Geopolitics, Vol.9, No.2 (Summer 2004) pp.269–291 Copyright © Taylor & Francis, Inc. ISSN: 1465-0045 print DOI: 10.1080/14650040490442863 A Return to ‘Civilisational Geopolitics’ in the Mediterranean? Changing Geopolitical Images of the European Union and Turkey in the Post-Cold War Era PINAR BILGIN The prevalence of the discourse of ideological geopolitics during the Cold War meant that both Turkey and the EU belonged to the West by virtue of their ideological orientation. In the absence of this prevalent geopolitical discourse, both the EU and Turkey have spent the 1990s trying to locate themselves geographically. Drawing on the literature on critical approaches to political geography and international relations, this article seeks to answer the question of whether the EU’s post-Cold War security discourse on the Mediterranean in general and on relations with Turkey in particular point to a return to the earlier discourse of civilisational geopolitics. The article also presents a reading of Turkish policy makers’ attempts to resist EU’s representation of Turkey in ‘non-Europe’ (as with the ‘Middle East’ or the ‘Mediterranean’) as boundary- producing practices which have served to underline the boundaries between the ‘West’ and the ‘non-West’. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union gave rise to a feeling of ontological insecurity as to how to organise world politics when drawing our mental maps. As John Agnew has argued, for a while there was a ‘current of nostalgia for the “good old days” when the East was East and the West was West and never the twain should meet’. 1 In the early 1990s this statement seemed true for Turkish policy makers, who began to question Turkey’s identity and its geopolitical location. 2 The post-1989 environment was received rather more favourably in the European Union, 3 which increased its pace towards ‘becoming Europe’. 4 This article analyses the changing geopolitical images of Turkey and the European Union in the post-Cold War era. Drawing on the literature on critical approaches to political geography 5 and international relations, 6 the article seeks to answer the question of whether the European Union’s post- Cold War Mediterranean policy in general and its relations with Turkey in particular point to a return to the discourse of civilisational geopolitics. Pinar Bilgin, Department of International Relations, Bilkent University, Ankara 06533, Turkey. E-mail: <pbilgin@bilkent.edu.tr>.