Playing Partners

552300
research-article2014
IRE0010.1177/0047117814552300International RelationsSkonieczny
Article
Playing partners: Expectation,

entanglement, and language
games in US foreign policy
International Relations
2015, Vol. 29(1) 6995
The Author(s) 2014
Reprints and permissions:
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DOI: 10.1177/0047117814552300
ire.sagepub.com
Amy Skonieczny
San Francisco State University
Abstract
In this article, I argue that seemingly un-noteworthy interactions between states can demonstrate
the significance of language for social relationships and foreign policy partnerships. Using language
game analysis, I apply Peter Howards four-stage model to the case of the USTurkish Economic
Partnership Commissions proposal for qualified industrial zones shortly after 9/11 and examine
how the expectations for enhancing partnership are shaped and at times dashed through the
language used among a network of actors. A language game analysis provides an explanation
for how actors expectations rise and fall and provides an understanding of the maintenance,
enhancement, and dismantling of state relationships in a social and practice-centered context. I
utilize author interview data as well as texts from newspapers, speeches, and organizations to
show how partnership between allies is vulnerable to social expectations signaled in and through
the common language they both hold.
Keywords
constructivism, economic partnership, language game analysis, 9/11, practice turn, trade,
Turkey, US foreign policy
Introduction
In January 2002, the USTurkish relationship was at a high point. Following the
September 11 terrorist attacks, Turkey had been the first Muslim country to offer troops
for Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan,1 and earlier, in April of 2001, the
United States had supported an additional US$8billion in International Monetary Fund
(IMF) loans to Turkey on top of an already existing US$11billion package to aid with
Turkeys severe economic crisis.2 During this time, President Bush invited Turkish Prime
Corresponding author:
Amy Skonieczny, San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway Ave, HSS 354, San Francisco, CA 94132,
USA.
Email: askonie@sfsu.edu
Downloaded from ire.sagepub.com at DE LA SALLE UNIV LIBRARY on April 26, 2015
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International Relations 29(1)
Minister Ecevit for a diplomatic visit to Washington, DC, and promised action on deepening the economic component of the partnership between the two countries. On the first
day of the visit, the Wall Street Journal reported that since the start of the war in
Afghanistan, the United States has appeared to rediscover the strategic value of Turkey
Turkey is indispensable to the logistics of the Afghanistan conflict and with this
visit Turkey is setting a price for its help. In addition to renewed US support for
International Monetary Fund loans to his nation, Mr. Ecevit is looking for concessions
on its textile and steel exports.3
However, the results of the talks did not include any immediate concessions on textiles or debt relief on Turkeys IOU to the Pentagon. The only concrete outcome of the
talks was the creation of a USTurkey Economic Partnership Commission (EPC) to be
directed by the US State Department, whose task was elevating the economic relationship between the two countries to the same status as the strategic, security partnership
that had long characterized their alliance.4 Despite this, Turkish representatives did not
express disappointment5 but channeled hopes into the newly established EPC.
The Bush administration suggested that the first item on the agenda of the Commission
should be investigating the possible establishment of qualified industrial zones (QIZs) in
Turkey for the purpose of duty-free export to the US market. One month later, the EPC
held its first meeting and suggested that the QIZ proposal be submitted to Congress. The
recommendation was received warmly by the Turkish foreign ministry and the business
community because it required relatively low capital investments to set up and had the
potential for immediate growth in certain sectors, particularly textiles and apparel, which
made up 40 percent of Turkeys exports to the United States.
However, when the bill was introduced to the Senate on 20 June 2002, sensitive products such as textiles and apparel were not included as qualified goods and thus not eligible for export through the economic zones scheme.6 With this, the QIZ proposal was
perceived in Turkey as having no economic value as it only contained provisions for
high-tech goods, a sector in which Turkish industry was not competitive. Despite attempts
to negotiate a more beneficial economic agreement, the QIZ legislation remained as it
was, and by the end of September, a majority of the Turkish business community lobbied
against the bill and it never moved out of the Senate Finance committee.
Given the usual US politics of textile protectionism,7 the end result of this failed economic policy is not really surprising and, in fact, something to be expected. What is
surprising, then, is that both the EPC and the Turkish government pushed for the QIZ
proposal knowing that textiles would be crucial for its success in achieving the stated
goals of strengthening partnership and elevating economic relations to balance what had
been predominantly a security alliance. How was it possible to propose an economic
partnership that included such a contentious and controversial element?
In this article, I contend that the expectations of Turkey and the EPC for expanded
economic partnership that included textiles can be explained using a language game
analysis approach. As overlapping language games, the QIZ proposal both facilitated
high hopes for change and entangled the players in a preexisting game of protectionism.
I argue that a new game of partnership between the United States and Turkey began to
strengthen the alliance after the 9/11 attacks, but the choice of the QIZ proposal caused
it to overlap with a textile game such that success in the partnership language game
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came to hinge on having textiles included in the QIZ proposal. Without textiles, partnership was not enhanced, and once these two games were linked, the players became
entangled in their own rules of the game, and ultimately, partnership was damaged.
Examining language games is one source of identifying how expectations are formulated. While economic bargaining is generally thought of as consisting of an exchange of
interests, it also results from socially generated expectations. The seemingly misplaced
expectations of Turkey for a more equal economic partnership were formed in co-constitution with US expectations through dialogue, mutual common knowledge, and in relation to the social context constructed by a post-9/11 discourse that favored Muslim
allies in the war on terrorism. By analyzing these failed and seemingly insignificant
exchanges between states, it is possible to understand and demonstrate how and why
actors hold the expectations that they do.
In the next section, I examine the literature on language game analysis to demonstrate
how partnership is played through a combination of dialogue, common knowledge, and
social expectations. Building on the work of Peter Howard, I apply his four-stage model
of language game entanglement to the case of the EPC/QIZ proposal between the US and
Turkey in 2002. Drawing on author interview data as well as texts from newspaper,
speeches, and organization documents,8 I examine how the expectations for equal partnership came to rest on the inclusion of textiles as a qualified export in the QIZ scheme.
Finally, I conclude and offer an analysis of how partnership between allies is vulnerable
to social expectations signaled in and through even rather un-noteworthy economic
negotiations between states.
Language and action: rule-based approaches to analyzing

foreign policy
Domestic politics explanation of policy failure
From a domestic politics approach emphasizing interests and domestic political constraints, the explanation for the QIZ policy failure is relatively straightforward. While
President Bush and Prime Minister Ecevit agreed to advance an economic partnership,
and the US State Department EPC put forward legislation on establishing QIZs in Turkey
to reach this foreign policy goal, once the actual policy entered the milieu of US domestic politics, it faced stark opposition on two fronts that influenced how the legislation
looked once it reached the US Congress. The issue networks (both for and against the
QIZ proposal) that formed in response to the legislation forced those supportive of the
QIZ to remove any contentious items such as textiles and apparel in order to give it even
a remote chance of passing through Congressional committees. A focus on bargaining
and competing interests reveals that foreign policy promises made between the United
States and Turkey are not realizable without considering the domestic constraints,
policy processes, and domestic influences that determine the outcome of foreign policy
actions. Thus, the failed QIZ legislation, and the consequent disappointment for Turkey,
can be explained by looking internally to the domestic politics of the state.
However, while the domestic-level foreign policy analysis literature9 offers a compelling explanation of why the QIZ legislation became watered down leading to its failure
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in the US Senate Finance Committee, it does not explain why the policy was put forward
in the first place as the premier legislation of the EPC designed to enhance and elevate
relations between the United States and Turkey. How was it possible that the EPC put
forward legislation that was bound to fail and disappoint? Can we really believe that the
EPC was unaware of the domestic political challenges such legislation would face?
Certainly, the US State Department would be familiar with the politics involved in passing textile legislation through the US Congress. In fact, the chair of the EPC was State
Department Under Secretary for Economic Affairs, Alan Larson, the same person
responsible for negotiating the derailed trade/aid package for Pakistan shortly after the
9/11 attacks. In this earlier case, he faced nearly identical situations a Muslim country,
strategic ally and needed partner in the War on Terrorism, with over 60 percent of industrial workers employed by the textile sector and he failed to get the lowered tariffs
through Congress because of domestic opposition.10 This recent experience would surely
have provided important background information on how textile quotas would be
received in the domestic arena in the current climate.
Thus, the domestic politics approach offers one possible explanation for why the policy failed but fails to explain why the policy was proposed in the first place. What conditions of possibility led the EPC to propose legislation that would replicate the same
conflicts and battles of the Pakistan textile tariff relief effort as the legislation designed
to promote partnership with Turkey? How was it possible that the Commission sought
QIZs for Turkey, signaling willingness to compromise on Turkeys most important
export to the United States, when all indications in the domestic arena were that such
legislation would be impossible to pass through Congress? In addition, why implicate a
partnership-building policy with complications that might actually lead the relationship
between the United States and Turkey from one of high expectations, goodwill, and partnership to missed expectations, disappointment, and policy failure?
Constructivism and the Practice Turn

Although constructivist literature on identities and foreign policy emphasizes interaction
and social relations, it often does so in order to understand large social processes such as
the maintenance of world order in times of crisis,11 the creation of security communities
between former enemies,12 and the structure of the international system as a whole.13
This unintended emphasis on structure in constructivism has sparked criticism for its
inattention to agency and action, especially from those supportive of the overall project.14 In a 1998 review article on the constructivist turn in IR, Jeffrey Checkel claimed
that constructivism lacks a theory of agency. As a result, it overemphasizes the role of
social structures and norms at the expense of the agents who help create and change them
in the first place.15 Iver Neumann argues that while the linguistic turn has invigorated
social inquiry,16 IR theorists have not been diligent about foregrounding language in
use; the practices that make up social relations. Instead, he claims that the linguistic turn
overwhelmingly focuses on analyzing language apart from its effect on politics and the
socio-historical context. In other words, Neumann contends that the linguistic turn in IR
remains overly concerned with structures of language as permitting and preventing possible social actions rather than with the practices that constitute social action itself.17 As
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Stefano Guzzini puts it, [Constructivisms] success was paid for by a neglect of some of
the basic ideas of constructivism.18 These critiques have reinvigorated a more action and
agency-centered social theory turn in IR. Three interesting attempts at bringing action
into IR theory include the work on communicative action (based on Habermas), the
emphasis on practices in IR (based on Bourdieu), and dialogical and language game
analysis (drawing on Wittgenstein). Each of these literatures attempts to break the agent
structure dichotomy in order to build a nuanced understanding of agency that does not
dwell wholly on the individual. In all, these approaches move IR theory closer to addressing action and developing an intersubjective constructivist notion of agency.
In bringing the action of communication into International Relations theory, Thomas
Risse draws on the literature of communicative action to claim that processes of argumentation, deliberation, and persuasion constitute a distinct mode of social interaction.19
In unpacking social interaction, Risse argues that there are logics of action that guide
how actors come to collectively define a situation and conceive of what to do. For Risse,
actors act not only in representation of their interests or in response to social rules, but
through speech as they engage in truth seeking with the aim of reaching a mutual understanding based on a reasoned consensus.20 The compelling contention of Risses claim
is that through arguing, actors develop common knowledge and thus define the situation that they are in. This illuminates the process of how common knowledge comes to
be through an argumentative form of communication rather than taking common
knowledge as given in bargaining situations.
While the literature on communicative action is influential in bringing action into
the linguistic turn, some IR scholars have called on more direct account of practices to
reinforce what they view as the political effects of actions in language.21 The turn to
practices in IR has directed those who already address the lack of agency in linguistic
accounts of social inquiry toward lived experiences; in other words, the call to practice
is a call to examine something beyond textual data and to complement the text with
different kinds of contextual data from the field, data that may illuminate how foreign
policy and global politics are experienced as lived practices.22
The practice turn in IR has philosophical roots in Michel de Certeaus23 notion of everyday practices and Pierre Bourdieus24 notion of habitus and field study25 but is also
influenced by Ludwig Wittgensteins26 meaning as use, which unlike de Certeaus emphasis on non-discursive practices and habits, examines how actors use social rules and
play language games and thereby use language to make sense of and interact with the
world. This has been built on in IR theory as an approach to interaction between international actors that foregrounds how language and social rules construct foreign policy.
Rule-oriented constructivism: pragmatic analysis and language games

Influenced by Wittgensteins later work on rules and rule-following, Nicholas Onuf27
impacted the field of IR by recognizing a competing Constructivist paradigm to understand the social world. In a constructivist understanding of action, actors use language in
an intersubjective environment to both constitute structure and initiate change. It is
Onufs emphasis on rules (and rule) for understanding social action and structure that
contributes to the practice turn. His contribution toward a communicative conception of
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agency and an explicitly social ontology impacted a pragmatic analysis and language
game approach to international relations.
Building on Onufs work as well as Wittgensteins work on language games, rules,
and meaning in use, IR scholars have examined how dialogue and language games have
impacted foreign policy processes and outcomes.28 Pragmatic analysis and language
game analysis approaches offer a nuanced understanding of language in action and elicit
an agent-centered approach to how actors use language and dialogue to construct, communicate, and maneuver international interactions. In examining foreign policy cases,
these two approaches demonstrate a method for analyzing specific political interactions
with the aim of accounting for the practices of actors and the social rules that both structured the dialogue and changed it as a result.
Gavin Duffy29 proposed pragmatic analysis as an interpretive method in IR to detail
empirically how analysts arrived at their interpretations of the communicative interaction
in the international arena. The aim is to provide a technique for generating systematic
readings [this approach will] force analysts to detail the interpretive inferences that
underlie their readings.30 As a method, the analyst examines speech acts in order to generate propositions to display the precise logic of each player in the game to determine how
they interact, respond, and change as the dialogue progresses. As Duffy states, pragmatic
analyses thereby produce inventories of the parties explicitly stated and implicitly conveyed beliefs.31 In line with a practice turn, the pragmatic analysis approach turns to the
dialogue to look and see how actors engage in meaning making through mutually recognized social rules.
While the pragmatic analysis approach turns to the tradition of pragmatics in linguistics drawing on speech act theories,32 Karin Fierke develops a language game analysis33
approach that further develops Wittgensteins look and see understanding of meaning
in use and builds on his language game metaphor. This approach is less technical in that
as opposed to drawing on formal semantics and linguistic pragmatics, she turns to language games to understand the social rules of communication in a specific and shared
context. Identifying and analytically distinguishing, a language game requires careful
attention to the rules that constitute the game itself. As Fierke states, rules are explicitly
social and the patterning or regularities we associate with them are dependent on people
following them over and over again rules constitute the meaning of practices within
specific games.34 Thus, language games are games because they follow certain rules.
Like other kinds of games such as chess or soccer, it is the rules of the game that constitute the game itself. One can identify soccer instead of baseball by the rules that make the
game playable. Language games are not as easily identified as sporting games, but they
can still be identified as having rules, expected actions and roles.
Language game analysis emphasizes a contextual approach to language such that
what is considered rational action depends on the context in which it takes place and the
shared understandings and expectations that create this space for appropriate behavior.
As Fierke states:
Many practices of everyday life can also be understood to be game-like, in so far as they make
sense only when embedded in a context of meaning. For instance, when we step into a Christian
Church to observe a marriage, a whole set of shared understandings are already in place. These
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shared understandings underpin the actions of the main participants and make it possible for
observers to grasp what is happening.35
However, the social rules and expectations of language games are not reified or fixed
and while identifiable as a distinct game, the rules of the game can change. Fierke
explains:
The rules [of a game] may also be contested within a context. Churches have struggled with the
question, for example, of whether marriage by definition revolves around a man and a woman,
or whether two people of the same sex should be allowed to marry. In this respect, the rules are
flexible rather than law-like. In acting, we often follow rules blindly (this is simply what we do
when getting married), but the rules may also be the object of contestation.36
Peter Howard emphasizes this point as crucial for understanding the role of agency and
practice in language game approaches. He states, Language games are not fixed stable
entities. Because meaning depends on use, and use can vary in practice people can
play the same game in different ways [and] games evolve and the rules change through
repeated use.37 In order to identify a language game then, it is critical to analyze what
language is actually in use by the actors participating.
From analyzing talk between actors, one can identify what game they might be playing. As Fierke states, For language use, and therefore communication to be possible,
there must be an agreement about meaning.38 This agreement comes from a cultural
context that gains stability from already established rules and practices that guide how to
interpret a situation or an object. Fierke claims that it is rules that make certain interpretations of, for example, a ballistic missile as different from a totem pole, and that the cultural and contextual rules prohibit conflating these two objects. She writes:
The single object observed would already have a meaning in the culture from which it
originated. The object would have already been constructed to be either a totem pole or a
ballistic missile. The central issue is the practices that relate to the totem pole or the ballistic
missile; that is, not what is seen, but how one understands the rules for interacting with one type
of object as opposed to another.39
For Fierke, it is these practices how language is actually used that help identify
what games are being played. One can then observe the practices in order to understand
how actors are relating and navigating a given social context.
In language games, rules can be identified as existing with grammars of the language
that signal what kind of game is being played. What is the grammar that the language
game relies on? Fierkes use of Wittgensteins term grammar is not to be confused with
its meaning in contemporary linguistics40 but is derived from his metaphorical reference
to grammar as making sense of language within certain spaces. A grammar helps condition what is possible to communicate within a certain context at best, it structures the
game such that preexisting terms, claims, and signs set the parameters of what is possible
within that particular game. If the grammar and the game are incompatible, either the
rules of the game must adapt or change, or the language used will not make sense.
Bertrand Russell explains Wittgensteins meaning, He uses the words space41 and
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Structure
Build
Maintain
Restore
Dismantle
Figure 1. Fierkes Grammar Tree of Possiblities for the language of structure.
grammar in peculiar senses, which are more or less connected with each other. He
holds that if it is significant to say This is red, it cannot be significant to say This is
loud. There is one space of colors and another space of sounds Mistakes of
grammar result from confusing spaces.42
Language games of alliance and partnership

Fierke investigates the grammar to help identify language games at work in a given interaction. For example, in IR, a commonly played language game is a game of alliance.43
Fierke examines a partnership game in her analysis of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) alliance following the end of the Cold War.44 According to Fierke,
alliance games often rely on a grammar of structure the alliance is conceived of as a
kind of structure wherein the various possible moves are maintain, destroy, rebuild, and
other terms that make sense when talking of structures. This makes up the language (the
grammar) of structure and therefore of the game of alliances.
By examining the language used between actors, such as the terms build, maintain,
and upkeep, Fierke identifies that the language signals a game of alliances. In her
research, she analyzes the structure of alliances that made up possible actions within
NATO. She explains:
The structure [of the alliance grammar] had particular components, such as foundations,
cornerstones and frameworks For over twenty-five years, the Atlantic Alliance has provided
an irreplaceable framework for our collective security The credibility of the United States
nuclear guarantee, which is the corner-stone of the Atlantic Alliance, depends on the credibility
of each element of the triad.45
In this example, the NATO alliance became meaningful through the language of
structure. A metaphor of structure presents what Fierke calls a grammar tree of possibilities; she argues that four dominant possibilities of action existed for the NATO alliance during the Cold War: build, maintain, restore, and dismantle.46 She presents these
possible actions in Figure 1. This figure illustrates the possible moves once structure
becomes the operating grammar of the NATO alliance game.
Building on Fierkes work, Peter Howard47 developed a four-stage model to disaggregate how it is that a new game develops from already existing language games.
The four stages articulated in his model showcase how players (1) initiate a game, (2)
institutionalize it with resources, (3) develop a common language based on previous
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understandings of the rules and the new context of the current game, and finally (4)
become entangled in the rules of the language game. The four stages are, of course, not
necessarily how every language game proceeds. As he clarifies, In practice, all four
stages repeat and overlap through the course of [playing the game].48 However, constructing a model of a language game is useful analytically.49 Indeed, this four-stage
process can be seen in the language game of partnership between the United States and
Turkey after 9/11.
In the next section, I apply Howards four-stage model to the case of USTurkey economic partnership to analyze how an effort with such promise to enhance and deepen this
important strategic alliance at a crucial time for the United States quickly soured in an
8-month period of time. By examining both textual and interview data, I examine how
two competing games of partnership and textile protectionism facilitated both expectations of change and trapped participants in a policy dead-end that resulted in disappointment and discord for the USTurkish relationship.
Stage 1: enhanced partnership promised a language game

begins
According to Howard, the first stage of a language game is the initiation of a new game.
Actors must signal to the others what rules will be followed for interacting, and from
these rules, the game commences. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the United States
sought to strengthen ties with its Muslim Allies, and in so doing, it initiated a new
round of a partnership game with Turkey. The United States and Turkey were familiar
with this language game as partnership was an already established game between these
two long-time allies. The grammar of partnership for the United States and Turkey can
be characterized as primarily strategic that is, militarily focused. In the past, discussions and negotiations that maintained the partnership between them primarily involved
shared security concerns.
However, in the changed social context following 9/11, the United States wanted to
(re)articulate the partnership game with Turkey by introducing the grammar of economic
partnership into the game. This new game of partnership initiated by the United States
now included an expanded grammar of possibilities (military and economic partnership).
This was significant, as I will show shortly, because Turkey had long been attempting to
initiate a new round of play based precisely on expanding the grammar of partnership
to include economic relations as well as military ones. For example, a year prior, Turkey
had asked for US support and help during an economic crisis, and the US obliged. This
maintained the partnership between them but did not enhance it because the aid given
was US support for IMF loans, whereas Turkey had asked for more direct access to the
US market for exports.
In stage 1, with the initiation of the new round of the partnership game, two possibilities for play became possible with this expanded grammar: (1) replay the old game of
partnership: use the language of strategic, military alliance, and therefore maintain the
status quo or (2) enhance the partnership through new moves that indicate a more equal
relationship where military and economic interests and aid are paramount. Figure 2 illustrates these two possibilities.
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Figure 2. Partnership game: the Old and the New.
The game is constituted by two possibilities: maintain the strategic game by focusing on military alliance or transition to a new game that included an economic component that deepened and enhanced the alliance.
Enhancing partnership and increasing expectations

As already mentioned, the nature of the partnership prior to 9/11 was primarily strategic
meaning that the partnership is based on defense interests and military aid. Any talk
of partnership was commonly within this grammar of possibilities. In the new initiation
of a partnership game, there was still strong pull from the former practices, habits, and
common knowledge that understood the United States and Turkey as primarily strategic
partners. In the beginning stages of the game, this old game would be replayed as actors
were cautious to believe that the partnership might actually be enhanced by adding a
mutually beneficial economic component to the partnership.
Turkish representatives were already very much aware of the predominantly strategic
nature of the established partnership. As a member of Turkish Industrialists Associations
(TUSIAD) Washington, DC, headquarters stated:
Here [in the US], Turkey is perceived primarily as a strategic asset. When you are talking about
the strategic asset you are focusing more on the security side. We in Turkey tend to see the other
aspects of Turkish development, which we see as more important than Turkeys security asset.50
Turkish actors described the old, long-standing partnership by emphasizing that

Turkey was only a military, strategic partner to the United States and that this made the
partnership unequal and not a real partnership of the kind that Turkey believed it should
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have with the United States. There had been past efforts to deepen and extend the US
Turkish partnership, but they had only been mildly successful. For example, in 1991, the
concept of enhanced partnership was introduced into the diplomatic relationship and
called for diversifying and deepening the Turkish-American relationship as well as
developing it on a more substantial basis.51 However, despite a focus on energy, economy and trade, regional cooperation, Cyprus and defense and security cooperation, the
piece that stuck was security and defense.52 In 1999, Turkey was officially declared a
strategic partner where the two close allies consult one another, coordinate their efforts
and cooperate in conflict prevention and crisis management and in containing regional
conflicts, deterring rogue states, curbing proliferation of weapons of mass destruction
and terrorism.53 This security cooperation continued to dominate the relationship.
After 9/11, it appeared possible to return to the additional goals of enhanced partnership and to include the economy and trade as equal components of the partnership. This
was the perceived missing piece of the relationship. A commercial counselor for the
Turkish Embassy described the desire to equalize the relationship with both economic
and military components:
We have been trying to explain to our counterparts here that because of the specific nature of
the relationship between the US and Turkey, as Ive said, the strategic relationship, we feel like
we could do more in terms of freer trade between the two countries.54
From the language used by Turkish representatives, the old partnership game already
appeared well played (and tired), and effort had been made to expand the rules to include
more possible actions within the game.
In Washington, DC, Turkey had, and still has, numerous organizations pushing for
this goal. In the view of these organizations, the need for a stronger partnership was both
evident and expected. For example, one representative of a Turkish organization in
Washington, DC, stated:
I dont want to talk about politics because its way beyond my scope but we have been very
close. We have been close allies for a long time and the trade and investment have been missing.
We have been very close politically and militarily, everyone can see that for the last 5-6years
we have been pushing for more investment, more trade. There should be more trade.55
Another person representing an organization of Turkish businesses in Washington,

DC, explained when asked if the United States is thought of as a less reliable ally because
they emphasize Turkeys strategic importance but have not come through as strongly in
bilateral economic aspects, Yes. Thats pretty much Turkeys view. When it comes to
trade and economic relations Turkey thinks it is unfairly treated, and the US doesnt do
well enough.56
The previous plays of the partnership game reflected this dynamic, with Turkey
pushing for more economic gains and the United States emphasizing their military
importance. For example, despite Turkish requests in the past for a free trade agreement,
the United States chose to focus on supporting Turkeys European Union (EU) membership rather than engaging in direct, bilateral trade agreements. However, occasional talks
about bilateral economic agreements surfaced in reaction to EUTurkish relations. For
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example, in 19971999, there was some talk of initiating a USTurkey Free Trade
Agreement57 after the Clinton Administration failed to persuade EU member states to
upgrade Turkeys status to an EU candidate in 1997.58 Senator Phil Gramm promoted a
project for a free trade agreement between the United States and Turkey during an August
1997 visit to Ankara but as the reporter noted:
The move is part of efforts by the US to support closer relations between Turkey and the EU.
Turkey has a long-standing application to join the European Union but last month, the EU
excluded Turkey from a list of prospective new members to join the 15-nation bloc.59
Once the new round of the partnership game was initiated, it appeared that the United
States finally agreed to a language of economic and security partnership that Turkey had
been trying to encourage for years. With the initiation of the game and the expansion of
a common grammar, the United States and Turkey established that the rules of partnership in this round of play would structure a more balanced, equal engagement than had
been the case in the past. Primarily, Turkeys strategy was to expand the grammar of
partnership through a language of balance, equality, and enhancement. The language used on the part of Turkey almost always put security on one side and the economy
on the other as if on a teeter-totter that was heavily unbalanced with the security side
much heavier than the economic side. With the initiation of a new partnership with
expanded grammar, balanced and equal came to signal an actual deepening of the
partnership between the United States and Turkey. This came to define what was meant
by the term equal partnership and indicates the significance of the establishment of an
EPC charged with equalizing the economic and strategic aspects of the relationship. For
Turkey, the new partnership game was a long time coming.
Stage 2: institutionalizing the game establishing the EPC

In stage 2 of Howards model of language games, the game is given a concrete institutionalized setting, resources (e.g. funding, office space, and staff), organizational power,
and decision-makers. This tangible commitment and institutionalization becomes the
locus of the game. As Howard states:
These sites are not static institutions. Instead, they are dynamic networks of officials [that
constitute] the rules and language of [the game]. The site is important in that it defines where and
how things actually happen. It is a mechanism for creating a common language and playing the
game.60
The language game now has a place to be played and a concrete commitment to anchor
the dialogue. Where and what this is, shapes the contours of the game.
With the official diplomatic meeting between Turkish Prime Minister Ecevit and
President Bush in January 2002, the language game of partnership entered stage 2. It was as
a result of this diplomatic meeting that President Bush established the EPC. The EPC institutionalized the expansion of the grammar of partnership and the new rules of the game that
included possible moves in the economic realm as well as the military one. This is evident
in the press release announcing the commission. The US State Department announced:
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The U.S. and Turkey have long maintained a close strategic partnership. Now we have agreed
to upgrade our economic partnership to the same level. The first initiative of this new chapter
in our relations will be the convening of the first U.S.-Turkey Economic Partnership
Commission.61
The establishment of the EPC concretized the expanded grammar of partnership, and by
officially committing State Department resources to the enhancement of partnership, the
US institutionalized the language game.
As the diplomatic meeting in January took shape, the partnership game was already
being played as to what this enhanced partnership would look like and what the concrete
results of the EPC might be. On 17 January, Turkeys Commerce Minister Tunca Toskay
explained to reporters what was at stake and deployed the language that characterized the
old partnership game to emphasize the necessity of an enhanced one. Toskay stated in an
interview that Turkeys trade relationship with the United States was less than it deserves
as a strategic security partner Turkey is the only Muslim member of NATO and has
broadly supported the U.S. military action in Afghanistan.62 He concluded his statement
by saying, It is our opinion that Turkey is being treated in an unfair way, Toskay said.63
On the same visit, Turkish Foreign Minister Ismail Cem said that trade between the US
and Turkey was unbalanced because Turkey spends large sums on US military equipment but does not receive favorable trading status in return for its strategic support. He
stated, In our relations with the USA, the hitch is in trade. Our trade is unusually unstable.64 Cem complained that Americans bought only US$3billion worth of Turkish goods
last year compared with US$3.5billion in American products imported by Turkey.65
This reflects Turkeys strategy in the language game. By using the terms balance/
un-balanced and fair/unfair, Turkey distinguished between what would be an old and
new game of partnership and revealed how the EPCs actions would be judged. It was
not trade that was unbalanced (US$3billion to US$3.5billion is actually quite balanced),
it was the relationship between the security emphasis and the economic emphasis in the
partnership that was out of balance. Moreover, Turkey emphasized that in the changed
social context post-9/11, the United States should reciprocate Turkeys support of the
war on terrorism with the help for Turkeys struggling economy, and this too was out of
balance. The moves in the language game would involve pushing forward these specific
meanings of balance, equality, and fairness.
On the part of the United States, President Bush welcomed the Turkish coalition to
Washington and set the tone for the diplomatic meeting in his opening remarks:
Thank you for coming, Mr. Prime Minister. Im proud to welcome you as a friend. You have
been steadfast in your support in the war against terror. And for that, my nation is very grateful.
We appreciate your leadership when it comes to foreign policy, and we appreciate your
leadership when it comes to economic policy. You and your administration have made some
very tough decisions. And the economy is improving as a result of your leadership. And we
look forward to having a good discussion about how we can increase trade.66
As the welcome remarks from President Bush indicate, the United States was also
intent on equalizing the partnership and bringing the security emphasis into balance
with an economic emphasis. Bush is careful to counter each strategic comment with an
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economic one leadership in foreign policy (military, i.e., war on terror reference)
with leadership in economic policy, for example. At this stage of the game, both actors
were developing a common language that could be used to enhance partnership. From
the moves played out during the initial diplomatic meeting, it even appeared that the
partnership might reach the deepest level of friendship. Both leaders expressed mutual
friendship and expressed the intent for a more equal partnership.
Prime Minister Ecevit responded during the press conference following his meeting
with President Bush that the establishment of an EPC was a good first step in enhancing
their partnership toward an equal economic and military relationship. This interplay
between strategic ally and economic ally is evident from his opening remarks regarding the EPC. Moreover, again, like the trade ministers statement, Ecevit reaffirmed that
Turkey came to the aid of the United States in the War on Terrorism and consequently
expected financial help in exchange. This would bring the relationship into balance. The
Turkish strategy in the game of partnership continues in Prime Minister Ecevits remarks:
We had always good relations with the United States and you have totally enhanced this
cooperation and friendship. We have some very good, concrete good news now, as you have
referred to it, Mr. President. The State Department has today issued a statement expressing the
will of the United States that we will be able to form an economic partnership in additional to
our political partnership. We attach great importance to that our cooperation with you against
terrorism is a great service, not only for our own people, but for the whole world. The American
determination to get rid of terrorism in the world is of great importance, of historic importance,
and we are glad, we are very happy that we have the chance to cooperate with you to that effect.
And Turkish and American cooperation, partnership now together with economic partnership
will be beneficial for both peoples of both our countries.67
Ecevit, like Bush, reiterates the expanded grammar of the partnership game and
makes some critical ties during his opening remarks such as the connection between
being close friends over a long period and cooperating on shared experiences of and
responses to terrorism with the great importance Turkey attaches to an economic relationship with the United States. Additionally, Ecevit connects expected economic gains
with Turkeys past service to the United States in supporting the war on terrorism.
Thus, Ecevit, like his Turkish counterpoints, used the language of equality, balance,
and emphasized the mutual benefit of enhancing partnership for both countries.
With the institutionalization of the new partnership game, the site of the game was
established, and it was now up to the EPC to translate this into concrete policy options.
The first meeting of the EPC took place on 26 February 2002. Following Bushs suggestion, the EPC chose the USTurkish QIZ scheme as a relatively quick way to increase
economic ties and enhance partnership. The QIZ proposal further institutionalized the
language game of partnership by expanding the number of players involved. With a
QIZ proposal, Congress would be involved, and with Congress, political lobbies, as well
as other domestic actors would come into play. The network of actors now responsible
for achieving the aim of enhanced partnership had just dramatically expanded.
Furthermore, the formerly tabled QIZ proposal68 was itself the site of an old language game that one might label textile concessions. Textiles, like other sensitive sectors of the US economy, were both heavily protected via quotas and tariffs and at the
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forefront of economic disputes with developing countries such as Turkey. Turkey had
angled in the past to expand the grammar of textiles by similarly pushing the language of
fair/un-fair and balance. The specific strategy was arguing for the elimination of US
textile quotas, particularly since becoming members of the European Customs Union in
1995. As the TurkishUS Business Council, the leading Turkish economic organization
in Istanbul states, Turkeys main argument [in the textile concession game] is that as
Turkey has a Customs Union with the EU, it is controversial that the United States,
which maintains no quotas and barriers to the EU, applies quotas on Turkish goods.69
The textile concession game similarly echoed the Turkish language of unfairness,
unbalanced, and unequal and therefore intersected well with the newly expanded
grammar of partnership. However, it also made the game much more complicated.
With the EPC raising the textile proposal from the dead, they unwittingly70 converged the partnership game with the game of textile concessions and therefore intersected the goal of enhanced partnership with the achievement of textile concessions from
the United States. Most language games intersect with others, either through the intentional action of actors strategically pushing for resonance for one game through linking
it with another or accidentally as actors articulate the rules of the game at the intersection
point with another game.71 Howard claims that Intersections, whether intentional or
accidental, are the product of [actor] practice[s]. Agreements, statements and processes
of implementation will necessarily draw on some historical referents.72 During the institutionalization of partnership in stage 2, and as the EPC further institutionalized how
partnership would be enhanced, the partnership games rules and grammar expanded and
the permissible moves became intertwined with the moves and grammar of a game of
textile concessions a much more difficult game to play and win. With the site of play
established, the game was becoming defined in particular ways according to the actions
of the network of actors. These same acts constituted the parameters of the game and
now the meaning of enhanced partnership began to be specified though the practices of
the actors playing the game.
Stage 3: developing a common language QIZs, textiles,

and enhanced partnership
According to Howards model, once the game establishes a tangible commitment of
resources and an institutional setting, it transitions to stage 3, a forging of a common
language that relates more specifically to the site of the game. As he states, In developing and using a common language, players create shared meaning by agreeing to
use language in a particular way to talk about [in this case, partnership].73 However,
as the partnership game was institutionalized, it intersected with the textile concession game, and this expanded the available grammar and moves for players. Howard
explains, Learning a common language requires understanding how to use that language in particular situations not anticipated by the initial rules.74 Unlike more controlled games such as baseball where the rules are set and rarely change over time,
language games are in use, meaning that as actors practice the rules and act, the
game adjusts and the rules expand as long as both actors continue playing and therefore reiterating the rules as they go along. As the partnership game intersected with the
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textile concession game, the rules stretched enough to allow the kinds of moves familiar in the game of textile concessions.
Textiles: an established and stalled game

Within the grammar of textiles, there are certain maneuvers, strategies, and common
language that actors can deploy concessions, protection, qualifying products, quotas,
value-added, input, and so on. As the Turkey desk officer at the US Department of
Commerce told me:
all the textiles exporters have come to the US for flexibilities and our poor textiles folks are
bombarded daily with these kinds of questions, you know, we want more treatment, we want
more flexibility, we want concessions, I mean theres a whole language that those folks use.75
The textile concession game, like the partnership game, has a long history, institutional
sites, common language, and entanglements. It also has its own network of actors. However,
in this instance, the network of actors partially overlaps with those working toward
enhanced partnership between the United States and Turkey.
Prior to the initiation of a new round of the partnership game, the textile concession
game, was a stalemate. Despite this, Turkey consistently asked for concessions in the
textile sector. For example, the director of the TUSIAD described the impasse from the
Turkish point of view:
[In economic negotiations] the inclusion of Turkeys key sectors is determinate of whether it
is desirable on the Turkey side or not. At the end of the day everything comes down to
textiles, leather and all related manufacturing labor-intensive sectors in Turkey Any
preferential treatment would of course work, but the question would be whether it would
include those sectors or not. And both sectors are strong in their respective countries. Textile
is very strong in Turkey and it also has a strong lobby here in the US and any kind of
agreement would have to pass through the Congress and there it is strong in Congress and so
its very, very difficult for Turkey to have such an agreement with the US. I dont know what
the solution is there.76
As the USTurkish specialist for US Treasury Representatives (USTR) told me,

Turkey always talks about textiles but its not always in their best long term interest as
they need to diversify. Turkey refuses to look beyond textiles.77 Between the United
States and Turkey, textiles was a well-played and worn game. Each player had predetermined roles to play and language to use and not a lot of new moves seemed possible.
Common language: intersecting grammars and competing moves

As the partnership game intersected with the textile concession game, including textiles
as qualified goods became the conduit through which partnership would be measured as
either enhanced or not. However, including textiles as qualified goods in the QIZ constrained the possible moves for US actors as they encountered a tightly knit set of rules
regarding textile concessions that proved nearly impossible to change.
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However, despite the liability that came with the intersection of the partnership game
with the game of textile concessions, US actors proceeded to play the partnership
game. At the EPC meeting where it was agreed to move forward with the QIZ proposal,
the State Department sought Turkish allies in Congress for help with the first step of
submitting an amendment. On 20 June 2002, Senators John Breaux, Chuck Grassley, and
John McCain introduced the TurkishIsraeli Economic Enhancement Act to the US
Senate, which would allow specific products to be eligible for duty-free entry to the
United States under the 1996 IsraelEgyptJordan QIZ program. In announcing the legislation, Senator McCain said:
Turkeys deepening, and unique, strategic relationship with Israel, command of the International
Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, partnership in NATO, and support for U.S. policy
toward Iraq place it in the first order of American allies. Turkish troops have fought alongside
U.S. forces from Korea to Kabul. As a Muslim nation and a secular democracy, Turkey puts to
rest the myth that Americas war on terror is a war on Islam. Turkey deserves our support, and
I hope Congress will act swiftly on our legislation to advance Israeli-Turkish cooperation and
American interests in the region.78
McCains statement reiterated Ecevits earlier statements of balance and fairness

by associating Turkeys past military (strategic) service as justification for economic
partnership. The shared language of partnership had developed some common meanings
among the different actors involved.
The Turkish QIZ amendment required Turkish business firms to have Israeli partnership either through investment or value-added inputs to be eligible for QIZ benefits.
This, of course, was lucrative for the Israeli business community and gained their strong
support for amending the free trade agreement. Because of the proposed TurkishIsraeli
cooperation, the QIZ proposal received strong support from various US Jewish-American
lobbies. In a letter dated 11 September 2002 (1year exactly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks)
and sent to US Senators John B. Breaux (Louisiana), Charles E. Grassley (Iowa), John
McCain (Arizona), and US Representatives Philip M. Crane (Illinois), and Robert I.
Wexler (Florida), nine major American-Jewish organizations characterized the pending
QIZ legislation as a development that sends a timely and well-justified message of
American solidarity with Turkey.79 The letter went on to describe the strategic importance of Turkey and the need to deepen the partnership through economic benefits to
Turkey. It continued:
Since the attacks of last September, there is a new recognition of the importance of the longstanding U.S.-Turkish partnership There is hardly a place in the world where the intersection
of politics and economics is more clearly complete. That is why we are convinced that the
benefits of creating economic development through expanded free trade are so important.
Again, the partnership language had common meanings and all actors used the language of intersecting economics with military (politics) to bring the partnership into
balance.
As the partnership game intersected with the textile concessions game, policy options
became restricted. Over a fairly brief period, it became apparent that the only way to meet
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the goal of enhancing partnership between the United States and Turkey was to include
textiles as a qualified good in the QIZ scheme. Through this language game, actors became
entangled within their own rules, and once this entanglement happened, it became nearly
impossible to start over with the original un-institutionalized partnership game first initiated by the United States that had a more open terrain of permissible moves.
Stage 4: entanglement disappointment and empty

promises
The fourth and final stage of Howards model of language game occurs when actors find
themselves entangled in the rules they have created with the common language.80 While
rules define the situation, give it meaning and create the realm of possible and permissible actions,81 these same rules can begin to entangle actors to the extent that permissible moves at the outset of the game are now reduced to only a few options.
At stage 4 of the language game, possible moves in the USTurkish partnership game
became constrained by the intersecting rules of textile concessions such that any possible move needed to address this issue for the game to move forward. Actors had learned
how to use the common language, and those in favor of enhancing USTurkish partnership could not avoid the grammar of textiles it had developed into the common language of the enhanced partnership game.
The Hollowed QIZ: exclusion of sensitive goods and enhanced

partnership dismantled
Despite Israeli, Turkish, and US support, by the time the QIZ legislation was approved
by the Ways and Means Committee in September, the eligible products included in the
duty-free zones had been stripped down to only high-tech products textiles were not
included. During the summer, several meetings took place to push for the inclusion of
textiles and other goods more valuable to Turkey. Republican Congressman, Cliff Stearns
of Florida and Democratic Congressman, Robert Wexler of Florida, joined a contingent
of Turkish business leaders at a meeting on 22 July in Washington where they expressed
their full support for a more meaningful economic agreement for Turkey and asked the
USTR to prepare a more comprehensive proposal that would give Turkey the opportunity to pull itself out of its economic crisis.82
In addition to a US push for the inclusion of textiles, officials of the Turkish Foreign
Ministry reiterated the concerns of Turkish business community during a meeting with
EPC members held in Washington at the end of August between the Turkish and American
teams that a QIZ proposal without textiles would not achieve the partnership goals of the
EPC. The Turkish Foreign Ministry stated that The QIZ legislation, in its current form, is
opposed by the Turkish business and industry leaders because it excludes textiles and
apparel, Turkeys primary exports and the only industry capable of expansion in the US
market.83 Another Turkish newspaper reported on the August visit stating that the
President of the Turkish Textiles Industry Association, Umut Oran, declared that the
Senators who are responsible for the current description of the QIZ project admitted that
the current condition of the QIZ proposal is not useful for Turkey.84 The US representative
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of Istanbul Textile and Apparel Exporter Associations (ITKIB)and Turkish Exporters

Assembly (TIM), organizations representing over 14,000 members of textile and apparel
exporters in Turkey, Ziya Sukun, stated Turkeys disappointment with the now hollowed
out QIZ proposal that had arrived in the House Ways and Means Committee in September:
Over 50 percent of Turkish exports to the US are textiles and apparel which has reached its limit
of $1.2billion. The US imports billions of dollars worth of textiles and apparel from China and
Hong Kong. Its not because of Turkish imports that US textile workers are losing their jobs.
Were asking for a fair share because this is what we have to offer the US market that will pull
Turkey out of economic crisis.85
Sukun concluded by saying:

Its expected that when the President of the United States declares an economic partnership
program it means more than a simple QIZ project [without textiles]. It means lifting trade
barriers and adjusting custom taxes for substantial industries that have a meaningful effect on
our countrys economy.86
The Turkish moves in the language game consistently emphasized balance, fairness, and
equality. Now, entangled in the rules of the evolved game, this translated into textile
concessions as the only move towards equal partnership. For example, Sukuns remarks
operated within the common language and the rules of the new game of partnership such
that when he emphasized that any partnership program must include substantial industries that have meaningful effect.
The TurkishUS Business Council used this same strategy but more directly within
the parameters of the expanded grammar of the partnershiptextile concession intersecting game. In a press release, it stated:
Turkey views QIZs as a crucial tool to improve economic relations with the US Turkey
claims that the exclusion of textiles contradicts the worldwide practice of the US, including the
QIZ in Israel, and argues that there should not be any restrictions on sector and location
options.87
In the United States, the Israeli lobby expressed disappointment with the final QIZ proposal as well, reiterating that Turkey is a critical ally and deserves more in return. In my
interview with the American-Jewish Council, they retrospectively described the QIZ
proposal debate:
We fought for the QIZs because we fought for Turkey and we thought that the QIZs in the end,
as I say, the administration will do anything for Turkey except for do anything for Turkey.
When you looked at the QIZs it didnt contain textiles, it didnt contain the things that Turkey
needed I dont think the QIZs were very generous. It offered them stuff they werent good
at and it didnt seem like the administration was willing to put out a lot of political muscle with
the Textile Caucus.88
From a US domestic perspective, it was the textile issue that proved impossible to
navigate for the proponents of the QIZ legislation. For example, in my interview with
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USTR Turkey Representative, David Birdsey, he explained that opposition to textile concessions is steadfast in the US Congress. As he stated:
The initial QIZ proposal did have limited textile access. However, Senator Wes Hayes from
North Carolina gave 1 vote for it on the condition that no textile concessions be given before
the 2005 MFA quota reduction [when all textile quotas would be abolished anyway]. Textile
lobbies on both sides have a very strong effect.89
The Turkish representative from the Department of Commerce also explained that the textile issue was too sensitive to get the QIZ proposal through Congress. With the exclusion of
textiles and apparel from the QIZ proposal, Turkish business and industry organizations
actively lobbied against it in order to press for a QIZ program that was not empty. Because
of Turkeys actions against the high-tech QIZ proposal, the legislation lacked the support
needed to continue through the congressional process and it stalled in committee.
Summary and analysis

The intersection of the textile concession game with the partnership game effectively
constrained the permissible moves of the EPC and others hopeful of negotiating a successful economic agreement with Turkey. The language game model illustrates how,
over time, the QIZ proposal came to mean nothing for Turkey if textiles were not
included. At this point, the partnership game quickly unraveled. The rules of the game
evolved in a direction that made this partnership game impossible to win and actually a
game that could be lost. Since the initiation of the new partnership game established
a grammar of enhancement that came to include a balance between the economic and
security aspects of the relationship, a proposed QIZ scheme with nothing of value to
Turkey threatened to erode the existing partnership. As the empty QIZ proposal was
juxtaposed with Turkeys domestically unpopular move to be the first Muslim ally to
offer troops to the US war on terrorism, the USTurkish partnership appeared even further out of balance than before the game began.
In an interview with a former Turkish government trade advisor, he explained why
textiles were the make or break ingredient for a successful economic partnership:
So, when it came to the QIZ discussion in Turkey, everyone wanted the textiles to be
included in the QIZ system. Because they said that people could easily transfer their
manufacturing to the QIZ zone from anywhere in Turkey because ready-made goods are a
smallish industry that you can transfer very easily. And it could start immediately to make
exports for Turkey and to make an impact in Turkey because the textile industry employs a lot
of people in Turkey, especially ladies so we can find employment for ladies. But [the US] said
no we dont want textiles included. And our argument was always for the QIZ, we were telling
the US The value of the QIZ is for goods that have high import duties to the US or quotas
thats the only value that the QIZ has.90
The empty QIZ proposal signaled that the United States was not following the new
rules of enhancement and equality that had become part of the new grammar of
partnership. As the director of business consulting group, ARGE, exclaimed in an
interview:
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When we started [the QIZ negotiations] it was a good idea, but then all the things in which
Turkey is competitive were eliminated from the list that was available for the QIZ. So it didnt
work out. Textiles for example [were excluded]. They left in high tech. If we were competitive
in high tech we wouldnt need a QIZ!91
With the EPC signifying equal partnership within the contours of the partnership
game, the failure of the QIZ proposal meant more than a failed QIZ proposal the
entire game of enhancing partnership was lost. The inability of the United States to
include textiles as qualified goods was an action of deteriorating partnership rather
than enhancing it. In a language game where balance, equality, and fairness meant
partnership, a proposal with nothing of value for Turkey was reminiscent of the old
game of partnership. The United States acted according to the old rules and not
according to the new ones. This signaled to Turkey that nothing had changed in terms
of the relationship.
The moves within the partnership game expanded the possibilities of permissible
action and gave rise to heightened expectations for results. Because of this, once the QIZ
proposal failed, Turkey articulated frustration and disappointment as the empty promise of enhanced partnership. For example, when the director of ARGE was asked if other
kinds of QIZs might be possible, he said:
It is possible. There is no limit to creativity. But the end result should be quick money. And its
not only getting money but also employment for large numbers of people first you have to
agree on what you want to accomplish with the QIZ. If you want to say here is a little carrot
named QIZ but its empty then its not going to make a difference. So what you want to
accomplish with QIZ is important.
Author: So what kinds of sectors provide that immediate relief?
Answer: Textiles.92
With the failure of this first proposal of the EPC, it appeared that the USTurkey
relationship would remain the old game of partnership predominantly strategic.
Entanglement of the two games had dashed the hope of the EPC in achieving a balanced,
equal, relationship with Turkey.
Conclusion
In this article, I examined USTurkish partnership as a language game using Peter
Howards four-stage model of language game analysis. Language game analysis provides a way of analyzing how practices change and build common meanings within a
network of actors. It can demonstrate how and why something like the QIZ proposal
came to mean what it did for USTurkish actors. It also explains why expectations were
high for a proposal that might otherwise seem a very unlikely possibility.
Analyzing the language game of partnership solves the puzzle of why actors had
increased expectations for concessions on textiles in the QIZ proposal given the history
of this issue. It explains the rise and fall of expectations and disappointment. As actors
became entangled in their own rules of enhanced partnership, there was little to be done
to change the now common language and meaning of enhanced partnership, namely,
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the inclusion of textiles, an extremely sensitive and protected sector in the US domestic
economy. The practices of actors as they played the game made any former moves
impossible to bring back into the game at a later time. As the partnership game intersected with the textile concession game, the only way to enhance partnership became to
include textiles in the QIZ proposal.
This was not necessarily how the initial partnership talks started out, but once the
game was started, the possibilities for actions and moves with the game were limited by
the rules of the now intersecting partnershiptextile game. Wittgenstein explains:
The fundamental fact here is that we lay down the rules, a technique, for a game, and that then,
when we follow the rules, things do not turn out as we had assumed. We are therefore entangled
in our own rules For those cases, things turn out otherwise than we had meant or foreseen.93
The entanglement of rules from the partnership and textile games created a new set of
rules that dictated that the exclusion of textiles signaled a failure of enhanced partnership. Without textiles in the QIZ scheme, the USTurkish partnership was perceived by
Turkey to remain the same old partnership (strategic) and dominated by the interests of
the United States and not equally considerate of Turkeys needs, interests, or economic
health. A language game analysis provides an explanation for how actors expectations
rise and fall and provides an understanding of the maintenance, enhancement, and dismantling of state relationships in a social and practice-centered context.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Bud Duvall, Peter Howard, Karin Fierke, Sanjoy Banerjee, and Andrei
Tsygankov for their helpful comments and feedback on various drafts of the manuscript. I would
also like to thank and acknowledge the many participants in the USTurkish economic community
that gave generously of their time and expertise during my interviews. Martin Sampson receives a
special acknowledgement for his assistance and development of the empirical research that
grounds this work, including his help in conducting interviews and facilitating research in Istanbul,
Turkey. Finally, I would like to thank the extremely thorough and helpful comments of the anonymous reviewers who helped improve this manuscript tremendously.
Funding
This research was partially funded by a Graduate Research Partnership Program Grant and the Larson
Fellowship for the Study of Political Economy from the University of Minnesota. This research
received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit
sectors.
Notes
1. House Committee on International Relations United States Congress, Subcommittee on
Europe:
To Commend Turkey and Israel for Continuing to Strengthen Their Partnership and Support
of the War on Terrorism; to Express the Sense That Security, Reconciliation, and Prosperity
for All Cypriots Can Be Best Achieved within Membership of the EU and for Other Purposes;
to Commend Turkey for Assuming Command of the Peacekeeping Operation in Afghanistan.
(US GPO, 2002: 25)
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2. Paul Blustein, Stopping the Bailout Buck Here: ONeill Taking a Tough Stance on IMF
Loans to Countries, The Washington Post, 5 June 2001, p. E1.
3. Hugh Pope, Turkey Builds on New Closeness with U.S., Wall Street Journal, 14 January
2002, p. A12.
4. Neil King Jr, Another Anti-Terror Coalition Partner, Turkey, Fails to Win Many U.S. Favors,
Wall Street Journal, 17 January 2002, p. A16.
5. When Prime Minister Ecevit was asked if he was disappointed in the outcome of the meeting
with President Bush, he replied, No, I believe in the good will of the United States administration. See Jim Lehrer, The Prime Minister of Turkey, a Longtime Ally of the United
States, Discusses Peacekeeping in Afghanistan and Concerns about Iraq, PBS NewsHour,
2002, Transcript.
6. 107th Congress, Turkey-Israel Economic Enhancement Act. Second, S 2663.
7. As a recent Forbes magazine article describes:
In the 224years since the first Congress, textile and apparel protectionism has been a continuous feature of U.S. trade policy. High tariffs, voluntary export restraints, safeguard restrictions to limit the effects of market disruption, 30years of comprehensive import quotas
under the Multifibre Arrangement, antidumping and countervailing duty restrictions, special
safeguard mechanisms related to Chinas entry into the WTO (which were used to effectively
extend quotas for three years), carve outs, and convoluted rules of origin in trade agreements
to ensure the contentedness of Americas textile magnates have defined U.S. policy since the
founding of the republic.
See Dan Ikenson, Washingtons Coddling of U.S. Textile Industry Is Hurting Shoppers,
Forbes, 23 July 2013. Available at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/danikenson/2013/07/23/
textile-protectionism-in-the-trans-pacific-partnership/ (accessed 19 February 2014).
8. I analyzed the transcripts of my 21 interviews I had with experts who were representative
of organizations promoting USTurkish economic ties (14 in Washington, DC, from August
2003; 7 in Istanbul, Turkey (with Dr Martin Sampson) from October 2003) that included 189
pages (47,257 words) of data.
9. This literature is extensive but largely rooted in the decision-making literature such as
Richard Snyder, H. W. Bruck and Burton Sapin, Decision-Making as an Approach to the
Study of International Politics, Foreign Policy Analysis Project Series No. 3 (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1954 [1962]). Also see Richard C. Snyder, H. W. Bruck
and Burton Sapin, Foreign Policy Decision Making (New York: Free Press, 1962;
reprinted in 2002) and the bureaucratic approach put forth by Graham Allison in Graham
T. Allison and Morton H. Halperin, Bureaucratic Politics: A Paradigm and Some Policy
Implications, World Politics, 24, 1972, pp. 4079 and Graham T. Allison and Philip
Zelikow, Essence of Decision, 2nd ed. (New York: Longman, 1999). Also see Valarie
Hudson, Foreign Policy Analysis: Actor-Specific Theory and the Ground of International
Relations, Foreign Policy Analysis, 1, 2005, pp. 130 for an excellent overview of the
domestic politics literature.
10. Susan Rosegrant, Pakistani Textile Exports, Fast Track, and the US War on Terror: A
Collusion of Foreign and Trade Policy Goals, in Case Program, John F. Kennedy School of
Government (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 2006), pp. 121.
11. Janice Bially Mattern, Ordering International Politics (New York: Routledge, 2005).
12. Emanuel Adler and Michael Barnett, Security Communities (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1998).
13. Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1999).
92
14. Iver B. Neumann, Returning Practice to the Linguistic Turn: The Case of Diplomacy,
Millennium, 31, 2002, pp. 62751.
15. Jeffrey Checkel, Review Article: The Constructivist Turn in International Relations Theory,
World Politics, 50, 1998, pp. 32448, 325.
16. Neumann, Returning Practice, p. 627.
18. Stefano Guzzini, A Reconstruction of Constructivism in International Relations, European
Journal of International Relations, 6, 2000, 14782, 148.
19. Thomas Risse, Lets Argue: Communicative Action in World Politics, International
Organization, 54, 2000, pp. 139.
20. Risse, Lets Argue, p. 1.
21. See, for example, Chris Brown, The Practice Turn, Phronesis and Classical Realism:
Towards a Phronetic International Political Theory?, Millennium Journal of International
Studies, 40, 2012, pp. 43956.
23. Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life (Berkeley, CA: University of California
Press, 1984).
24. See Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1977); and Pierre Bourdieu, The Logic of Practice (Stanford, CA: Stanford University
Press, 1980).
25. For use of these concepts in IR, see Stefano Guzzini, A Reconstruction.
26. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1958).
27. See, for example, Nicholas G. Onuf, World of Our Making (Columbia, SC: University of
South Carolina Press, 1989); Nicholas G. Onuf, The Constitution of International Society,
European Journal of International Law, 5(1), 1994, pp. 119; Nicholas G. Onuf, Making
Sense, Making Worlds: Constructivism in Social Theory and International Relations
(Abingdon: Routledge, 2013).
28. See, for example, Gavan Duffy, Brian K. Frederking and Seth A. Tucker, Language Games:
Dialogical Analysis of INF Negotiations, International Studies Quarterly, 42, 1998, pp. 271
94; Gavan Duffy and Brian K. Frederking, Changing the Rules: A Speech Act Analysis of
the End of the Cold War, International Studies Quarterly, 53, 2009, pp. 32547; Hayward R.
Alker, The Dialectical Logic of Thucydides Melian Dialogue, American Political Science
Review, 82, 1988, pp. 80520. See also the edited volume honoring Hayward Alker, Rene
Marlin-Bennett (ed.), Alker and IR: Global Studies in an Interconnected World (New York:
Routledge, 2011); Karin M. Fierke, Changing Games, Changing Strategies (Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 1998); Karin M. Fierke, Logics of Force and Dialogue: The
Iraq/UNSCOM Crisis as Social Interaction, European Journal of International Relations, 6,
2000, pp. 33571, 337.
29. Gavan Duffy, Pragmatic Analysis, in Audie Klotz and Deepa Prakesh (eds) Qualitative
Methods in International Relations: A Pluralist Guide (Houndsmills: Palgrave Macmillan,
2008), pp. 168186.
30. Duffy etal., Language Games, p. 291.
31. Duffy and Frederking, Changing the Rules, p. 331.
32. Gavin Duffy explicitly draws on the speech act theories of John Austin, Paul Grice, and John
Searle. See, John L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press,
1962); Paul H. Grice, Logic and Conversation, in Peter Cole and Jerry L. Morgan (eds)
Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech Acts (New York: Academic Press, 1975), pp. 4158, and
John R. Searle, Speech Acts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969).
93
Skonieczny
33. This is a research program based off of the extensive work of Karin Fierke. See Karin M.
Fierke and Michael Nicholson, Divided by a Common Language: Formal and Constructivist
Approaches to Games, Global Society, 15, 2001, pp. 725 for an extensive explanation of
this research tradition.
34. Fierke, Changing Games, p. 19.
35. Karin M. Fierke, Agents of Death: the Structural Logic of Suicide Terrorism and Martyrdom,
International Theory, 1, 2009, pp. 155184, 158.
36. Fierke, Agents of Death, pp. 1589.
37. Peter Howard, Constructing Security: The Power of Language in U.S. Foreign Policy
(Washington, DC: American University, 2002), p. 46.
40. Thank you to a very helpful anonymous reviewer for needed clarification on this point.
41. Later Wittgenstein uses parts of speech or language game type in place of the term
spaces. See, Robert Wesley Angelo synopsis of Wittgensteins logic of language for clarity
on this point. Available at: http://www.roangelo.net/logwitt/logwitt3.html#Parts-of-Speechand-Printed-Words (accessed 26 February 2014).
42. Russell discussed his conversations with Wittgenstein in his autobiography. Bertrand Russell,
The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell (Boston: Little Brown, 1967), p. 297.
43. Fierke uses the term alliance to define the language game in her work but alliance-type
games might be called a game of community-building or partnership. In my analysis, I use
the term partnership since that is the label used by participants in my case study. As Fierke
states, What to label the game comes from the language used by the actors but is not exclusive of other possible names.
44. Fierke, Changing Games.
47. Howard, Constructing Security.
48. Howard, Constructing Security, p. 46.
49. In Duffy and Frederking (2009), the authors elaborate on what was formerly dialogical analysis and create a model not unlike the one presented here by Howard. The upward movement
of a Wittgensteinian moment in the model represents a context-creating product of human
activity and proceeds up until the activity is institutionalized. The downward movement in
the model represents a Weberian moment wherein social practices have become routinized
through institutionalization and limit the conditions of possible and acceptable action. My
thanks to an anonymous review for this helpful insight into the compatibility of these two
models.
50. Author Interview, 2003.
51. Relations with North American Countries: TurkishUs Relations (Ankara, Turkey: Republic
of Turkey Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2003), p. 3.
52. Relations with North American Countries, p. 3.
53. Relations with North American Countries, pp. 34.
57. Harun Kazaz, Free Trade Agreement with Us Is Overdue, Turkish Daily News, 16 August
1997, p. 1; Douglas Frantz, Turkeys Leader Visits U.S. to Plead for Urgent Economic Aid,
The New York Times, 14 January 2002, p. A3.
94
58. Nathalie Tocci, Eu Accession Dynamics and Conflict Resolution (Aldershot: Ashgate
Publishing, LTD, 2004).
59. Gramm Promotes Free Trade, The Financial Times, 12 August 1997, p. A4.
61. Philip T. Reeker, U.S.-Turkey Economic Partnership Commission. Available at: http://www.
state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2002/7295.htm (2002).
62. Doug Palmer, Turkey Seeks Fairer Access to US Textile Market, Reuters, 17 January 2002.
63. Palmer, Reuters.
64. Peter Sisler, Ecevit to Solicit Trade Aid to Back U.S. Against Iraq, The Washington Times,
14 January 2002, p. A11.
65. Frantz, The New York Times, p. A3.
66. President Bush, Turkish Prime Minister Discuss War on Terrorism, Public Papers of the
Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush, 16 January 2002, pp. 746.
67. President Bush, Turkish Prime Minister, pp. 746.
68. A QIZ proposal for Turkey had been previously initiated by the Clinton Administration who
had successfully implemented a similar program in Jordan with great success. President
Clinton had circulated the possibility of modeling the Jordanian program in Turkey after a
1999 earthquake in Northwestern Turkey killed over 17,000 people and left approximately
half a million people homeless. The proposal never manifested and was moved to the back
burner with the 2000 US Presidential election but had remained of particular interest to the
Turkish business community.
69. Towards an Economic Partnership between Turkey and the USA (Istanbul: TurkishUS
Business Council (TUSBC) of DEIK, 2003).
70. I use the term unwittingly because once the game of partnership intersected with the game
of textile concessions it made the Commissions job much more difficult and I doubt this was
the intention.
78. Breaux, Grassley, McCain Introduce Trade Bill for Turkey, The Turkish Times, 1 July 2002.
79. QIZ Legislation Supported by Major American-Jewish Groups, The Turkish Times, 15
September 2002, p. 1.
82. QIZ Legislation Supported.
83. QIZ Legislation Supported, p. 1.
84. Current Condition of the Qiz Proposal Is Not Useful for Turkey, Milliyet, 3 November 2002.
87. Towards an Economic.
93. Wittgenstein, Philosophical, p. 125.
95
Skonieczny
Author biography
Amy Skonieczny is an Assistant Professor of International Relations at San Francisco State

University. Her research interests include social construction of US trade politics, societal influence on US foreign policy, and social theory and narratives in global political economy. Her publications include Constructing NAFTA: Myth, Representations and the Discursive Construction
of US Foreign Policy (2002) in International Studies Quarterly, Interrupting Inevitability:
Globalization and Resistance (2010) in Alternatives: Global, Local Political and a book chapter,
Globalization and Occupy Wall Street with Giuliano Morse (2014) in the SAGE Handbook of
Globalization. She is currently working on a book manuscript titled Trade Talk: Images, Identity
and US Economic Policy.

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Playing partners: Expectation,

San Francisco State University

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International Relations 29(1)

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Language and action: rule-based approaches to analyzing

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International Relations 29(1)

Constructivism and the Practice Turn

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Rule-oriented constructivism: pragmatic analysis and language games

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International Relations 29(1)

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Figure 1. Fierkes Grammar Tree of Possiblities for the language of structure.

Language games of alliance and partnership

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Stage 1: enhanced partnership promised a language game

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International Relations 29(1)

Figure 2. Partnership game: the Old and the New.

Enhancing partnership and increasing expectations

Turkish actors described the old, long-standing partnership by emphasizing that

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Another person representing an organization of Turkish businesses in Washington,

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Stage 2: institutionalizing the game establishing the EPC

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Stage 3: developing a common language QIZs, textiles,

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Textiles: an established and stalled game

As the USTurkish specialist for US Treasury Representatives (USTR) told me,

Common language: intersecting grammars and competing moves

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McCains statement reiterated Ecevits earlier statements of balance and fairness

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International Relations 29(1)

Stage 4: entanglement disappointment and empty

The Hollowed QIZ: exclusion of sensitive goods and enhanced

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of Istanbul Textile and Apparel Exporter Associations (ITKIB)and Turkish Exporters

Sukun concluded by saying:

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International Relations 29(1)

Summary and analysis

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International Relations 29(1)

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International Relations 29(1)

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International Relations 29(1)

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Amy Skonieczny is an Assistant Professor of International Relations at San Francisco State