Emotions and Norms in the Syrian Refugee Crisis: The Comparative Responses of the EU and Turkey

Specifically, with the Syrian civil war, the issue of migration has created a profound crisis for both the EU and Turkey not only in their domestic politics but also in their foreign policies as well as in bilateral relations. The dreadful memories of influx of migrants to Europe back in 2015, and the humanitarian crisis at Turkey’s borders in 2020 when Turkey decided to allow refugees crossing into Europe by ‘opening the doors’ as a consequence of the tragedy in Idlib which led to thousands of migrants fleeing to the borders with the expectation of passage to European soil, have forced the EU to formulate mechanisms towards Turkey as a third state, not an accession country. This paper will depart from the assumption that the emotions of the EU leaders have played a significant role in the construction of norms/policies against Turkey throughout the refugee crisis, and the emotions of Turkish leadership played its role in formulating responses to the EU in return. For this reason, by employing the “Emotion Discourse Analysis (EDA)” this paper aims at observing this crisis diplomacy by looking into how the EU constructed norms as a result of emotions against the issue of Syrian refugees living in Turkey and fleeing from Turkey, and how the leadership in Turkey responded as a repercussion of emotions.