At a time when neighbourly relations between nation-states dominated international politics, Carl Schmitt defined the political as the tension between friend and enemy. After 1945, states were expected to adopt a trans-national understanding and to step beyond their isolationist boundaries, a hope largely disappointed in Cold War hostilities. After a surge of popularity for concepts such as fluidity, migration, and fragmentation, polarity has returned to the stage of international politics, bringing with it renewed interest in neighbourhood. Associating neighbourhood with friendship, Hasan Bülent Kahraman looks at Maurice Blanchot’s theory of the “infinite distance” inherent in friendship. Turkey can and should, he argues, use this distance as a parameter in order to establish a productive relationship with the EU and the West.
