The Metamorphosis of Metaphors of Vision: “Bridging” Turkey's Location, Role and Identity After the End of the Cold War

During the Cold War, “buffer” or “bastion” seemed a popular metaphor to describe Turkey. After the Cold War, “bridge,” (and, to some extent, the “crossroad”) metaphor started to dominate the Turkish foreign policy Dışcourse. This article traces the use of “bridge” metaphor in this Dışcourse in the post-Cold War period by the Turkish foreign policy elite. It develops two arguments. First, the word bridge is a “metaphor of vision” combining Turkey's perceived geographical exceptionalism with an identity and a role at the international level. As a “metaphor of vision,” the employment of the word “bridge” highlighted Turkey's liminality and justified some of its foreign policy actions to Eurasia and then to the Middle East. Second, because the bridge metaphor was used in different context to justify different foreign policy choices, its meaning has changed, illustrating that metaphors are not static constructs. It concludes by Sayıng that the continuous use of “bridge” metaphor might reinforce Turkey's “liminality,” placing Turkey in a less classifiable category than the regular “othering” practices.