks to analyse the major rationales of GAP together with their multifaceted implications. In this way, the article aims to present an alternative narrative on the evolution and recent status of GAP, based on empirical data.