International Aid under Constraint: Sovereignty, Emotion, and Authoritarian Practices in Turkey

• In Event: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Emotions

Abstract

This article explores the emotional life of power in the governance of international humanitarian aid in Turkey. Focusing on the aftermath of the Syrian refugee “crisis,” it examines how the Turkish state has mobilized the narrative of sovereignty not only as a legal or political argument, but as an affective claim—one that resonates with national pride, historical grievance, fatigue, and suspicion toward external actors.

Drawing on fieldwork conducted in Istanbul, Ankara, and Gaziantep in 2025, including semi-structured interviews with representatives of national and international NGOs, UN agencies, and Turkish authorities, the study traces how emotions circulate within regulatory and bureaucratic practices. Restrictions on international organizations are enacted through permits, audits, delays, and procedural opacity—but they are also sustained by atmospheres of unease, moral indignation, and wounded sovereignty.

The article shows how fear (of foreign interference, of political instability), resentment (toward Western criticism and dependency narratives), and pride (in state capacity and national resilience) become embedded in administrative routines. These emotions shape how international humanitarian actors are perceived—less as partners than as potential threats to authority or symbols of external intrusion. At the same time, humanitarian staff themselves navigate uncertainty, frustration, and self-censorship, revealing how affect structures everyday negotiations with the state.

Turkey’s centralized bureaucracy emerges as both disciplined and emotionally charged: its efficiency and consistency in enforcing restrictions distinguish it from other major refugee-hosting countries such as Lebanon and Jordan, where fragmentation produces different affective dynamics. By situating these findings within broader debates on authoritarian practices, narrative politics, and affect theory, the article argues that sovereignty operates performatively not only through discourse and law, but through emotion. Sovereignty is felt, staged, and administered—and it is through these affective performances that state authority is consolidated and international humanitarian actors are progressively marginalized.

Author

• Clothilde Salelles, University of Antwerp