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Begin New Search Political Geography Germany Journal Insight Turkey

1. Negotiating Modernity and Europeanness in the Germany-Turkey Transnational Social Field

Author:
Susan Beth Rottmann
Publication Date:
05-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
In conversation with recent work on transnational social fields, this article explores how Germany and Turkey are linked through a “set of multiple, interlocking, networks of social relationships” . The article examines how the social field affects migrants returning from Germany to Turkey. Specifically, it describes how the transnational social field emerges through a concrete set of economic, political and cultural exchanges. It also illustrates that the social field is a space of imaginations of Germany and Turkey, reflecting and producing citizens' uncertainties about the “Europeanness”. For German-Turkish return migrants, the transnational social field exacerbates conflicts with non-migrants and fosters anxieties about migrants' “Germanization” and loss of “Turkishness.” Ultimately, this research shows that Turkish citizens remain deeply concerned about the meaning of modernity, Muslim citizenship in Germany, and Turkey's current and future position in Europe.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
Europe, Turkey, and Germany

2. Thanks for the Buggy Ride: Memoirs of an Ottoman Jew

Author:
Michael McGaha
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
This little memoir, first published in Italian in 1987, is an account of a life well lived. A proud Sephardi Jew, Victor Eskenazi (1906-1987) was fortunate to have been born and raised in Istanbul at a time when that city was still home to an extraordinarily diverse mix of ethnic and religious groups. In the book's introduction, Eskenazi's son John defines his father as Ottoman “because of his inbred cosmopolitanism, his wide vision of the world, his insatiable intellectual curiosity, his instinctive understanding and respect of other peoples, cultures, and behaviours, and when required also a determination and assertiveness that is so prevalent in the Ottoman personality and in the history of the Empire” (pp. 10-11). Although Eskenazi's formal education ended with high school, just growing up in such a city was in itself a liberal education. By the time he finished high school, he was fluent and literate in Greek, Ladino, French, Ottoman Turkish, German, and English. A bright and sensitive child, Victor clearly reveled in the rich variety of sights, sounds, and smells his native city offered him in such profusion.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
Germany, Italy, and Vienna

3. Dynamics of Energy Governance in Europe and Russia

Author:
Sreemati Ganguli
Publication Date:
04-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
Dynamics of Energy Governance in Europe and Russia Relations between Europe and Russia in the post-Cold War era constitute a fascinating area of study, as it involves many interlinked socioeconomic and political issues. Significantly, the events that shaped the political landscape of contemporary Europe, i.e., the reunification of Germany and collapse of the Soviet domination of East Europe, were precursors to the disintegration of the Soviet Union. The book under discussion focuses on the issue of energy governance in Europe and Russia, which is significant as both Russia and Europe share a flourishing codependent energy trade relation and the issue touches on many areas of common bilateral concern- political, economic, technological, environmental, bureaucratic and legal. The book has twelve chapters, divided in three thematic sections, apart from Introduction, Conclusion and Afterword. It represents a culmination of debates exchanged through the Political Economy of Energy in Europe and Russia (PEEER) network and approaches the entire issue through the theoretical approach of International Political Economy. Essentially, the book aims to focus on multiple actors and institutions that shape the policy processes of energy governance in Europe and Russia, in the context of an interlinked and interdependent global, regional and local scenario. In the first section on “Transnational Dynamics” the focus is on legal issues. Tatiana Romanova discusses EU-Russian energy relations in the context of legal approximation (Article 55 of the EU-Russian Partnership and Cooperation Agreement), noting two particular focal points – the improvement of the energy trade scenario and the clean energy agenda. Daniel Behn and Vitally Pogoretskyy analyze the system of dual gas pricing in Russia and its impact on EU imports. They raise an important debate between the Statist and Liberal approaches by questioning the consistency of this system with WTO regulations. For Anatole Boute, the export of European foreign energy efficiency rules to non-EU countries, especially Russia, has the potential to become the cornerstone of the EU's new energy diplomacy, to meet the challenges of a secure energy supply from Russia, and to mitigate bilateral climate concerns. M. F. Keating, on the other hand, deals with the connection between and possible harmonization of global best practices (to systemically use competition, regulation and privatization to reform the energy sector) and the EU's energy security agenda.
Topic:
Cold War and Governance
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Germany

4. Regimes of Ethnicity and Nationhood in Germany, Russia, and Turkey

Author:
Ahmet T. Kuru
Publication Date:
11-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
THIS is a path-breaking book that contributes to the literature on ethnicity and nationalism from various aspects. Conceptually, it develops a typology of three regimes of ethnicity—monoethnic, multiethnic, and antiethnic. The monoethnic regime, unlike the two other types, prioritizes one ethnic group in terms of citizenship and immigration. The multiethnic regime differs from the two others by constitutionally recognizing multiple ethnic groups and even providing them territorial autonomies and some affirmative action policies. The antiethnic regime, in this regard, refuses to recognize a single or multiple ethnic identities as basis of state policy.
Topic:
Immigration
Political Geography:
Russia, Turkey, and Germany

5. Prisoners of Ourselves: Totalitarianism in Everyday Life Turkey and the Dilemma of EU Accession Towards a Social History of Modern Turkey: Essays in Theory and Practice

Author:
Laurence Raw
Publication Date:
11-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
ALTHOUGH written from a variety of perspectives at different points in history, all three books reviewed here offer penetrating insights into Turkish politics past and present, as well as commenting on how they are interpreted both inside and outside the country. Written in English, while he was guest professor at the University of Marburg, Germany (having quit his post at Boğaziçi University in protest at the law curtailing academic freedom), Gündüz Vassaf's Prisoners of Ourselves comprises a series of meditations mostly written between October 1986 and March 1987. His basic thesis is straightforward enough: although human beings consider themselves members of the free world, they are actually subject to totalitarian rule. He surveys some familiar binaries—for example, madness and sanity—and shows how they are used to curtail individual liberties. Western historians have conventionally accepted that the Nazi period in Germany was one of collective madness. However the validity of that judgment can be called into question in the light of Adorno and Horkheimer's research, which discovered that anti-semitism in the United States was much higher than it had been in Germany after Hitler came to power. Vassaf concludes that everyone is part of that “collective madness,” in which one nation is willfully prioritized over another as a means of sustaining power (p. 35). Anyone questioning that notion is abruptly silenced.
Topic:
Politics and History
Political Geography:
United States, Turkey, and Germany

6. The Rise of Islamic Capitalism: Why the New Muslim Middle Class is the Key to Defeating Extremism

Author:
Joseph Hammond
Publication Date:
01-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
On November 30, 2006, Catholic Pope Benedict XVI made a historic visit to the Sultan Ahmed Mosque in Istanbul. The Pope's historic visit to what tourists call the “Blue Mosque” was designed to symbolically ameliorate tensions caused by the Pope's controversial speech a few weeks prior in Germany. During the visit to the mosque, the Pope turned toward Mecca and gave a silent prayer for two minutes. As he and his entourage began leaving the mosque, the Papal leader pointed to an inscription on a wall and asked for the translation of the phrase written there, which was “A merchant is the beloved of God” or “al-kasib habiballah”.
Political Geography:
South Asia, Turkey, and Germany

7. Muslim Marriage in Western Courts: Lost in Transplantation

Author:
Ann Stewart
Publication Date:
01-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
Pascale Fournier's book addresses the highly contentious and complex relationship between multiculturalism, gender relations, and family law in liberal states. It adds to the rapidly growing body of legal scholarship that grapples with the legal consequences of cultural diversity within states that once may have contributed through colonialism to the creation of pluralist legal systems 'elsewhere.' Unfortunately, this scholarship tends to replicate the historical divide with too little attention paid to the rich analyses of 'law' by those working on and within legal systems in what can now be described as the 'global south.' Hopefully the series in which Fournier's book is published (Cultural Diversity and Law edited by Prakash Shah) will bridge this gap.
Political Geography:
United States, France, and Germany

8. The European Union and Central Asia edited by Alexander Warkotsch

Author:
Maria Raquel Freire
Publication Date:
04-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
In this timely volume, Alexander Warkotsch gathers a variety of authors from different backgrounds who work and research Central Asia to produce an empirically well-sustained analysis of the policies and practices in the European Union's (EU) approach towards the area. Warkotsch, an associate researcher at Würzburg University in Germany, has a strong research record on Central Asia, which together with the regional and EU expertise of the authors makes this volume an important contribution to studies about EU relations with Central Asia. In fact, this is an under-researched area and there are few studies attempting at grasping the dynamics underlying these relations. The volume coordinated by Neil Melvin1 (2008) was perhaps the first attempt at systematizing these relations, looking at the dilemmas the EU faces resulting from the development of closer cooperation in economic, security and political terms with Central Asian states while remaining loyal to its normative approach of promoting democratization, securing the protection of human rights and strengthening social justice. Michael Emerson and Jos Boonstra's study (CEPS, 2010) departs from the 2007 EU strategic document and brings a strong regional dimension to the study of EU's engagement and how it mixes with other actors very much present in the area, including China, Iran, Russia, Turkey and the United States.
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, China, Europe, Iran, Central Asia, Turkey, Asia, and Germany

10. Global Perspectives on Global History: Theories and Approaches in a Connected World

Author:
Turan Kayaoğlu
Publication Date:
11-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
What is global history? How does one study it? These are the main questions Dominic Sachsenmaier wants to answer. “It depends” seems to be his answer. Essentially, he argues against a single definition, rationale, and method for global history and shows the presence of multiple and equally valid global, historical perspectives. Debates in the United States, Germany, and China on global history all exemplify this variation.
Topic:
History
Political Geography:
United States, China, and Germany

11. US Presidents and Foreign Policy Mistakes

Author:
Özden Zeynep Oktav
Publication Date:
11-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
Socrates' pupil Chaerephon once asked an oracle “who is the wisest of all men?” The oracle responded that Socrates is the wisest of all because of his self-awareness. According to philosophers from Socrates to Montaigne, Spinoza, Kant, true wisdom and full knowledge may be a utopian fantasy. In a world of uncertainty where mistakes are unavoidable facts of daily life for citizens and politicians alike, how politicians will be able to avoid foreign policy mistakes is the main concern of this book. There are some other questions of crucial importance which the book deals with: What are foreign policy mistakes and how and why do they occur? The answers to those questions are available in this book and it concentrates on the concept of power. Regarding the concept of power, the main question is “kto-kovo?” (Lenin's famous question, “who controls whom?”) The answers to the question “what are foreign policy mistakes?” and conceptualizing foreign policy mistakes are quite blurry and complicated. There may be lots of different kinds of mistakes, such as violating moral rules, lack of cognitive judgment, and policies costing too much and having unanticipated and undesirable results. The mistakes can be classified as omission (too little/too late) and commission (too much/too soon). For example, mistakes of omission are evident in the British policies towards Germany which failed to deter Germany's occupation of Sudetenland in 1938 and to reassure the Russians that they would negotiate an alliance against Germany. This failure of the British decision makers led to a non-aggression pact between Stalin and Hitler in 1939. The Katyn Forest massacre exemplifies best how Soviet Russia misperceived the gains in cooperating with Germany in the removal of Poland from the map of Europe because according to the authors, the Soviet decision to execute Polish POWs and bury them in the Katyn Forest is a foreign policy decision that falls into three domain; morality, intelligence and policy. It was a violation of international law, based on a diagnostic judgement blinded by ignorance of the future and by communist ideology, which led to a prescription for a policy action that alienated future allies.This, at the same time illustrates the mistake of commission (too much/too soon) and moral failure. Foreign policy choices are not only concerned with rational choices, but, as Axelrod and Jarwis clearly defined it, they also stem from some sources of mistakes such as subjective cognitive maps, heuristics, attribution errors, desires to maintain cognitive consistency and avoid cognitive dissonance, selective attention, and other emotional or cold cognitive biases. Khong explains why human beings are “creatures with limited cognitive capacities” by emphasizing that leaders, like every human, tend to turn to historical analogies for guidance when confronted with novel foreign policy challenges. However the issue is that the result is often a foreign policy mistake since this only helps the leaders “access analogies on the basis of surface similarities”.
Topic:
Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
Britain, Russia, United States, Europe, Poland, Soviet Union, and Germany

12. Guest Editor's Note

Author:
Talip Küçükcan
Publication Date:
03-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
Migration and settlement of Turks and Muslims in Europe since the 1960s irrevocably changed the social, cultural, religious and demographic landscape of European societies by transforming them into ethnically more heterogeneous and diverse political communities. It is estimated that Muslims currently constitute approximately 5.2 per cent of Europe's total inhabitants, which is home to 38 million Muslims. Of these, 13million live within the European Union, but they are spread out over the continent. There are about 4.5 million Muslims in France, Germany hosts almost 4 million Muslims, and the United Kingdom is home to 1.6 million Muslims. Italy, the Netherlands and Spain each have just over half a million Muslims, while smaller countries such as Austria, Sweden and Belgium have less than half a million. Turks constitute the largest Muslim immigrant community in Europe with an estimated number of 4.6million.
Topic:
Migration
Political Geography:
Europe, France, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Netherlands, and Austria

13. Individualization and Institutionalization of Islam in Europe in the Age of Securitization

Author:
Ayhan Kaya
Publication Date:
03-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
This article discusses a new social and political phenomenon in Europe, which has become evident along with the visibility of Islam in the European public space. Revealing the current social-political context in Western Europe, which is mainly characterized by a growing drift of securitization of Islam and migration, this paper argues that there are two simultaneously running processes regarding the changing nature of Euro-Islam, which seem to are antithetical: individualization of Islam vs. institutionalization of Islam. Drawing upon the findings of the field research in Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands, this article shows that while the processes of globalization seem to prompt younger generations with Muslim background to liberate themselves from the constraints of their patriarchal parental and community culture, western states as well as ethnocultural and religious brokers tend to reify, or reinforce, their existing communal and religious boundaries. That is to say that the descendants of migrants seem to have been squeezed between individualization and institutionalization of Islam.
Topic:
Islam and Migration
Political Geography:
Europe, France, Germany, Belgium, and Netherlands

14. The Turkish Minority in German Politics: Trends, Diversification of Representation, and Policy Implications

Author:
Şener Aktürk
Publication Date:
03-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
This article looks at the impact of Turkish voters in German politics since the 1980s with a special attention to the latest elections in September 2009. While Turks were almost entirely connected with the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in Germany in the 1960s and 1970s, the 1980s witnessed the rising appeal of the Greens among immigrants in general and Turks in particular. This was followed by the success of Turkish candidates in the Left Party in the 2005 elections. The latest elections in September 2009 witnessed a further diversification of Turkish representation as the SPD, Greens, Left, and the (liberal) FDP each sent a Turkish member into the Bundestag, while the CDU/CSU remained the only party without Turkish representation at the federal level. Despite persistent under-representation in the political arena, and some obstacles against their acquisition of citizenship and religious observance, the Turkish minority in Germany still registers a higher level of political presence than the Muslim minorities in France and Britain.
Topic:
Politics
Political Geography:
Britain, Turkey, France, and Germany

15. Force of Islam: Muslim Temporal Spacing in the German Diaspora

Author:
ilman Lanz
Publication Date:
03-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
This text discusses the case of Talip, son of Turkish immigrants to Germany and a recent convert to Islam. Specifically, the text addresses Talip's reasons for a (re)conversion and the details of his embrace of Islam as the religion of his ancestors. The argument is made that processes of conversion cannot be captured through the conceptualization of different stages or phases except in retrospect. In showing this impossibility, the text further argues that every conversion needs to attach itself or revolve around a specific event that is taken as cathartic for making the move towards the new faith. Attempts that delineate commonalities in processes of conversion and that then speak of phases or stages are able to illuminate the social dimension of this phenomenon. The focus on events, proposed here, is able to much better highlight the idiosyncratic, contingent and personal dimensions of the same phenomenon.
Topic:
Islam
Political Geography:
Turkey and Germany

16. Exil unter Halbmond und Stern

Author:
Stefan Ihrig
Publication Date:
03-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
German-Turkish relations in the twentieth century were at times very good and very close, at times cold, semi-colonial, and often difficult, but always complex and never black and white. Even when relations were friendly, as before and during World War One, the German side often tried to dominate the Ottoman Empire in some way which led to resentment among those who became aware of this—most prominently perhaps Atatürk. And at times when interactions between the two peoples seemed to focus prominently on such aspects as education and academia, as during the National Socialism period when a number of German academics found a temporary home in Turkey, some Germany were not happy about this new kind of closeness between the two peoples. A good history of German-Turkish relations still needs to be written, and there is much to disentangle and uncover until then, but this edited volume by Şen and Halm is another step towards a better understanding of this highly entangled history and inserts itself into the ever growing body of literature on the subject.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
Turkey and Germany

17. Ursula Wokoeck, German Orientalism: The Study of the Middle East and Islam from 1800 to 1945

Author:
Wolfgang G. Schwanitz
Publication Date:
10-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
Ursula Wokoeck's book is a dissertation written at the School of History, Tel Aviv University. Known by her articles on Ibn Khaldun, Theodor Noeldeke, and Middle Eastern modernity, this historian researched the development of Middle Eastern studies as part of a wider discipline: Oriental studies, then still a minor discipline at the faculty of philosophy within the modern German university system.
Topic:
Islam
Political Geography:
Middle East and Germany

18. Corry Guttstadt, Die Tükei, die Juden und der Holocaust

Author:
Stefan Ihrig
Publication Date:
07-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
Within a larger trend of critically rewriting the history of the early Turkish Republic, the history of the Jews in 20th century Turkey has received a lot of attention lately. In Turkey, there is now a growing body of literature somewhat dominated by the work of Rıfat N. Bali. And in Germany as well, there have been some interesting additions to the existing research. Many focus on the Haymatloz topic, i.e. the German emigrants who worked in Turkish universities and other institutions in the time of the Third Reich.
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
Europe, Turkey, and Germany

20. What Type of Islamism for Europe? Islamism in Germany and the Netherlands

Author:
Gonul Tol
Publication Date:
01-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
Despite the general tendency within the literature on Islamism to label all Islamist associations as undemocratic due to a shared Islamic ethos, this article suggests that Islamist groups vary in ideology and methods from one another. They can become a counter-hegemonic force that threatens the democratic order or a potential force for democratization of the Islamic community. The role Islamist associations play in society is determined by the role of Islam within the Islamist discourse that is shaped by the social, economic and political structure within which Islamists operate. By comparing the dominant Turkish Islamist movement Milli Gorus in Germany with its Dutch counterpart based on data collected during field research between the years of 2004 and 2007, this article argues that European states ultimately determine the form Islamism takes within the European public space.
Topic:
Islam
Political Geography:
Europe, Germany, Netherlands, and Dutch