The Role of State Agency in Conflict Contagion: Turkey’s Experience of the Syrian Civil War

Conflict contagion, defined as an internal conflict in one country contributing to the outbreak of internal conflicts in nearby areas, is a widely recognized phenomenon in world politics today. Scholars have so far discussed various factors behind conflict contagion, such as the movement of refugees, ethnic connections, and characteristics of combatant communities, which increase or decrease its likelihood. However, very few studies acknowledge the role of state agency in making conflict contagion more or less likely. In light of Turkey’s experiences in the face of the Syrian civil war, this paper discusses to what extent the state actors are able to shape the scope and main dynamics of a nearby internal conflict’s spillover into their own territory. Since the beginning of the Syrian civil war, many scholars and policy analysts have written about the Syrian civil war’s impact on Turkey’s domestic politics and foreign policy. However, the spillover of armed conflict into Turkey, in fact, has been quite limited in connection to the Syrian civil war. This paper attempts to provide an answer to the question of how this has been possible. Using the case of Turkey’s failed Kurdish peace process (2012-2015) and the role of Kurds in the ongoing neighbouring Syrian civil war, as well as Turkey’s cross-border operations into Syria, this paper provides an answer to the question of how and to what extent a number of policies developed by the Turkish governments have kept conflict contagion on a limited scale in Turkey, thus emphasizing the overlooked importance of state agency in the scholarship on conflict contagion.