Research Information System
THIRD WORLD QUARTERLY, 2026 (SSCI, Scopus)
This article advances a psychoanalytic interpretation of foreign aid by integrating Heinz Kohut's self-psychology into the analysis of T & uuml;rkiye's Africa-orientated development policies. Situating aid within the nexus of narcissism, recognition and ontological security, it examines Turkish President Erdo & gbreve;an's public speeches and the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (T & Idot;KA)'s official narratives through interpretative discourse analysis. The argument holds that Turkish aid functions less as a neutral policy instrument than as a mirror sustaining a fragile collective self-image - one that seeks cohesion, vitality and moral superiority through the gaze of the Other. In this framework, aid practices become rituals of ontological security: performances that reassert T & uuml;rkiye's national continuity and significance amid the anxieties of global hierarchy and post-imperial loss. The discourse of generosity and solidarity thus operates as a reparative fantasy, transforming geopolitical ambition into moral virtue and dependence into reciprocity. Reading foreign aid as a narcissistic economy reveals how affect and ideology coalesce in the pursuit of collective self-cohesion. By bringing self-psychology into dialogue with ontological security studies, the study contributes to post-development and governmentality critiques by exposing the emotional infrastructure that animates the politics of aid in the Global South.