Content Type: Journal Article / Political Geography: Middle East / Publication Year: within 25 Years / Journal:

301. Ralph J. Bunche – U.N. Mediator in the Middle East and Nobel Laureate

Author:: Renee M. Earle
Publication Date:: 02-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: American Diplomacy
Institution:: American Diplomacy
Abstract:: This year marks the 70th anniversary of the first Nobel Peace Prize presented for efforts to achieve peace in the Middle East between Israel and Arab nations in Palestine. The recipient was Ralph Bunche, an American academic and diplomat with the U.N., who received the Peace Prize in 1950 for brokering the Israeli-Arab armistice agreements in 1949. The agreements ended the official hostilities of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War between Israel and Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon and established armistice lines between Israeli and Arab nation forces that held until the 1967 Six-Day War. (This same seemingly intractable confrontation yielded two later Peace Prizes: to Anwar al-Sadat and Menachem Begin in 1978 and to Yassar Arafat, Shimon Peres, and Yitzhak Rabin in 1994.)
Topic:: Diplomacy, United Nations, Conflict, and Negotiation
Political Geography:: Middle East, Israel, and Palestine

302. The Middle East Accords: an Israeli Perspective

Author:: Ophir Falk
Publication Date:: 11-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: American Diplomacy
Institution:: American Diplomacy
Abstract:: Peace is a universal value, the highest virtue in Jewish tradition, and cherished by anyone longing for a brighter future for his children. Pragmatic Muslim leaders are no exception and with the recently reached “Abraham Accords’, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Israel have proven that Peace for Peace is possible.
Topic:: Diplomacy, Treaties and Agreements, and Peace
Political Geography:: Middle East, Israel, Palestine, and North America

303. The Middle East Accords: An Arab Perspective

Author:: Imad K. Harb
Publication Date:: 11-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: American Diplomacy
Institution:: American Diplomacy
Abstract:: The recent agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, and Sudan will not help the cause of regional peace.
Topic:: Conflict Prevention, Diplomacy, Treaties and Agreements, and Peace
Political Geography:: Middle East, Israel, Palestine, Arab Countries, and United Arab Emirates

304. The Middle East Accords: an American Perspective

Author:: Edward Marks
Publication Date:: 11-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: American Diplomacy
Institution:: American Diplomacy
Abstract:: While the recent accords with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, and Sudan moves Israel further along the path of regional integration and diplomatic normalization, the deal does nothing for Israel’s other existential threat — the Palestinians living in Israel proper, the West Bank, and Gaza. Nevertheless, it is a big deal. It is all part of the evolving Middle East where Arab support for the Palestinians has been melting for years. For decades, many Arab states were united in their hostility toward Israel and support for the Palestinian cause, even though in some cases that backing was largely rhetorical. But change has been under way for decades, beginning with the Egyptian and Jordanian formal recognition of Israel and then in the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative (API). That Saudi Arabian initiative called for normalizing relations between the Arab world and Israel, in exchange for a full withdrawal by Israel from the occupied territories (including the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights, and Lebanon), a “just settlement” of the Palestinian refugee problem based on UN Resolution 242, and the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Topic:: Conflict Prevention, Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Regional Integration, Peace, and Normalization
Political Geography:: Middle East, Israel, Palestine, and United States of America

305. Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment: A Global and Historical Comparison, Ahmet T. Kuru

Author:: Elizabeth R. Nugent
Publication Date:: 09-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: The economic decline of the Muslim world and the rise of Western Europe has long captured the attention of scholars across disciplines. Explanations largely focus either on Islam, whether its financial institutions or the essence of its teachings, or on Western colonialism as the culprit. In Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment, Ahmet T. Kuru puts forward a new explanation rooted in class relations. He takes issue with existing approaches, convincingly demonstrating the intellectual and economic vibrancy of the Muslim world between the eighth and twelfth centuries, undermining arguments about Islam’s incompatibility with progress, and asserting that colonialism occurred too late to explain multiple political and socioeconomic crises. Instead, Kuru identifies the eleventh century as a critical juncture when the Muslim world witnessed the emergence of alliances between Islamic scholars (ulema; singular alim) and the military. These alliances persisted through path dependence and gradually hindered intellectual and economic creativity by marginalizing independent intellectual and bourgeois classes in the Muslim world. In turn, the absence of these classes led to the persistence of authoritarianism and the well-documented underdevelopment in the contemporary period.
Topic:: Development, Islam, History, Authoritarianism, Book Review, and Political Science
Political Geography:: Europe, Middle East, and North Africa

306. The Islamic Factor in the Middle East and North Africa: The “Re-Islamization” Phenomenon

Author:: Ye. Zelenev and O. Ozerov
Publication Date:: 01-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: International Affairs: A Russian Journal of World Politics, Diplomacy and International Relations
Institution:: East View Information Services
Abstract:: The “LIMINALITy” and “re-Islamization” phenomena1 caused by the split in the ranks of the Islamic theological elite into the moderate major- ity (minimalists) and radically minded minority (maximalists) [Waghid, 2011: 5-8] came to the fore in some of the North African Arab countries and in many sub-Saharan countries with considerable Islamic popula- tions. Radicalization of a part of the Islamic political elite betrays itself in a much greater political and military activity of Muslim maximalists and a much wider scope of activities of extremist Islamic organiza- tions. passivity of the Islamic moderate forces (minimalists) against the background of much weaker institutions of state power is as a rule accom- panied by neocolonial penetration in the affairs of the African states shat- tered by the crisis and, what is even more important, much wider appli- cations of different interpretations of the theory of jihad to justify not only armed struggle against non-Muslims and Muslims but also “re- Islamization” of Islamic society (ummah) in all spheres, including educa- tion.
Topic:: Religion, Violent Extremism, and Militant Islam
Political Geography:: Middle East and North Africa

307. Established Practice: Palestinian Exclusion at the Dead Sea

Author:: Aseil Abu-Baker and Marya Farah
Publication Date:: 12-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:: Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:: The Dead Sea, the lowest point on Earth, is one of the natural wonders of the world. Rich in minerals and salt, the lake has attracted visitors for millennia, and the economic value of its mineral riches has been important to both the local Palestinian population and to every colonial power that has ruled the area. Today, Israel exercises total control over the Dead Sea, the northern basin of which lies in the occupied Palestinian territories. Israeli settlements and international businesses, aided by state-funded initiatives, have established a profitable tourism sector and extractive industries based on the Dead Sea’s natural resources, while Palestinians remain effectively excluded from pursuing such opportunities. Qumran National Park, private beach resorts, and the cosmetics company AHAVA, among others, reap enormous profits from settlements in the Dead Sea area, benefiting from Israel’s occupation and unlawful policies and helping to drive a self-serving narrative of the area’s history.
Topic:: Religion, Territorial Disputes, Settlements, and Exclusion
Political Geography:: Middle East, Israel, Palestine, and Dead Sea

308. Palestine at the UN: The PLO and UNRWA in the 1970s

Author:: Anne Irfan
Publication Date:: 12-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:: Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:: This article examines the relationship of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) during the 1970s, the period when the PLO reached the zenith of its power in Palestinian refugee camps throughout the Levant. Based on archival United Nations (UN) and UNRWA documents, as well as the PLO’s own communications and publications, the article argues that the organization approached its relationship with UNRWA as part of a broader strategy to gain international legitimacy at the UN. That approach resulted in a complex set of tensions, specifically over which of the two institutions truly served and represented Palestinian refugees. In exploring these tensions, this article also demonstrates how the “question of Palestine” was in many ways an international issue.
Topic:: United Nations, Territorial Disputes, Refugees, and PLO
Political Geography:: Middle East, Israel, and Palestine

309. The Secret Testimony of the Peel Commission (Part II): Partition

Author:: Laila Parsons
Publication Date:: 12-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:: Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:: This is the second installment of a two-part article on the recently released secret testimony to the Peel Commission. Part I ( JPS 49, no. 1) showed how the secret testimony deepens our understanding of the structural exclusion of the Palestinians from the Mandate state. Part II now focuses on what the secret testimony reveals about the Peel Commission’s eventual decision to recommend partition. It turns out that Zionist leaders were less central to this decision than scholars have previously assumed, and that second-tier British colonial officials played a key role in the commissioners’ partition recommendation. British decision-making over the partition of Palestine was shaped not only by a broad ambition to put into practice global-imperial theories about representative government and the protection of minorities; it also stemmed from a cold-eyed self-interest in rehabilitating the British reputation for efficient colonial governance—by terminating, in as deliberate a manner as possible, a slack and compromised Mandatory administration.
Topic:: Territorial Disputes, Zionism, State, and Empire
Political Geography:: Britain, Middle East, Israel, and Palestine

310. Delegitimizing Solidarity: Israel Smears Palestine Advocacy as Anti-Semitic

Author:: Ben White
Publication Date:: 12-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:: Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:: In response to growing Palestine solidarity activism globally—and particularly in countries that have been traditional allies of Israel—the Israeli government has launched a well-resourced campaign to undermine such efforts. A key element of this campaign consists in equating Palestine advocacy; the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement; and anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. The concerted effort to delegitimize solidarity with the Palestinians is taking place even as genuine anti-Semitism is on the rise, thanks to the resurgent white nationalism of the Far Right in Europe and North America—political forces that Israel is harnessing to help shield from scrutiny and accountability its apartheid policies toward Palestinians, both citizens of the state as well as those under military rule. In its efforts to conflate anti-Zionism with anti- Semitism, the Israeli government is assisted by non-state organizations that nonetheless enjoy close ties with the state and its agencies.
Topic:: Sanctions, Solidarity, BDS, and Anti-Semitism
Political Geography:: Middle East, Israel, and Palestine

311. Introduction: Public Health and the Promise of Palestine

Author:: Danya M. Qato
Publication Date:: 06-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:: Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:: This introductory essay contextualizes the special collection of papers on the pandemic and seeks to map the terrain of extant public health research on Palestine and the Palestinians. In addition, it is a contribution in Palestine studies to a nascent yet propulsive conversation that has been accelerated by Covid-19 on the erasure of structures of violence, including those of settler colonialism and racial capitalism, within the discipline of epidemiology. Using public health as an analytic, this essay asks us to consider foundational questions that have long been sidelined in the public health discourse on Palestine, including the implications for health and health research of eliding ongoing settler colonialism. Rather than ignoring and reproducing their violence, this essay seeks to tackle these questions head-on in an attempt to imagine a future public health research agenda that centers health, and not simply survivability, for all Palestinians.
Topic:: Health Care Policy, Public Health, Pandemic, and COVID-19
Political Geography:: Middle East, Israel, and Palestine

312. Responding to Precarity: Beddawi Camp in the Era of Covid-19

Author:: Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh
Publication Date:: 06-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:: Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:: How are refugees responding to protect themselves and others in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic? How do these responses relate to diverse local, national, and international structures of inequality and marginalization? Drawing on the case of Beddawi camp in North Lebanon, I argue that local responses—such as sharing information via print and social media, raising funds for and preparing iftar baskets during Ramadan, and distributing food and sanitation products to help people practice social distancing—demonstrate how camp residents have worked individually and collectively to find ways to care for Palestinian, Syrian, Iraqi, Kurdish, and Lebanese residents alike, thereby transcending a focus on nationality- based identity markers. However, state, municipal, international, and media reports pointing to Syrian refugees as having imported the virus into Beddawi camp place such local modes of solidarity and mutuality at risk. This article thus highlights the importance of considering how refugee-refugee assistance initiatives relate simultaneously to: the politics of the self and the other, politically produced precarity, and multi-scalar systems that undermine the potential for solidarity in times of overlapping precarities.
Topic:: Nationalism, Refugees, Solidarity, Public Health, Humanitarian Crisis, Pandemic, and COVID-19
Political Geography:: Iraq, Iran, Middle East, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and Kurdistan

313. Covid-19 Fault Lines: Palestinian Physicians in Israel

Author:: Osama Tanous
Publication Date:: 06-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:: Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:: This essay explores representations of Palestinian physicians in the Israeli health-care system during the Covid-19 pandemic and the dynamics that have played out in that system during the public health emergency from the perspective of a Palestinian physician. It argues that the health-care system, an essential pillar and infrastructural foundation of the settler-colonial project, is naively imagined as an apolitical, neutral sphere. As the site of a metaphorical battlefield against Covid-19, it has been window-dressed as an arena for brotherhood between Israeli Palestinians and Jews, and fantasized about as a gateway to political gain or equality for the Palestinian citizens of Israel (PCIs). Throughout the process, settler militarism, settler symbols, and settler domination have continued to be normalized.
Topic:: Public Health, Pandemic, COVID-19, and Medicine
Political Geography:: Middle East, Israel, and Palestine

314. Covid-19 and the Necroeconomy of Palestinian Labor in Israel

Author:: Sobhi Samour
Publication Date:: 06-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:: Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:: The situation of West Bank Palestinians working in Israel has highlighted a number of parallels with the conditions of global labor employed in essential sectors during the Covid-19 pandemic. Under capitalism, the compulsion to work, ostensibly to cultivate life, comes at the risk of being exposed to death, but is preferred over immiseration caused by unemployment. The pandemic has merely amplified existing structural features of such employment. For Palestinian workers, with the risk of infection in Israel being significantly higher, the perilous conditions experienced by Palestinian labor have turned the preservation of life enabled by such employment more firmly into the production of death. The Palestinian Authority (PA), too, faces a conundrum: to balance the economic benefits it derives from Palestinian disposability in the Israeli labor market with public health considerations limiting such employment. This essay argues that the Covid-19 pandemic lays fully bare the necroeconomy produced by the intersection of settler colonialism and capitalism, which also forms the bedrock of the necropolitical order in the West Bank.
Topic:: Labor Issues, Public Health, Pandemic, and COVID-19
Political Geography:: Middle East, Israel, and Palestine

315. The Virus, the Settler, and the Siege: Gaza in the Age of Corona

Author:: Ghassan Abu-Sittah
Publication Date:: 06-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:: Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:: This essay explores the challenges and opportunities that the Covid-19 pandemic has afforded Israel as it broadens its settler-colonial objectives internally, in Gaza, and elsewhere. In particular, it sheds light on the heightened militaristic and economic approaches taken by Israel to further entrench its siege of Palestinians in Gaza and to export increasingly advanced technologies of surveillance and state control long deployed against the Palestinian people. This investigation thus offers an opportunity to probe settler colonialism’s strategic opportunism in the face of the historic pandemic.
Topic:: Public Health, Settlements, Pandemic, and COVID-19
Political Geography:: Middle East, Israel, and Palestine

316. Roundtable On Mental Health Amid COVID-19

Author:: Weeam Hammoudeh, Samah Jabr, Maria Helbich, and Cindy Sousa
Publication Date:: 06-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:: Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:: The Covid-19 pandemic has laid bare the devastating and disproportionate effects of structures of violence that produce vulnerability in communities of color globally, including with respect to mental health-care provision. While coping and resilience are dominant mainstream frameworks to understand mental health in crisis—both in Palestine and elsewhere—the three contributors to this roundtable were asked to offer a rejoinder to that approach. They reflect on the pandemic as an opportunity to revisit how we understand and advocate for critical approaches to mental health in Palestine in the midst of prolonged crisis.
Topic:: Mental Health, Public Health, Pandemic, and COVID-19
Political Geography:: Middle East, Israel, and Palestine

317. The Poetics of Dispossession in Mahmoud Darwish’s “Exile”

Author:: Lucy A. Perry
Publication Date:: 06-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:: Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:: This paper examines Mahmoud Darwish’s exploration of the political, geographical, existential, and metaphysical dimensions of displacement, banishment, and statelessness in his 2005 lyrical epic “Exile.” The paper offers an analysis of Darwish’s treatment of dialectic, heteroglossia, the juxtaposition of the national and the existential, and conflicting temporalities, as well as political uncertainty and metaphysical fear. With particular reference to the paradoxical portrayal of space in “Exile”—the juxtaposition of the near and far, real and illusory, localized and dispersed—I also examine the ways in which Palestinian identity, as narrated in this poem, is destabilized and dispersed by what Michel Foucault calls “heterotopic space.”
Topic:: Humanitarian Crisis, Identity, and Exile
Political Geography:: Middle East and Palestine

318. A Palestinian Statelet in Gaza

Author:: José S. Vericat
Publication Date:: 06-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:: Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:: Fatah leaders routinely accuse Hamas of plotting to establish an “emirate” in the Gaza Strip. Gaza is in fact turning into a statelet separate from the West Bank, but it is Israeli policies that are driving the “Gaza is Palestine” option with a series of measures that have been implemented since the early 1990s to sever Gaza from the West Bank. This development has intensified under the administration of U.S. president Donald Trump. In the White House’s vision for Middle East peace, which turns the West Bank into a series of isolated Bantustans enveloped by Israeli territory and shorn of Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip becomes the centerpiece of any future Palestinian entity. The international community, laser focused on avoiding another war in Gaza, has prioritized the humanitarian over the political crisis, furthering the excision of the Palestinian territory. As aid flows directly into Gaza, bypassing Ramallah, and Israel and Hamas negotiate a long-term ceasefire, the Palestinian Authority (PA) finds itself increasingly marginalized.
Topic:: Territorial Disputes, State, Settlements, and Palestinian Authority
Political Geography:: Middle East, Israel, and Palestine

319. Uluslararasi Hukukun Eksi̇k Uygulanişina Bi̇r Örnek: Bosna-hersek’te Uluslararasi Toplumun Müdahaleleri̇

Author:: Burak Çakirca
Publication Date:: 10-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Academic Inquiries
Institution:: Sakarya University (SAU)
Abstract:: Balkanlardaki birçok farklı unsuru bünyesinde barındıran Bosna Hersek, bu karmaşık yapı nedeniyle bazı sıkıntılı süreçler geçirmiştir. Yirminci yüzyılın son döneminde en büyük trajediler arasında sayılan Sırplar ile Boşnaklar arasındaki savaş bölgede birçok yıkım ve tahribata sebep olmuştur. Bosna’da Uluslararası hukukun diplomatik yöntemler, uluslararası örgütlerin ve uluslararası yargının müdahalesi vasıtasıyla tüm imkanlarının kullanıldığı görülmektedir. Ancak bu imkanların çatışmaları engellemedeki başarısı tartışmalı olmuştur. Bu çalışma, söz konusu methotların hangi düzeyde etkide bulunduğu sorunsallaştırmaktadır. Uluslararası hukukun eksik uygulanışının meydana getirdiği büyük sorunların gösterilmesi çalışmanın amacını oluşturmaktadır.
Topic:: International Law, Military Intervention, and Conflict
Political Geography:: Turkey, Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Bosnia and Herzegovina

320. Maritime 4.0 And Expectations in Maritime Sector

Author:: Dursun Balkan
Publication Date:: 04-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Academic Inquiries
Institution:: Sakarya University (SAU)
Abstract:: As the rapid development of communication and information technologies allows real-time transmission of information, the world is increasingly becoming a global society. In this context, the most developed countries are required to develop their own strategies to encourage the industrial sector to stay up to date and compete in a dynamic and volatile global market in order to maintain its competitive capacity. For this reason, since the path of competitiveness through technological differentiation in industrialization provides a wider and innovative field of research, it reveals the result of a new phase of organization and industrial technology that is beginning to change our relationship with industry, society and human interaction in the business world at present standards. The main target of this study is to reveal the effects of Industry 4.0 on the Maritime sector using with the explanation of the historical development and conceptual framework of today's high technology industry 4.0 and its expectations in maritime sector in the light of the relevant literature. The whole worldwide maritime applications and their reflections on all fields are also the scope of this study. A qualitative descriptive analysis method was conducted to determine the current situation of Maritime Sector which is including Industry 4.0 processes. The findings of this study are Marine-related organizations should be reshaped to meet the needs of the future. Measures and regulations related to the increasing environmental protection sensitivity in the world will directly affect almost every area of the sector. Also, the developing technologies, increasing customer demand and intense competition; it will make the recently introduced Industry 4.0 implementation inevitable.
Topic:: Science and Technology, Communications, and Maritime
Political Geography:: Turkey and Middle East

321. Do Private Sector Short-term External Debt Have Impact on Credit Default Swap Premiums In Turkey? An Analysis with Asymmetric Threshold Cointegration Approach

Author:: Esra N. Kilci and Burcu Kiran
Publication Date:: 04-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Academic Inquiries
Institution:: Sakarya University (SAU)
Abstract:: A country’s capacity to pay short-term external debt, which reflects the fiscal strenght of an economy against adverse shocks, is significantly taken into consideration by international investors in their decision making process. It has been seen that Turkey has experienced a gradually increasing private sector short-term external debt especially in the last twenty-year period. The objective of this study is to investigate the long-run relationship between private sector short-term external debt and CDS (credit default swap) premiums in Turkey for the period of 2000:Q4-2017:Q4 by using asymmetric threshold autoregressive (TAR) and momentum threshold autoregressive (M-TAR) procedures of Enders and Siklos (2001). The results indicate that CDS premiums and private sector short-term external debt in Turkey are cointegrated. After finding cointegration, the null hypothesis of symmetric adjustment is tested against the alternative of asymmetric adjustment and the evidence of symmetric adjustment is found, suggesting that the relationship between the private sector short-term external debt and CDS premiums has the same effect in expansion and contraction periods.
Topic:: Debt, Private Sector, and Credit
Political Geography:: Turkey and Middle East

322. Türkiye’de Yaşlılara Yönelik Güncel Sosyal Politikaların Analizi

Author:: Mesut Özcan and Sinan Balta
Publication Date:: 06-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Bilgi
Institution:: Sakarya University (SAU)
Abstract:: Dünya nüfusu hızla yaşlanmaktadır. 2019 yılı itibariyle dünyadaki yaşlı nüfus oranı %9,3’tür. Türkiye ise %9,1’lik yaşlı nüfus oranı ile dünya ortalamasına yaklaşmış durumdadır. TÜİK projeksiyonlarına göre Türkiye’de yaşlı nüfus oranının 2023 yılında %10,2’ye, 2030 yılında %12,9’a, 2040 yılında %16,3’e, 2060 yılında %22,6’ya, 2080 yılında ise %25,6’ya yükseleceği öngörülmektedir. Bu nüfus projeksiyonu hızla yaşlanan nüfusa yönelik sosyal politikaların önemini ortaya çıkarmaktadır. Bu bağlamda yaşlı nüfusa yönelik sosyal sigorta, sosyal yardım ve sosyal hizmet politikalarına duyulan ihtiyaç artmaktadır. Bu çalışmada hızla yaşlanan Türkiye nüfusuna dikkat çekilerek, Türkiye’de yaşlılara yönelik uygulanan güncel sosyal politikaların kapsamı hakkında bilgi verilmektedir.
Topic:: Aging, Social Services, and Public Service
Political Geography:: Turkey and Middle East

323. Küreselleşme Sürecinde Ekonomik Büyümenin İşsizlik Türleri Üzerindeki Etkisi | The Effect of Economic Growth on Unemployment Types in Globalization Process

Author:: Musa Ozturk
Publication Date:: 06-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Bilgi
Institution:: Sakarya University (SAU)
Abstract:: İşsizlik bütün toplumların üstesinden gelmeye çalıştığı öncelikli ve önemli bir sorundur. İşsizlik, bir taraftan ülke ekonomisinin âtıl kapasitede çalışıyor olmasını göstermesi diğer taraftan da psikolojik, sosyal, ekonomik ve politik yönler barındırıyor olması bakımından çok boyutlu bir kavramdır. Bu nedenle işsizlik ve etkileri çok farklı disiplinlerce sürekli incelenmektedir. Çalışma kapsamında, finansal liberalizasyon sonrasında Türkiye’de ekonomik büyümenin işsizlik türleri üzerindeki etkisi Okun Yasası ve istihdamsız büyüme hipotezi merkezinde incelenmektedir. Veriler Dünya Bankası veri tabanından derlenmiştir ve 1988-2018 yıllarını kapsamaktadır. İşsizlik oranları olarak; toplam, erkek, kadın, genç, genç-erkek ve genç-kadın verileri ele alınmaktadır. Değişkenler arasındaki nedensellik ilişkisi Hatemi-J ve E. Roca tarafından geliştirilen asimetrik nedensellik testiyle incelenmektedir. Elde edilen sonuçlara göre; içsel ve dışsal nedenlerden kaynaklanan ekonomik şoklar işsizlik serilerinde yapısal kırılmalara neden olmakta ve da histeri etkisinin ortaya çıkmasını sağlamaktadır. Değişkenler arasında asimetrik ilişki vardır. Ekonomik büyümenin artması, genel, genç ve kadın işsizlik oranlarında azalmaya neden olmaktadır ve Okun Yasası bu seriler için geçerlidir. Ekonomik büyümeden genel erkek ve genç erkek işsizlik oranları için istihdamsız büyüme yaklaşımı öne çıkmaktadır. Sonuç olarak; -diğer şeyler sabitken- Türkiye’nin bir taraftan histeri etkisini gidermek diğer taraftan da işsizlik oranlarını düşürmek için ekonomik büyümeyi destekleyici mahiyetteki makroekonomik politikalara yönelmesi gerektiği düşünülmektedir. | Unemployment is a preferential and important problem for all societies to overcome. Unemployment causes loss in the economic potential and in addition to this, unemployment has psychological, social, economic, and political aspects, so the problem becomes multidimensional. In this study, the effect of economic growth on the types of unemployment is examined in the scope of Okun's Law and Jobless Growth hypothesis. The data was compiled from the World Bank database and covers the years 1988-2018. As unemployment rates; total, male, female, youth, young-male, and young-female data are taken. After unit root tests, the causality relationship between the variables is examined with the asymmetric causality test developed by Hatemi-J and E. Roca. According to the results obtained; internal and external economic shocks cause structural breaks and so hysteresis effect becomes valid on the unemployment series. There is an asymmetrical relationship between the variables. Economic growth causes a decrease in general, youth, and female unemployment rates and Okun's Law is valid to these series. The Jobless growth approach applies for relations from economic growth to general-male and young-male unemployment rates. As a result; Turkey may/should apply macroeconomic policies focused on economic growth in order to eliminate hysteresis effect and reduce unemployment rates.
Topic:: Globalization, Labor Issues, Economic Growth, and Unemployment
Political Geography:: Turkey and Middle East

324. Başkanlık Sistemi Üzerine: Cumhurbaşkanlığı Sisteminin Zayıf Halkası Parlamento

Author:: Hamza Al
Publication Date:: 06-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Bilgi
Institution:: Sakarya University (SAU)
Abstract:: Türkiye, 2017 yılında, 1876 yılından beri uygulamada olan Parlamenter hükümet sistemine son vererek, Başkanlık sistemine geçti. Uzun süreden beri yaşanan politik, ekonomik ve toplumsal sorunlar, Başkanlık sistemine geçişin gerekçesi olarak sunuldu. Parlamenter sistemden Başkanlık sistemine geçiş sürecinde, yeterli olmasa da, konu tartışıldı. Birçok konuda olduğu gibi bu konuda da baskın iki görüş ortaya çıktı. Başkanlık sisteminden yana olanlar, genellikle Türkiye’de yürürlükteki Parlamenter sistemin sonuçları üzerinden konuya yaklaştılar. Parlamenter sistemden yana olanlar ise Başkanlık sisteminin özellikle Latin Amerika’daki uygulamaları üzerinden konuyu ele aldılar. Artık Türkiye, Başkanlık sistemine geçtiğine göre yapılması gereken, Başkanlık sisteminin zayıf noktalarına ve yürürlükteki Cumhurbaşkanlığının eksiklerine odaklanmaktır. Böylece yürürlükteki sistem, daha güçlü hale gelebilir ve sistemden kaynaklanan sorunlar bir nebze olsun giderilebilir. Bu bağlamada çalışmada, hükümet sistemlerinin doğuşu, aralarındaki farklar, yaygınlıkları ele alındıktan sonra Başkanlık sisteminin zayıf noktaları ortaya konularak yürürlükteki Cumhurbaşkanlığı sisteminin eksiklikleri üzerinde durulmuştur. Buna göre, daha önceki Hükümet sistemi gibi, yeni Hükümet sisteminin de zayıf halkası yasama organıdır. Bu bağlamda Türkiye, yasama organını güçlendirilerek, muhtemel sorunların üstesinden gelebilir.
Topic:: Government, Politics, and Presidential Elections
Political Geography:: Turkey and Middle East

325. Turkey’s approach to proxy war in the Middle East and North Africa

Author:: Engin Yüksel
Publication Date:: 12-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Security and Defence Quarterly
Institution:: War Studies University
Abstract:: The last decade has seen a growing trend towards the use of proxies in the Middle East and North Africa following the outbreak of the Arab Spring. In this context, the issue of Turkey’s approach to proxy war in these regions has received considerable attention since 2016. Thereby, the purpose of this article is to investigate the essential characteristics of Turkish proxy war strategy in Syria and Libya. As such, this study intends to trace the development of Turkish proxy war strategy by making use of the conceptual frameworks proposed by Groh (2019), O’Brien (2012) and Art (1998). The most obvious finding to emerge from the analysis is that Turkey changed its indirect intervention strategy from donated assistance to proxy warfare in Syria and Libya when it saw a greater need to influence the result of the conflicts. In the case of Syria, this study has shown that the controlthrough-centralisation approach towards the Armed Syrian Opposition has enabled Turkey to carry out an effective proxy war strategy from 2016 onwards. In Libya, the results of this investigation have shown that theTurkish Army has pursued a proxy war strategy since Ankara and the Government of National Accord (GNA) signed an agreement on security and military cooperation in December 2019. The article concludes that Turkey has centralised many revolutionary groups under an Islamist-nationalistic vision and partnered them with its own military in order to expand its influence in the Middle East and North Africa.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Armed Forces, and Proxy War
Political Geography:: Turkey, Middle East, Libya, North Africa, and Syria

326. The Securitisation of Hybrid Warfare through Practices within the Iran-Israel conflict – Israel’s practices for securitising Hezbollah’s Proxy War

Author:: Christian Kaunert and Ori Wertman
Publication Date:: 12-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Security and Defence Quarterly
Institution:: War Studies University
Abstract:: Iran has been waging a hybrid war against Israel since the Islamic revolution of 1979. In an era when conventional wars have given way to a different method, hybrid warfare, the main challenge facing states is how to deal with this new type of security threat. Thus, while states have previously faced security threats from regular enemy states’ armies, nowadays hybrid warfare in which non-state actors play a key role has become a widespread security threat that requires democratic states to use very different strategies and tactics to overcome it. Using securitisation theory, which explores how normal issues transform into security threats, this article analyses how the State of Israel has securitised Iranian hybrid warfare which has been mainly executed through its proxy terror organisations of Hezbollah. It does so by applying a revised version of the Copenhagen School’s securitisation framework, which focuses on security practices and is underpinned by an understanding of security as belonging to a continuum. The proxy terror organisations have moved towards the end point of the continuum, which is characterised by survival, existential threats, and militarisation, albeit without completely reaching the end point.
Topic:: Hezbollah, Hybrid Warfare, Securitization, and Proxy Groups
Political Geography:: Iran, Middle East, Israel, and Lebanon

327. Cloud system in digital human resources management in Turkey

Author:: Serap Ergen
Publication Date:: 06-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Security and Defence Quarterly
Institution:: War Studies University
Abstract:: With the changing technology, humanity has reached Industry 4.0 starting from the steam engine. With these developments, human resources in the organisations need to store and process data. A new application that enables digital human resources to easily access its data is cloud computing. The aim of this article is analyse how cloud technologies affect human resources management in Turkey. A descriptive method was used in this paper to explain the concept of digitalism in the discussed area and analyse the relationship between cloud system and digital human resources management. Data was drawn from the scientific and professional literature documents on this subject. Many organisations do not have enough knowledge about cloud computing in Turkey. There are also concerns about cloud systems security and economic equilibrium of companies. It is predicted that companies that adopt this technology will have a more efficient and comfortable human resources process and become more prosperous. Organisations should work for the development of human resources management system by digitising it. Organisations whose number of employees is increasing day by day, face problems, but they can handle this situation through the careful implementation of cloud computing. Cloud systems provide organisations with benefits such as storage capacity and easy access to data anytime and anywhere.
Topic:: Industry, Human Resources, Digital Policy, and Cloud Computing
Political Geography:: Turkey and Middle East

328. Operation “Olympic Games.” Cyber-sabotage as a tool of American intelligence aimed at counteracting the development of Iran’s nuclear programme

Author:: Mariusz Antoni Kamiński
Publication Date:: 06-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Security and Defence Quarterly
Institution:: War Studies University
Abstract:: The purpose of the article is to analyse Operation “Olympic Games” including, in particular, to indicate the political background to the activities aimed at preventing the development of Iran’s nuclear programme, and to examine the preparation and conduct of the operation, the involvement of the US and Israeli intelligence services, and the use of intelligence methods and sources. An equally important objective is to indicate the real consequences of the cyberattack with the Stuxnet virus. In the research process, a critical analysis of literature in the field of Intelligence Studies and source materials (including legal acts, strategies, reports, and other official studies of the entities forming the US Intelligence Community) was carried out. The example of Operation Olympics Games shows that complex cyber-sabotage operations resulting in the destruction of critical infrastructure on a large scale require the involvement of numerous state resources and advanced cyber activities, and the use of many different methods and intelligence sources. Thus, strong states with well-developed intelligence capabilities are much more capable of effectively using cyber-sabotage on a large scale.
Topic:: Intelligence, Nuclear Weapons, Cyberspace, and Sabotage
Political Geography:: Iran, Middle East, North America, and United States of America

329. International Peace Efforts in the Syrian Civil War: The ‘Inevitable’ Failure?

Author:: I. Aytac Kadioglu
Publication Date:: 06-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Turkish Journal of Middle Eastern Studies
Institution:: Sakarya University (SAU)
Abstract:: The purpose of this article is to assess international negotiation efforts towards ending the civil war in Syria. Although many peace events have been organised since the beginning of the civil war, the existing literature has paid little attention to the impact of international peace efforts in ending the Syrian war. The article aims to close this gap by assessing major peace efforts between 2011 and 2019; The Arab League Peace Plan, the United Nations peace initiatives, and the Geneva, Vienna and Astana peace talks. It analyses these efforts through official reports and documents published by the UN, US, Republic of Turkey, UN Security Council, and members of peace initiatives. These documents are complemented by newspaper articles showing the official views of the regional and global actors as well as the key agents of the conflict. Therefore, the article reveals the reasons for the failure of these conflict resolution efforts. The Syrian government’s reluctance to end the conflict in a non-violent way, the armed groups’ dream of territorial gains and regional and global powers’ involvement in the conflict prevented the solution of the conflict. It utilises official negotiations and ripeness approaches to investigate the insights and contents of peace efforts. The article argues that the regional and global powers have acted as facilitators instead of mediators in the peace talks. It finds that even though these peace events are viewed as official negotiations, they are only pre-negotiation efforts.
Topic:: Civil War, Diplomacy, International Cooperation, United Nations, and Peace
Political Geography:: Europe, Turkey, Middle East, Asia, and Syria

330. The Art of Resistance in the Palestinian Struggle Against Israel

Author:: Eray Alim
Publication Date:: 06-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Turkish Journal of Middle Eastern Studies
Institution:: Sakarya University (SAU)
Abstract:: This manuscript aims to assess Palestinian street art’s effectiveness as a resistance tool and political instrument in the struggle waged against Israel. It concludes by employing Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic power that Palestinian street art is an effective instrument on account of its ability to instill in Palestinian collective consciousness as a sense of resistance. By utilizing Mouffe’s definition of politics as being a constant struggle between hegemonic and counter hegemonic forces, this work also holds that street art serves Palestinians as a means to reaffirm their political existence and develop an alternative political imagination against the Israeli-imposed reality. This manuscript also broaches the oft-discussed issue of visual diversity in Palestinian street art scene and concludes that eclectic content may serve as a contributive force, if the counter hegemonic character of Palestinian street art is adhered to.
Topic:: Arts, Culture, Hegemony, and Resistance
Political Geography:: Middle East, Israel, and Palestine

331. From Rise to Crisis: The Qatari Leadership

Author:: Esra Cavusoglu
Publication Date:: 06-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Turkish Journal of Middle Eastern Studies
Institution:: Sakarya University (SAU)
Abstract:: Qatar, a young and tiny Gulf State, realized a remarkable transformation through an immense economic development between 1995 and 2013, and emerged as an active and influential actor at the international stage, receiving worldwide attention and scholarly interests. However, in the post-Arab Spring context, Qatar became the linchpin of a regional crisis as a consequence of the emerging political clash among the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) States. This paper analyzes Qatar’s distinctive policies throughout its rise (1995-2013) and the recent period of the regional crisis within the framework of leadership conception. It is argued that the leadership factor played a key role in transforming both the auspicious circumstances of the previous term and the challenging circumstances of the recent term into great advantages to promote Qatar’s autonomy. Through this perspective, it is aimed to address why and how Qatar differs from other small Gulf States, and how this affected Qatar’s emerging as a rising power and as a major party to the regional crisis.
Topic:: Regional Cooperation, Arab Spring, Economic Development, and Economic Cooperation
Political Geography:: Middle East, Qatar, and Persian Gulf

332. Incorporation of Universal Human Rights’ Norms in Municipal Law: An Analytical Study of Saudi Arabia, Iran, and India

Author:: Moosa Akefi Ghaziani and Mohmmad Akefi Ghaziani
Publication Date:: 12-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Review of Human Rights
Institution:: Society of Social Science Academics (SSSA)
Abstract:: The incorporation of universal human rights’ norms in public municipal law has often been a challenge for both Islamic and secular states. Employing an analytical method this article explores the main legal challenges to the incorporation of universal human rights norms into municipal laws in three states--Saudi Arabia and Iran, the two Islamic states, and India, the secular state. It is argued that despite their differences in the larger legal framework they follow a peculiar dualistic system to incorporate the human rights norms, which results in its application challenges.
Topic:: Human Rights, Law, and Norms
Political Geography:: Iran, Middle East, and Saudi Arabia

333. The Disaster in Lebanon and Challenge for the Biden Administration

Author:: Edward M. Gabriel
Publication Date:: 09-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The Ambassadors Review
Institution:: Council of American Ambassadors
Abstract:: The disastrous state of affairs in Lebanon is mainly a result of failed governance for the past several decades. The 1989 Taif Agreement that defined peace after Lebanon’s civil war created a balancing act among various warlords and political figures who divvied up the government by sectarian affiliation. Since then, government institutions have been weakened, public employment has become a function of constituent services, contracts and social services have been doled out without any transparent process and necessary reforms have been ignored. Humanitarian consequences of this mismanagement are widespread. Social services are lacking. Public schools, health and social services, a pension system and labor laws are inadequate; and there is little protection for civil and human rights and environmental protection. In addition, there are more than 1 million Palestinian, Syrian and other refugees in the country, exerting extreme pressure on the country’s socioeconomic requirements and infrastructure. Infrastructure investment has been ignored, and 80% of hospitals and 70% of schools are run by the private sector. The economy has been running disproportionately on remittances from Lebanese emigres and tourism. The banking system, which was highly praised until a year ago, attracted hard currency and euro-bonds by offering high interest rates in order to feed a deficit-spending government, only to default when the government failed to honor the bonds due. In October 2019, the government blundered by imposing a tax on the popular, free telecom app, WhatsApp, to pay for increasing public deficits of its own making. The people had enough; they were outraged. They lost what remaining faith they had in the government, and on October 17 demonstrations erupted across the country, across all sects, generations and political persuasions. The people were upset as they experienced an increasingly poorer quality of life, especially after the Lebanese lira rapidly declined in value due to the lack of stable reserves to support the currency. In 2019, Lebanon had the third-highest debt-to-GDP ratio in the world, and its bonds are now “junk” on the international markets. It imports 80% of what it consumes. The country is broke, with little support from expatriates and allies and a ruling class that shows no willingness to reform. In 2018, the international donor community, in an effort called the CEDRE program, agreed to support Lebanon once it undertook systematic reforms. These have been neither instituted nor implemented, leaving $11 billion in international aid on the table. Subsidies on food, fuel and medicine are set to stop in December due to a lack of government reserves. Inflation is well over 200% for food items, over-the-counter medicines are almost non-existent due to hoarding and the middle class is rapidly disappearing. Banking-sector capital controls make it almost impossible for depositors to have access to their funds, and the failing exchange rate means that people who withdraw their lira face an immediate decline in purchasing power. The demonstrations were remarkable in their intensity and breadth; and it was only a matter of time before their concerns had to be addressed. The first casualty was the then- (and now again) Prime Minister Saad Hariri, who resigned, along with several of his ministers and Members of Parliament.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Conflict, Peace, and Disaster Management
Political Geography:: Middle East, Lebanon, North America, and United States of America

334. Turkish AK Parti’s Posture towards the 2003 War in Iraq The Impact of Religion amid Security Concerns

Author:: Alberto Gasparetto
Publication Date:: 01-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The Rest: Journal of Politics and Development
Institution:: Centre for Strategic Research and Analysis (CESRAN)
Abstract:: This paper focuses on Turkey’s foreign policymakers’ attitudes in the context of the 2003 US decision to wage war against Iraq. The main goal is to assess and downplay the impact of religion in relation to security-related concerns. Drawing on official speeches, interviews, declarations by key figures in the foreign policy process, the paper argues that religion is nothing more than an intervening factor in the case of Turkey’s approach to the 2003 war in Iraq. Therefore, notwithstanding the role of Islamist elites in the foreign policy decision-making of Turkey, Turkey’s foreign affairs were rather inspired by realist behaviour, driven by pragmatic considerations, aimed at pursuing rationalist goals.
Topic:: Security, Religion, War, and Conflict
Political Geography:: Iraq, Europe, Turkey, Middle East, Asia, North America, and United States of America

335. Turkish Foreign Policy in a Changing World Order

Author:: Tarik Oguzlu
Publication Date:: 01-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:: Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:: This article argues that there is a close relationship between the structure of the international system/order and how states define their foreign policy interests and then act accordingly. The main contention is that Turkey’s foreign policy performance since 2002 can be partially read as Turkey’s effort to adapt to external developments at international and regional levels. As the international system has evolved from a unipolar order (in which the United States, in cooperation with its European allies, provided the main public goods in an hegemonic fashion), into a post-unipolar era, Turkey has accelerated its efforts to pursue a more multi-dimensional and multi-directional foreign approach. Rather than arguing that there is a direct causation between the independent variable of systemic factors and the dependent variable of Turkey’s foreign policy performance, this article understands the external environment as a ‘context’ in which Turkish decision makers have responded to Turkey’s responses to foreign policy developments.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, International Affairs, Emerging Powers, and International System
Political Geography:: Turkey and Middle East

336. Ideologies and the Western Question in Turkish Foreign Policy: A Neo-classical Realist Perspective

Author:: Sevket Ovali and Ali Murat Özdemir
Publication Date:: 01-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:: Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:: Growing anti-Western sentiments around the world are currently manifesting themselves through divergent ways ranging from peaceful resistance movements to various forms of political violence. In the Middle East, unlike the earlier partially secular and nationalist Cold War anti-Americanism, the current popular anti-Western political movements are heavily equipped with Islamism, which appears to be an all-inclusive ideology and political movement for almost all dissidents. This applies to Turkey as well, despite its relatively long history of secularisation. This research particularly aims therefore to discuss the role of nationalism and Islamism on anti-Western sentiments in Turkish foreign policy through the lens of neo-classical realism and a new, broader conceptual framework: The Western Question. The research examines the contours, contents, and consequences of the problem through comparing two cases, namely the Cyprus problem of the 1970s and the crisis with the West that has surfaced after Turkey’s involvement in the Syrian Civil War.
Topic:: Political Violence, European Union, Conflict, and Islamism
Political Geography:: Europe, Turkey, Middle East, Syria, North America, Cyprus, and United States of America

337. Deconstructing the Sykes-Picot Myth: Frontiers, Boundaries, Borders and the Evolution of Ottoman Territoriality

Author:: Ali Murat Kurşun
Publication Date:: 01-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:: Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:: This study aims to evaluate the emergence of the Sykes-Picot order and deconstruct its mythologization by proposing an evolutionary assessment of border understanding. This study addresses the following primary research questions: How did the interplay of domestic, regional, and international developments lay the groundwork for the formation of the Sykes-Picot territorial order? How was the administrative structure and regional divisions before the Sykes-Picot agreement and to which border categorizations did these structures correspond? Was the Sykes-Picot agreement the only international intervention that affected the borders of the region or were there other international interventions before the Sykes-Picot agreement? This study argues that the history of Middle Eastern border formation is not only an international one but also involves many aspects that have not widely been taken into consideration. In doing so, this paper adopts a critical historical perspective to analyze the evolution of Middle Eastern borders. This paper proposes a three-tracked evolutionary analytical framework (frontiers, boundaries, borders) to analyze the emergence of borders and applies it to the emergence of Ottoman territoriality. This study concludes that the Sykes-Picot agreement is only one, complementary part of a long process in the emergence of Middle Eastern geopolitics.
Topic:: Treaties and Agreements, History, Borders, Ottoman Empire, Territory, and Sykes-Picot Agreement
Political Geography:: Middle East

338. Attitudes of NATO, SCO and CSTO Towards the Situation in Afghanistan After 2014

Author:: Lukasz Jurenczyk and Jildiz Nicharapova
Publication Date:: 01-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: AUSTRAL: Brazilian Journal of Strategy International Relations
Institution:: Postgraduate Program in International Strategic Studies, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul
Abstract:: The main research question of the article is what attitude present the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the Collective Security Treaty Organization towards Afghanistan after 2014? A number of detailed questions were also put to help to answer the main question. The article consists of eight chapters. The first chapter discusses the methodological assumptions of the article. Chapter two covers literature review and theoretical framework of the article. The following chapters include an analysis of the approach to Afghanistan of the three indicated international organizations. The article ends with conclusion that contain the main theses.
Topic:: Defense Policy, NATO, Diplomacy, International Cooperation, and Military Strategy
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, Europe, North Atlantic, Middle East, and North America

339. Locating Women in Jihad: The Case of Women in the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria

Author:: Hamoon Khelghat-Doost
Publication Date:: 07-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: AUSTRAL: Brazilian Journal of Strategy International Relations
Institution:: Postgraduate Program in International Strategic Studies, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul
Abstract:: The increase in women’s engagement with jihadi groups around the globe fueled debates regarding women’s incorporation into jihadi organizations. The current trend in the global labor force clearly demonstrates a discriminatory pattern in favor of men. Surprisingly, despite this traditional restrictive view of Islamic jurisprudence on women’s social activities, the level of women’s incorporation into jihadi organizations has grown rapidly both in numbers and roles. Before the defeat of the organization in late 2018, nearly 20 percent of all members of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) were women. As ISIS morphed beyond a mere militant organization and into a state builder, its utilization of women also transformed accordingly to address the challenges that a functioning state faces. By using primary data collected from several field trips in the Middle East, this article argues the position of women in ISIS and the mechanisms by which they were incorporated.
Topic:: Gender Issues, Terrorism, ISIS, and Jihad
Political Geography:: Iraq, Middle East, and Syria

340. The Strategic Efficacy of Drones for US Grand Strategy

Author:: Francis N. Okpaleke and Al-Chukwuma Okoli
Publication Date:: 07-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: AUSTRAL: Brazilian Journal of Strategy International Relations
Institution:: Postgraduate Program in International Strategic Studies, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul
Abstract:: This paper assesses the role of drones in furthering or undermining US grand strategy. This is against the backdrop of the thinking that contemporary use of drones in the context of post 9/11 era undermine the successive US administration’s strategic objectives as evidenced by the rise of anti-Americanism in Muslim world, proliferation of drones by US near peer competitors, civilian death toll and weakening support for the US in targeted countries. This implies that while drones has played a historical and significant role for the US in power projection and asserting its unilateralism and military hegemony when dealing with rogue states and terrorist groups post 9/11, the political and strategic utility of drone strikes for US grand strategy is not apparent. Thus, this paper posits that though armed drones has played a quintessential role as a key instrument of statecraft for facilitating US offensive strategy in targeted states, the aftermath of drone strikes and its controversial aspects engender inimical outcomes that serve to undermine US strategic objectives. Based on qualitative analysis of secondary data, the paper questions the wisdom and benefits of using and shifting greater reliance towards armed drones, as a pathway for furthering US grand strategy.
Topic:: Defense Policy, Military Strategy, Counter-terrorism, and Drones
Political Geography:: Africa, Middle East, North America, and United States of America

341. Between Eurasia and the Middle East: Azerbaijan’s New Geopolitics

Author:: Svante Cornell
Publication Date:: 09-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Baku Dialogues
Institution:: ADA University
Abstract:: Azerbaijan’s geopolitics have changed considerably in the last decade, along with the growing general instability in its neighborhood. Gone are the days symbolized by the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline’s construction, when a relatively stable balance existed between a loose Russian-led alignment including Iran and Armenia, and an informal entente between the United States and Turkey, which supported the independence of Azerbaijan and Georgia and the construction of direct energy transportation routes to Europe.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Energy Policy, and Geopolitics
Political Geography:: Eurasia, Middle East, and Azerbaijan

342. From De-Europeanisation to Anti-Western Populism: Turkish Foreign Policy in Flux

Author:: Alper Kaliber and Esra Kaliber
Publication Date:: 12-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The International Spectator
Institution:: Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:: Recent Turkish foreign policy (TFP) under the successive AKP governments has seen different populist turns. A clear distinction can be made between the thin and thick populisms of TFP, based on the status of the West. The first decade of AKP rule, when foreign policy was thinly populist, was characterised by steady de-Europeanisation, increasing engagement with regional issues and a decentring of Turkey’s Western orientation. The turn toward thick populism has been characterised by anti-Westernist discourses in which the West is resituated as the ‘other’ of Turkish political identity.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Politics, Populism, and Anti-Westernism
Political Geography:: Turkey and Middle East

343. Unintended Consequences of State-building Projects in Contested States: The EU in Palestine

Author:: Dimitris Bouris
Publication Date:: 03-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The International Spectator
Institution:: Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:: The existing literature on state-building has focused mainly on post-conflict cases and ‘conventional’ examples of statehood, without taking into consideration the particularities of states that remain internally and/or externally contested. The EU’s engagement in Palestinian state-building through the deployment of EUPOL COPPS and EUBAM Rafah has generated various types of unintended consequences: anticipated and unanticipated, positive and negative, desirable and undesirable, some of which fulfill and some of which frustrate the initial intention. These have important reverberations for the EU’s conflict resolution strategies in Israel and Palestine, the most important being the strengthening of power imbalances and the enforcement of the status quo.
Topic:: Conflict Resolution, Foreign Policy, State, State Building, and Police
Political Geography:: Europe, Middle East, Palestine, and European Union

344. Unintended Consequences of EU Democracy Support in the European Neighbourhood

Author:: Assem Dandashly and Gergana Noutcheva
Publication Date:: 03-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The International Spectator
Institution:: Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:: The European Union’s (EU) impact on the political governance of the European neighbourhood is varied and sometimes opposite to the declared objectives of its democracy support policies. The democracy promotion literature has to a large extent neglected the unintended consequences of EU democracy support in Eastern Europe and the Middle East and North Africa. The EU has left multiple imprints on the political trajectories of the countries in the neighbourhood and yet the dominant explanation, highlighting the EU’s security and economic interests in the two regions,cannot fully account for the unintended consequences of its policies. The literature on the ‘pathologies’ of international organisations offers an explanation, emphasizing the failures of the EU bureaucracy to anticipate, prevent or reverse the undesired effects of its democracy support in the neighbourhood.
Topic:: Security, Foreign Policy, Democracy, Economy, and Bureaucracy
Political Geography:: Europe, Middle East, Eastern Europe, North Africa, and European Union

345. Intimate Partner Violence as Evidence of Widespread Gender-based Violence in the Arab Region

Author:: Lina Abirafeh
Publication Date:: 08-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations
Institution:: School of Diplomacy and International Relations, Seton Hall University
Abstract:: The Arab region is a diverse grouping of 22 countries in the Middle East and North Africa. Despite a range of economic, political, and security configurations, the one commonality is the region’s poor standing in terms of gender equality, ranking lowest in the world on both the 2018 Global Gender Gap Report and the Women, Peace, and Security Index.1 The World Economic Forum (WEF) found that, despite progress in closing the gender gap across the region in 2018, it nonetheless remains the world’s least gender-equal region.2 It will take the Middle East and North African economies “153 years to close the gender gap at the current rate of change,” the report stated.3 While Tunisia topped the region for gender equality, ranking 119 globally; the UAE ranked 121 with the gender gap closed at 64.2 percent;4 Saudi Arabia ranked 141 with a 59 percent gender gap rate, showing “modest progress,” with improvement in wage equality and women’s labor force participation; and Lebanon ranks third to last in the region, ahead of only Syria and Yemen. As such, social indicators are not promising – and not progressing. Patriarchal societies, growing conservative movements, and lack of political will to advance and achieve gender equality together are building a foundation to foment a backlash against women’s rights and freedoms. Gender inequality exists in many forms and can be found in the realms of health, education, economics, and politics. However, gender-based violence remains the most egregious manifestation of inequality and entrenched patriarchy in the region. No country is immune to gender-based violence; one in three women and girls worldwide will experience some form of gender-based violence in their lifetime.5 The Arab region is no exception. Ending gender-based violence has proved to be an intractable human rights challenge partially due to its prevalence across all socio-economic and cultural groups. This violence takes many forms – sexual, physical, emotional and economic. Globally, intimate partner violence is the most common form of gender-based violence.6 Labeling gender-based violence when it occurs remains a challenge. An inability to identify it makes it extremely difficult to legislate against and eradicate. For instance, in many countries worldwide, sexual harassment, marital rape, and coerced sex are not considered violence. This is not to mention verbal harassment, which is also not considered a violation of women’s rights and bodily integrity.
Topic:: Gender Issues, Women, Gender Based Violence, and Intimate Partner Violence
Political Geography:: Middle East, Arab Countries, and North Africa

346. To Understand Iranian Foreign Policy, Look at Iran's Politics at Home

Author:: Alex Vatanka
Publication Date:: 03-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The Ambassadors Review
Institution:: Council of American Ambassadors
Abstract:: Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a cleric who will turn 80 in July 2019 and has ruled over Iran since 1989, has made a political career out of demonizing the United States. And yet, he knows full well that at some point—whether in his lifetime or after—Tehran has to turn the page and look for ways to end the bad blood that started with the birth of the Islamic Republic in 1979. But Khamenei’s efforts to make the United States a strawman are not easily undone in present-day Tehran, where anti-Americanism is the top political football, as the two main factions inside the regime—the hardliners versus the so-called reformists—battle it out for the future of Iran. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” on Iran has made it all but impossible for Khamenei to meet Washington half-way. Accordingly, the best Khamenei can do for now is to wait out the Trump White House. There will be no Khamenei-Trump summits. That much is abundantly clear if one listens to the chatter from Tehran. But the issue of possible relations with post-Trump America is still hotly contested in the Islamic Republic. In the meantime, with Trump’s re-imposition of sanctions from November 2018, Tehran’s hope in the short term is that Europe, together with Iran’s more traditional supporters in Moscow and Beijing, can give Iran enough incentive so that it can ride out the next few years as its economy comes under unprecedented pressure.
Topic:: Diplomacy, Nuclear Weapons, Military Strategy, Sanctions, and Domestic Politics
Political Geography:: United States, Iran, Middle East, and Israel

347. A Human Rights Approach to Conflict Resolution

Author:: Claudia Fuentes-Julio and Raslan Ibrahim
Publication Date:: 09-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Abstract:: The role of human rights abuses in the causes, dynamics, and consequences of conflict illustrate the importance of a human rights approach to conflict resolution:1 if human rights are part of the problem, they must be part of the solution. This essay aims to show how a human rights perspective can improve the odds of transforming violent conflicts into sustainable peace by enhancing the design and implementation of peace processes and conflict resolution practices. In doing so, we will clarify the main characteristics of a human rights approach to conflict resolution and identify a set of human rights standards to guide its implementation. We will then briefly analyze the Colombian and the Israeli-Palestinian peace processes, each through the lens of the human rights approach. These two cases illustrate opposite ends of the spectrum when considering the inclusion of human rights in conflict resolution. At one end, the Colombian peace process illustrates how negotiations and a final agreement can recognize peace as a human right, highlighting the need to transform the structural conditions of injustice and human rights violations that give rise to armed conflict. At the other end, in the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, human rights are virtually absent despite the fact that systematic abuses are among the main underlying causes and consequences of the conflict. In the conclusion, we address one of the main criticisms and challenges of a human rights–based approach to conflict resolution.
Topic:: Human Rights, Conflict, and Peace
Political Geography:: Middle East, Israel, Colombia, Palestine, and South America

348. Post-Hegemonic (Dis)order and Regional Balancing Strategies in the Middle East

Author:: Kostas Ifantis
Publication Date:: 05-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Revista UNISCI/UNISCI Journal
Institution:: Unidad de investigación sobre seguridad y cooperación (UNISCI)
Abstract:: Following the so-called Arab Spring, the strategic situation in the Middle East has been one of disorder. A series of critical, complex and interrelated security failures have resulted in chaos and bloodshed unprecedented even for a region with Middle East’s history and legacy. The demand for intervention has been high but the response has been very low. In such an unchartered and rapidly deteriorating regional security setting, this paper argues that the conspicuous absence of US hegemonic engagement has allowed for the return to overt regional balance of power strategies and proxy conflicts. Our hypothesis is that a regional balance of power and the resulting order (or disorder) heavily depends on the type of great power regional engagement. In such a context, the “hands off” or non-hegemonic approach that characterizes US strategy since the Arab Spring eruption has heavily contributed to a highly disorderly regional balance of power landscape. In the absence of US hegemonic involvement, revisionist threats emerge and local rivalries intensify.
Topic:: Security, Power Politics, Hegemony, Political stability, Arab Spring, and Regional Integration
Political Geography:: Middle East and United States of America

349. Trump and Palestine: The Crowning of an American Approach

Author:: Dan Tschirgi
Publication Date:: 10-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Revista UNISCI/UNISCI Journal
Institution:: Unidad de investigación sobre seguridad y cooperación (UNISCI)
Abstract:: The American approach to the problem of Palestine long rested on several recognizable pillars: a basic sympathy with the Zionist program, a sincerely felt belief that Palestinian Arabs had largely been victimized by historical forces that the United States itself had found it necessary to serve, and an unstated—but real—feeling of guilt over the key role Washington played in the 1948 birth of the Jewish state. Donald Trump’s presidency upended the long-held US posture on the Palestine issue, making Washington far more amenable to Israel’s growing appetite for Arab Lands taken in 1967. In his first two years in office Trump instituted a series of administrative and economic measures apparently designed to force the PLO’s acceptance of a still-unannounced peace plan. This article suggests that Trump’s strategy will fail.
Topic:: Diplomacy, Geopolitics, Peace, and Donald Trump
Political Geography:: Middle East, Israel, Palestine, Jerusalem, and United States of America

350. January 2019 Issue

Author:: Tore Hamming, Paul Cruickshank, Graham Macklin, Bryce Loidolt, and Jami Forbes
Publication Date:: 01-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: CTC Sentinel
Institution:: The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
Abstract:: In our cover article, Tore Hamming revisits the ideological origins of the Islamic State. He argues that “despite its history as a local al-Qa`ida affliate in Iraq, the Islamic State developed from an ideological and cultural trend born in late-1980s Afghanistan that was always in tension with the core idea and identity of al-Qa`ida,” setting the stage for the current bitter divide between the two groups and creating a significant obstacle to any reunification of the global jihadi movement. Our interview this month is with Rebecca Weiner, the Assistant Commissioner for Intelligence Analysis at NYPD, and Meghann Teubner, NYPD’s Director of Counterterrorism Intelligence Analysis. Despite the demise of the Islamic State’s territorial caliphate, they have not seen much of a fall-off in jihadi terrorist plotting against New York City. While they assess Islamist terrorism remains the primary threat to the city, their focus on far-right terrorism is more intense than ever before. With concern about violent right-wing extremism rising on both sides of the Atlantic, Graham Macklin examines the evolving far-right terror threat picture in the United Kingdom, focusing in particular on the terrorist group National Action. In 2007, coalition forces captured Qais al-Khazali, the head of Asa`ib Ahl al-Haqq (AAH), an Iran-backed Shi`a militia group accused of killing U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Al-Khazali was released in 2010, continues to lead AAH, and has become a significant political player in Iraq. Bryce Loidolt outlines how the recently declassified interrogation reports from al-Khazali’s time in custody reveal significant rifts between Shi`a militant power centers in Iraq and argues that such “rifts are likely to persist and will complicate Iran’s ability to project its influence in the future.” In 2018, al-Qa`ida’s leader Ayman al-Zawahiri released more messages than in the previous year and ratcheted up his threat rhetoric against the United States. Jami Forbes warns al-Qa`ida’s increased media outreach may signal both a revitalization and that it is readying to pivot back to attacking its far enemies.
Topic:: Intelligence, Counter-terrorism, Al Qaeda, Media, Islamic State, Ideology, Shia, Jihad, Radical Right, and NYPD
Political Geography:: United Kingdom, Iran, Middle East, and United States of America

351. A Hollow Victory Over the Islamic State in Syria? The High Risk of Jihadi Revival in Deir ez-Zor's Euphrates River Valley

Author:: Hassan Hassan, Paul Cruickshank, Stephen Hummel, F. John Burpo, James Bonner, and Ross Dayton
Publication Date:: 02-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: CTC Sentinel
Institution:: The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
Abstract:: In Syria, the Islamic State has now been reduced to a few vanishing pockets in Deir ez-Zor’s Middle Euphrates River Valley as a result of two separate military offensives on opposite sides of the river by Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and forces loyal to the Assad regime. But while Deir ez-Zor has now been essentially liberated from the Islamic State, securing and stabilizing the region will likely prove much harder. In our cover article, Hassan Hassan writes the “long period it took the overstretched SDF to liberate the east side of the Euphrates afforded the Islamic State time to create sleeper cells.” He argues the fact that the west side is again under Assad regime control will likely provide opportunities to both the Islamic State and the al-Qa`ida offshoot Hayat Tahrir al-Sham to tap into local Sunni anger to rebuild their operations. Hassan warns there will be even more opportunities for jihadis to rebound if the Assad regime exploits what will likely be a vacuum left by soon-to-depart U.S. forces to take control of the areas liberated by the SDF. All this, he warns, creates a very real risk that the border region between Syria and Iraq could emerge as a long-term threat to global security, just like the border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban. Our interview is with Shaun Greenough, the Case Strategy and Mentor Supervisor at The Unity Initiative (TUI), a specialist intervention consultancy based in the United Kingdom that focuses on rehabilitating individuals convicted of terrorist offenses and tackling absolutist mindsets in the wider community. Greenough previously served in a variety of counterterrorism roles including managing aspects of the U.K. police investigation into the 2006 transatlantic airline plot. Major Stephen Hummel, Colonel F. John Burpo, and Brigadier General James Bonner, the Commanding General of the U.S. Army’s 20th CBRNE Command, warn there is a high risk that profit-minded suppliers within vast, transnational IED networks may in the future expand into WMD proliferation. They write “the convergence of these two seemingly separate networks does not mean that an IED facilitation network will suddenly market WMD, rather that non-state actors could employ these networks to gather the knowledge, people, materials, finances, and infrastructure required for WMD development and employment.” Ross Dayton assesses the threat posed by the ELN terrorist group, which in January 2019 carried out an apparent suicide bombing on the national police academy in Bogotá, Colombia, that killed over 20 police cadets. “The ELN now operates in 12 Venezuelan states with virtual impunity under the Maduro government,” he writes, allowing “ELN fighters to escape the jurisdiction of Colombian security forces and exploit opportunities for illicit financing and recruitment.”
Topic:: Non State Actors, Counter-terrorism, Islamic State, Syrian War, Police, Jihad, and IED
Political Geography:: Middle East, Colombia, South America, Syria, and Global Focus

352. March 2019 Issue

Author:: Matthew Levitt, Kristina Hummel, Petter Nesser, Lachlan Wilson, Jason Pack, and Geoff D. Porter
Publication Date:: 03-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: CTC Sentinel
Institution:: The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
Abstract:: In our cover article, Matthew Levitt examines Hezbollah’s procurement channels, documenting how the group has been leveraging an international network of companies and brokers, including Hezbollah operatives and criminal facilitators, to procure weapons, dual-use items, and other equipment for the group and sometimes Iran. Levitt details how in the context of the war in Syria, “some of Hezbollah’s most significant procurement agents—such as Muhammad Qasir—have teamed up with Iran’s Quds Force to develop integrated and efficient weapons procurement and logistics pipelines through Syria and into Lebanon that can be leveraged to greatly expand Hezbollah’s international weapons procurement capabilities.” Levitt reveals Qasir appeared in footage of meetings last month between Syria’s President Assad and Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, underscoring the importance Damascus and Tehran attach to Qasir’s efforts. Our interview is with Vayl S. Oxford, the director of the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). The Islamic State threat to Europe has grown less acute since the Islamic State lost much of its territory in Syria and Iraq, but a significant threat remains. Petter Nesser identifies three factors that explain why the most recent wave of terrorism in Europe rose so high: the participation of European countries in the anti-Islamic State coalition, the strong reach of jihadi-terror networks into Europe, and the efforts of “terrorist entrepreneurs.” He warns anger among European Islamist extremists caused by the military intervention against the Islamic State, networks created in the jihadi battlegrounds of Syria and Iraq, and veteran European foreign fighters intent on orchestrating terror back home could combine to inflict new waves of terrorism in Europe. Lachlan Wilson and Jason Pack outline how the Islamic State in Libya has rebounded since its loss of Sirte in 2016 by fighting a twin-track war of attrition involving attacks on state institutions along the coast and a guerrilla insurgency in Libya’s interior deserts. Geoff Porter outlines how counterterrorism efforts in Algeria and low support for jihadism among Algerians has significantly weakened the Algerian chapter of al-Qa`ida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Lastly, we’re very pleased to announce that Don Rassler, the Director of Strategic Initiatives at the Combating Terrorism Center, has joined the CTC Sentinel editorial board.
Topic:: Defense Policy, Non State Actors, Counter-terrorism, Islamic State, Networks, Hezbollah, and Jihad
Political Geography:: Iran, Middle East, Libya, Algeria, and Lebanon

353. April 2019 Issue

Author:: Aaron Edwards, Paul Cruickshank, Stephen Hummel, Douglas McNair, F. John Burpo, James Bonner, Audrey Alexander, Bennett Clifford, and Caleb Weiss
Publication Date:: 04-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: CTC Sentinel
Institution:: The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
Abstract:: The murder earlier this month of journalist Lyra McKee in Northern Ireland on the night before Good Friday illustrates the fragility of peace in a region in which terrorist violence has persisted. In our cover article, Aaron Edwards writes that this was “the latest in a series of incidents that have raised the specter of a surge in terrorist violence in Northern Ireland.” In examining the evolution of the threat from militant groupings on both sides of the sectarian divide, he notes there has been a “blurring of the concepts of terrorism and criminality that challenges orthodox perspectives on the security landscape in Northern Ireland.” Our interview is with Edmund Fitton-Brown, the Coordinator of the ISIL (Daesh)/Al-Qaida/Taliban Monitoring Team at the United Nations. This issue features the concluding article of a two-article series focused on IED and WMD network convergence. The first article, published in our February 2019 issue, warned there was a high risk that profit-minded suppliers within vast, transnational IED networks may expand in the future into WMD proliferation. In the second article, Major Stephen Hummel, Lieutenant Colonel Douglas McNair, Colonel F. John Burpo, and Brigadier General James Bonner examine in greater detail the ways this could happen. Audrey Alexander and Bennett Clifford examine the threat posed by Islamic State-affiliated hackers and hacking groups. Through “analysis of several U.S. prosecutions of Islamic State-affiliated hackers and their networks, proficiencies, and activities,” they argue that “very few of these actors demonstrate advanced hacking or cyberterrorism capabilities.” Caleb Weiss examines the evolution of the threat posed by the Islamic State in Somalia, noting the group, “which is believed to only number in the low hundreds of fighters, appears to have significantly expanded its operations across Somalia, albeit from a relatively low base.” He argues the resulting reignition of tensions with the much larger al-Qa`ida affiliate al-Shabaab means “it is far from clear whether the Islamic State in Somalia will be able to sustain its operational expansion.”
Topic:: Science and Technology, Terrorism, United Nations, Taliban, Counter-terrorism, Al Qaeda, Islamic State, Al Shabaab, and Doxxing
Political Geography:: Africa, Europe, Middle East, Ireland, and Somalia

354. May/June 2019 Issue

Author:: Amarnath Amarasingam, Brian Michael Jenkins, Paul Cruickshank, Mitchell D. Silber, Haroro J. Ingram, Craig Whiteside, and Charlie Winter
Publication Date:: 06-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: CTC Sentinel
Institution:: The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
Abstract:: The Easter Sunday attacks in Sri Lanka took the terrorism studies community by surprise because there had been no known history of jihadi violence inside the country and very little to indicate that local groups had the wherewithal to carry out such a large-scale coordinated operation. There is much that remains unclear about the links between the Sri Lankan cell and the Islamic State, but nearly 18 years after 9/11, the suicide bombings were a reminder that clandestine terrorist groups can, at any moment, strike in unexpected places and ways. In our cover article, Amarnath Amarasingam, whose research has focused on both Sri Lanka and global terrorism, outlines what is known about the network that carried out the Easter attacks and situates the attacks in the broader context of evolving intercommunal tensions in the country. Brian Michael Jenkins examines the options for dealing with the significant numbers of Islamic State foreign fighters currently detained in Syria, warning that “endless delay” risks creating a serious threat to international security. Our interview is with Vidhya Ramalingam, the co-founder of Moonshot CVE, a company using technology to disrupt and counter violent extremism globally. Mitchell Silber examines how the terrorist threat against Jews in the West has evolved by examining attacks between 2012 and the present day. He notes that “what may be the most striking findings from this case study analysis are that first, Europe has become the focal point of the jihadi terror threat to Jews in the West and second, the United States has become a new, emerging focal point of the extreme right-wing terror threat to Jews in the West.” Last month, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi appeared for the first time on camera since the Islamic State heralded its ‘caliphate’ in Mosul’s al-Nuri mosque five years ago. Haroro Ingram, Craig Whiteside, and Charlie Winter explain how the video underlined the group’s strategic transformation with the Islamic State’s leader now portraying himself as “the guerrilla ‘caliph’ of a global insurgency.”
Topic:: Terrorism, Counter-terrorism, Islamic State, Judaism, and Foreign Fighters
Political Geography:: Europe, South Asia, Middle East, Sri Lanka, Syria, and United States of America

355. July 2019 Issue

Author:: Matt Bryden, Premdeep Bahra, Paul Cruickshank, Graham Macklin, Joana Cook, Gina Vale, and Robin Simcox
Publication Date:: 07-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: CTC Sentinel
Institution:: The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
Abstract:: In our cover article, Matt Bryden and Premdeep Bahra trace the evolution of the jihadi terrorist threat in East Africa over the last three decades. They argue that al-Shabaab’s January 2019 attack on the Dusit D2 luxury hotel compound in Nairobi, Kenya, “brought together three strands of al-Shabaab’s organizational DNA: its Somali provenance, its ideological affiliation with al-Qa`ida, and its growing cohort of trained, experienced East African fighters. The successful combination of these traits in a single operation suggests that al-Shabaab’s longstanding ambition to transcend its Somali origins and become a truly regional organization is becoming a reality, representing a new and dangerous phase in the group’s evolution and the threat that it poses to the region.” Our interview is with Catherine De Bolle, the Executive Director of Europol, who previously served as Commissioner General of the Belgian Federal Police between 2012 and 2018. Graham Macklin outlines what is now known about the Christchurch terrorist attacks. He writes: “In the space of 36 minutes on March 15, 2019, it is alleged that Brenton Tarrant, an Australian far-right extremist, fatally shot 51 people in two mosques in Christchurch in the deadliest terrorist attack in New Zealand’s history. What was unique about Tarrant’s attack—at least insofar as extreme-right terrorism is concerned—is that he livestreamed his atrocity on Facebook and in doing so, highlighted the Achilles heel of such platforms when faced with the viral dissemination of extremely violent content.” Joana Cook and Gina Vale provide an updated assessment of the numbers of foreign men, women, and minors who traveled to or were born in the Islamic State, examine the proportion that have returned ‘home,’ and outline the continuing challenges foreign women and minors affiliated with the Islamic State pose to the international community. Robin Simcox assesses the terrorist threat from “frustrated travelers” in Europe by examining the 25 plots (eight of which resulted in attacks) by such individuals since January 2014.
Topic:: Science and Technology, Terrorism, History, Counter-terrorism, Women, Internet, Islamic State, Youth, and Jihad
Political Geography:: Africa, Europe, Middle East, New Zealand, and East Africa

356. August 2019 Issue

Author:: Michael Knights, Raffaello Pantucci, Adrian Shtuni, Kujtim Bytyqi, Sam Mullins, and Ross Dayton
Publication Date:: 04-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: CTC Sentinel
Institution:: The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
Abstract:: In our feature article, Michael Knights draws on six research visits to Iraq in 2018 and 2019 to document the expanding footprint region-by-region of pro-Iranian militias in Iraq that were previously labeled “Special Groups” by the United States and in some cases designated as terrorist organizations. Knights assesses “that the Special Groups (not including 18,000-22,000 Badr troops) currently have 63,000 registered personnel … 15 times the size of the Special Groups in 2010, when there were probably as few as 4,000 Special Group operatives in Iraq (again not including Badr personnel in 2010).” He notes a key driver for their growth in manpower and popularity in Iraq was their role in fighting the Islamic State and liberating Sunni population centers under Islamic State control. He writes that “a pantheon of smaller, newer pro-Iran militias is arguably closer to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps than larger and older pro-Iranian militias such as Badr and Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq” and identifies Kata’ib Hezbollah led by U.S.-designated terrorist Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis as the greatest threat to U.S. interests. With pro-Tehran militias expanding their presence across Iraq and U.S. influence in Iraq reduced since its 2011 troop withdrawal, he argues the United States “needs to be parsimonious and pragmatic if it wishes to push back effectively.” Our interview is with Suzanne Raine, who was the head of the United Kingdom’s Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC) between 2015 and 2017. She outlines to Raffaello Pantucci the lessons learned from her work in counterterrorism and the threat landscape as she sees it. Two articles in this issue focus on the Western Balkans. Adrian Shtuni provides a qualitative and quantitative assessment of the security threats posed by foreign fighters and homegrown jihadis from the region. Kujtim Bytyqi, the Acting Director of the Department for Analysis and Security Policies at the Kosovo Security Council Secretariat, and Sam Mullins outline Kosovo’s experience dealing with returning foreign fighters. Finally, Ross Dayton documents how the Maduro regime in Venezuela has increased its reliance on paramilitary groups, including the Colombian left-wing guerrilla group ELN, which was responsible for the suicide car bomb attack on the National Police Academy in Bogotá, Colombia, in January 2019.
Topic:: Terrorism, Counter-terrorism, Jihad, Army, Militias, Foreign Fighters, and Paramilitary
Political Geography:: Iraq, United Kingdom, Europe, Iran, Middle East, Kosovo, Syria, and Venezuela

357. September 2019 Issue

Author:: Daniel Byman, Paul Cruickshank, Brian Dodwell, Amira Jadoon, Andrew Mines, Julie Chernov Hwang, Aaron Y. Zelin, and Katherine Bauer
Publication Date:: 09-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: CTC Sentinel
Institution:: The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
Abstract:: This September 11th, a new generation is taking up the mantle in the fight against terrorism. “Later this year, a U.S. service member is likely to be deployed to Afghanistan who was not yet born on September 11, 2001,” Daniel Byman notes in our feature article on the jihadi terror threat facing the United States 18 years later. He assesses “although the operational freedom of jihadi groups is constricted by U.S. and allied counterterrorism efforts, the jihadi cause as a whole has far more local and regional influence than it did in the years before 9/11, it is better able to inspire individuals in the West to act on its behalf, and groups have proven resilient despite the fierce U.S.-led onslaught.” Our interview is with Joseph Maguire, the United States’ Acting Director of National Intelligence. He says that “since the catastrophic attacks on 9/11, we have significantly diminished the ability of jihadists to strike the U.S. by removing hundreds of leaders and operatives, disrupting dozens of networks and plots, and degrading safe havens. But some jihadist groups still have that intent, not only to target the homeland but also our interests overseas. They are continually adapting to setbacks by modifying their tactics, seeking out alternative safe havens, and using new and emerging technologies to communicate, recruit, and conduct attacks. This makes for an increasingly diverse and unpredictable threat.” As the terror threat evolves, Acting Director Maguire stresses the importance of addressing the still-significant security challenges posed by the Islamic State in Syria, Iraq, and beyond given the group still poses a “tremendous threat” and has “all the recipes” for a resurgence. Amira Jadoon and Andrew Mines examine Islamic State Khorasan’s leadership losses between 2015 and 2018 by leadership tier, year, and geography. Their findings highlight “the group’s tenacious presence in Nangarhar (Afghanistan) and Baluchistan (Pakistan), despite declines in overall number of attacks. An important factor contributing to ISK’s resiliency appears to be rooted in its steady recruitment of experienced Pakistani militants that sustain its leadership ranks.” Two years after the Marawi siege in the Philippines, Julie Chernov Hwang outlines the motivations for joining the Maute Group based on her interviews with 25 former members of the jihadi group and a related faction. Aaron Zelin and Katherine Bauer outline the significant progress Tunisia has made over the past two years in developing domestic counter-terrorism finance capabilities.
Topic:: Intelligence, Terrorism, Counter-terrorism, Islamic State, and Khorasan Group
Political Geography:: Middle East and Tunisia

358. October 2019 Issue

Author:: Seth G. Jones, Paul Cruickshank, Brian Dodwell, Daniel Milton, Julia Lodoen, Ryan O'Farrell, Seth Loertscher, Damien Spleeters, Michael Shkolnik, and Alexander Corbeil
Publication Date:: 10-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: CTC Sentinel
Institution:: The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
Abstract:: In our cover article, Seth Jones examines the Russian military campaign in Syria. He writes: “Russia has done what many thought was impossible in Syria. It has helped Syrian President Bashar al-Assad reconquer most of the country’s major cities and nearly two-thirds of its population. Moscow adopted a military approach that combined well-directed fires and ground maneuver to overwhelm a divided enemy. But it also used extraordinary violence against civilians and provided diplomatic cover when Syrian forces used chemical weapons. Moving forward, Russia faces considerable challenges ahead. Syria is a fractured country with an unpopular regime and massive economic problems; terrorist groups like the Islamic State and al-Qa`ida persist; and Israel and Iran remain locked in a proxy war in Syria.” Our interview is with Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Kevin McAleenan. He discusses DHS’ recently published new Strategic Framework for Countering Terrorism and Targeted Violence and how DHS is intensifying efforts to counter the threat of far-right terror. Daniel Milton, Julia Lodoen, Ryan O’Farrell, and Seth Loertscher examine a recently declassified collection of 27 personnel records for Islamic State fighters, both local and foreign. The forms were acquired by the Department of Defence in Syria in 2016 and are now available to view on the Combating Terrorism Center’s website. According to Milton and his co-authors, the forms “demonstrate how extensive the breadth of information collected was in some cases … [and] show that the Islamic State acquired information useful for understanding the radicalization process, encouraging accountability among its fighters, managing the talent in the organization, and vetting members for potential security concerns.” Damien Spleeters outlines how his organization Conflict Armament Research helped prosecutors secure a guilty plea in the prosecution of Haisem Zahab, an Australian extremist with contacts into the Islamic State and whose research in Australia into rockets “indicates [according to the prosecution] significant commonality” with the Islamic State’s weapon production program in Iraq and Syria. Michael Shkolnik and Alexander Corbeil examine how Hezbollah “virtual entrepreneurs” have in recent years used social media to recruit Israeli Arabs and West Bank-based Palestinians to attack Israelis.
Topic:: Terrorism, Counter-terrorism, Islamic State, Homeland Security, Syrian War, and Hezbollah
Political Geography:: Russia, Eurasia, Middle East, Israel, Lebanon, and Syria

359. November 2019 Issue

Author:: Ali Soufan, Brian Dodwell, Paul Cruickshank, Kristina Hummel, Michael Horton, and Christopher Wright
Publication Date:: 11-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: CTC Sentinel
Institution:: The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
Abstract:: This past summer, the United Nations Monitoring Team charged with tracking the global terrorist threat assessed that “the immediate global threat posed by Al-Qaida remains unclear, with [Ayman] al-Zawahiri reported to be in poor health and doubts as to how the group will manage the succession.” In our feature article, Ali Soufan profiles the veteran Egyptian jihadi operative Abu Muhammad al-Masri and outlines why he appears to be next in line to lead al-Qa`ida. Soufan writes: “Abu Muhammad has long played a critical role in al-Qa`ida, both as an operational commander and as a member of the governing shura council. Yet despite his importance to the organization, Abu Muhammad remains a shadowy figure. Little is known about his early life or his current activities. Unlike most al-Qa`ida Central figures, he is based not in northern Pakistan but in Iran, where he was previously imprisoned and now resides under a murky arrangement by which he is apparently allowed a great deal of freedom while still being barred from leaving the country.” Our interview is with General (Ret) Joseph Votel who retired as the Commander of U.S. Central Command earlier this year after leading a 79-member coalition that successfully liberated Iraq and Syria from the Islamic State caliphate. He is now the Class of 1987 Senior Fellow at the Combating Terrorism Center. Michael Horton examines how Somaliland combats al-Shabaab. He writes that “the government has, with limited means, denied al-Shabaab the operational space it requires through the implementation of a virtuous circle that builds on local buy-in and uses HUMINT as a force multiplier.” He notes, however, that the terrorist group is increasingly active along Somaliland’s border with Puntland “where this virtuous circle is under increasing strain.” There has been significant concern about the potential national security threat posed by the significant numbers of Islamist extremists convicted of terrorism-related crimes in Western countries who are due to complete their sentences in the coming years. Using nearly 30 years of data, Christopher Wright finds that “while not zero, the recidivism rate of those involved in jihadi terror plots targeting the United States is much lower than that of common criminals.”
Topic:: Terrorism, Counter-terrorism, Al Qaeda, Jihad, and Al Shabaab
Political Geography:: Middle East, North America, and United States of America

360. Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (2015) on Restricting Iran’s Nuclear Program and Russia-Iran Relations Century | İran’ın Nükleer Enerji Programı’nın Sınırlandırılmasına İlişkin Kapsamlı Ortak Eylem Planı (2015) ve İran-Rusya İlişkileri

Author:: Nurhan Hacıoğlu
Publication Date:: 12-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Novus Orbis: Journal of Politics & International Relations
Institution:: Department of International Relations, Karadeniz Technical University
Abstract:: After 11 September, Iran's nuclear energy program turned into an international crisis. However, Iran did not give up its nuclear energy program despite the pressure on it in the world public opinion. This crisis, which occurred in the early 2000s, did not cause a negative impact on relations between Iran and Russia. Russia continued to help Iran to develop its nuclear program. One of the main points of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) signed between P5+ 1 countries and Iran in 2015 is that Iran limited its nuclear energy development for ten years. However, Iran could be a regional rival for Russia, especially in terms of energy and gas exports, after a decade. In this context, the focus of the study is to analyse whether there was any change in the good relations between the two countries after JCPOA. The study seeks answers to specific questions: How does Russia look at JCPOA? Why does Russia stand for a rival Iran? Are there any changes in the relations between Russia and Iran in the post-2015 period? According to the results, JCPOA did not have any negative effect on Russia-Iran relations. | 11 Eylül sonrası İran’ın nükleer enerji programı uluslararası bir krize dönüşmüştür. Ancak İran, uluslararası kamuoyunda kendisine yönelik baskılara rağmen nükleer enerji programından vazgeçmemiştir. 2000’li yılların başlarından itibaren ortaya çıkan bu kriz Rusya İran ilişkilerinde olumsuz bir etkiye neden olmamıştır. Rusya İran’a nükleer programını geliştirmesi için yaptığı yardımlara devam etmiştir. 2015 yılında P5+1 ülkeleri ve İran arasında imzalanan Kapsamlı Ortak Eylem Planı’nın (KOEP) temel noktalarından biri İran’ın nükleer enerji gelişimini on yıllık bir süre için sınırlandırmış olmasıdır. Ancak İran on yılın sonunda kendisine yönelik yaptırım ve ambargolardan kurtulmuş bir ülke olarak Rusya’ya özellikle enerji ve gaz ihracı noktasında bölgesel bir rakip olabilecektir. Bu bağlamda çalışmanın odak noktası, bütün bunlar göz önünde bulundurularak iki ülkenin KOEP sonrası iyi ilişkilerinde değişme olup olmayacağını analiz etmektir. Çalışma belli sorulara cevap aramaktadır: Rusya KOEP’e nasıl bakmaktadır? Rusya neden kendisine rakip olabilecek bir İran’ı göze almaktadır? 2015 sonrası dönemde Rusya-İran ilişkilerinde değişiklik olmuş mudur? Ortaya çıkan sonuçlara göre KOEP'in Rusya-İran ilişkilerine herhangi bir olumsuz etkisi olmamıştır.
Topic:: Treaties and Agreements, Nuclear Power, Geopolitics, and JCPOA
Political Geography:: Russia, Iran, Eurasia, and Middle East

361. The Power of the Words: Discourse in Turkish Foreign Policy | Kelimelerin Gücü: Türk Dış Politikasında Söylem

Author:: Gökhan Koçer
Publication Date:: 04-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Novus Orbis: Journal of Politics & International Relations
Institution:: Department of International Relations, Karadeniz Technical University
Abstract:: Language is one of the essential tools in politics. In this context, as for people, the importance of language is very high for states to express themselves politically. The language that states use to carry out their foreign policies has original qualities or at least is believed it should have. For this reason, the language used by the state in its foreign policy is different from the others. If it is not different, it is sometimes differentiated, or new meanings are assigned to the words in line with this purpose. It is a common practice that states produce and implement foreign policy by utilising the language and especially words. However, this can sometimes lead to various problems in foreign policy. Similar practices and problems exist in Turkish foreign policy as well. Naming, changing the name, naming it differently, labelling it in a negative manner, pronouncing the name differently, not-to-mention the name are of the tactics in this regard. In this study, two main topics on Turkish foreign policy are discussed. The first is the debate in Turkey on the last name of Syrian President "Bashar al-Assad" within the framework of what it is or how to pronounce it. Once the relationship between Turkey and Syria began to deteriorate, "Esed" instead of "Esad" has chosen to be used by some politicians, particularly Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The second one is the name of the terrorist organisation "ISIS“(Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham). The terrorist organisation formerly known as ISIS started to be named "DEAŞ", "DAİŞ", "DAEŞ" by a great number of people, especially Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The main reason for this is that the word of Islam takes place in the name of this terrorist organisation. Two inferences can be made on the subject. First, the language debates that took place inside Turkey are more frequent than the debates done between Turkey and its counterparts in the international arena and made by the outside world without Turkey's involvement. Secondly, the interventions in language and playing with words did not give the desired results. | Dil, siyasetin en önemli araçlarından biridir. Bu bağlamda kişilerin olduğu gibi, devletlerin de kendilerini siyaseten ifade etmelerinde dilin önemi çok yüksektir. Devletlerin dış politikalarını gerçekleştirmek için kullandıkları dil, özgün niteliklere sahiptir ya da en azından öyle olması gerektiğine inanılır. Bu nedenle de, devletin dış politikada kullandığı dil başkalarınınkinden farklıdır, değilse bazen farklılaştırılır ya da kelimelere farklı anlamlar yüklenir. Dili ve özelde de kelimeleri kullanarak dış politika üretmeye ve uygulamaya çalışmak, rastlanılan bir durumdur. Ancak, bu durum, bazen çeşitli dış politika sorunlarına da neden olabilmektedir. Türk dış politikasında da benzer uygulamalar ve sorunların varlığı, zaman zaman söz konusudur. Adlandırma, ad değiştirme, farklı adlandırma, olumsuz adlandırma, adını farklı telaffuz etme, adını anmama, bu konuda taktiklere örnektirler. Bu çalışmada, esas olarak, Türk dış politikasında yakın zamanda gündemde yer almış iki tartışma konusu ele alınmıştır. Bunlardan birincisi Suriye Devlet Başkanı “Beşir Esad”ın soyadının ne olduğu ya da nasıl telaffuz edileceği konusunda Türkiye’de yaşanan çok ciddi tartışmadır. Türkiye ile Suriye arasındaki ilişkiler bozulmaya başladıktan sonra, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan başta olmak üzere bir kesim, “Esad” yerine “Esed” kelimesini kullanmayı tercih etmiştir. İkincisi ise, terör örgütü “IŞİD”in (Irak Şam İslam Devleti) adı konusunda olmuştur. Daha önce IŞİD adıyla anılan örgüt, sonraları Recep Tayyip Erdoğan başta olmak üzere, büyük bir kesim tarafından DEAŞ, DAİŞ, DAEŞ gibi adlarla ifade edilmeye başlanmıştır. Bu yaklaşımın temel nedeni, terör örgütünün adında yer alan “İslam” kelimesinin kullanılmak istenmemesi olmuştur. Konu hakkında, iki saptama yapılabilir. Birinci olarak, Türkiye’de yapılan tartışmalar, Türkiye dışında yapılanlardan ve Türkiye’nin dışarıyla yaptıklarından daha fazladır. İkinci olarak ise, dile yapılan müdahaleler, kelimelerle oynamalar, istenilen sonuçları vermemiştir.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Politics, Islamic State, and Language
Political Geography:: Turkey, Middle East, and Syria

362. The Red Geopolitics of the Middle East ISIS as a Religious Terrorist Organization | Orta Doğu’nun Kırmızı Jeopolitiği Bir Dini Terör Organizasyonu Olarak DAEŞ

Author:: Bora İyiat
Publication Date:: 04-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Novus Orbis: Journal of Politics & International Relations
Institution:: Department of International Relations, Karadeniz Technical University
Abstract:: An organization that emerged in the Middle East in recent years with the claim of being a state and it rapidly and surprisingly captured territories in Iraq and Syria, attracting the attention of the whole world. This organization calls itself the “Islamic State” although its movement style and ideological foundations have no connection whatsoever to Islam. And, there is a possibility that it can be an actor like every global project again even though it seems to be out of play in regional developments. This article aims to take a close look at the geopolitics of the Middle East, where similar organizations frequently emerge, and to get to know the organization which calls itself the Islamic State of Iraq and the Damascus. | Sadece medeniyetlerin değil, çatışmalarında merkezi olarak algılanan Ortadoğu’da yakın zamanda devlet iddiasıyla ortaya çıkan bir örgüt süratle ve şaşırtıcı bir biçimde Irak ve Suriye topraklarında ilerleyerek tüm dünyanın dikkatini üzerinde toplamıştır. Hareket tarzı ve ideolojik temelleri uzaktan, yakından İslamiyet ile alakası olmadığı halde kendisine “İslam Devleti” adı veren bu örgüt her ne kadar son zamanda bölgesel gelişmelerde oyun dışı kalmış gibi görülse de her küresel proje gibi yeniden bir aktör olabileceğine dair ciddi kuşkular barındırmaktadır. İşte bu makale benzer organizasyonların sıklıkla duyulduğu Ortadoğu’nun jeopolitiğine yakından bakmak ve kendisine Irak ve Şam İslam Devleti adını veren örgütü yakından tanımak amacıyla yazılmıştır.
Topic:: Terrorism, Geopolitics, and Islamic State
Political Geography:: Iraq, Middle East, and Syria

363. The Securitisation of Kurdish Self-Determination as A Challenge for the Sectarian Balance of Power in the Middle East

Author:: Marek Musiol
Publication Date:: 01-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Polish Political Science Yearbook
Institution:: Polish Political Science Association (PPSA)
Abstract:: The article addresses current questions concerning the Kurdish situation before and after the invasion and expansion of ISIS. It applied the theory of securitisation to study the tangled circumstances and frameworks of Kurdish claims, underlining their attempts at gaining their much-desired independence. This elaboration enables one to recognise the genesis and the local, regional and global context of international actions vis-à-vis Kurdish interests, and the possible supporters and opponents of the Kurdish project of statehood in the Middle East. It portrays also the current perception of Kurdish efforts to establish their own national and legal subjectivity that must be recognised by the majority of state actors in order to meet the indispensable criteria of international law. This article is particularly important in the context of recent developments in the Middle East. First of all, it refers to pressures, as well as openly offensive actions targeting the inter- ests and territories controlled by the Kurds in Turkey during the existence of the so-called Islamic State. Secondly, it reflects on actors’ reactions in the international arena, including the countries of the Middle East, towards the independence referendum in Iraqi Kurdistan, as well as on direct actions aimed at shaping a new geopolitical order after the fall of ISIS (attack by Iraqi troops in Kirkuk or the Turkish army in Afrin).
Topic:: Terrorism, Self Determination, Democracy, ISIS, and Independence
Political Geography:: Middle East

364. The Battle for Regional Dominance Between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran

Author:: Valeri Modebadze
Publication Date:: 01-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Liberty and International Affairs
Institution:: Institute for Research and European Studies (IRES)
Abstract:: This article describes the rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia for achieving regional hegemony in the Middle East. Both states have the ambition to be the leader of the Islamic world and there is a constant struggle between them to dominate the Middle East and spread their influence in neighboring countries. Both countries fund militant Islamic movements abroad and are engaged in a fierce battle for regional dominance. After the establishment of the theocratic regime in Iran, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia vehemently opposed Teheran’s ambitions to export revolutions and increase its influence in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia is determined to counter the Iranian revolutionary threat and constantly opposes Teheran’s ambitions to dominate the Arab World. Saudi Arabia and Iran often accuse each other of fueling sectarian violence by backing Shia and Sunni militias in Iraq, Yemen, Syria, and Lebanon. Both countries try to avoid direct confrontation with each other. Instead of direct conflict, both sides fight each other indirectly and provide varying degrees of support to different camps in nearby conflicts.
Topic:: Hegemony, Geopolitics, Conflict, and Militias
Political Geography:: Iran, Middle East, and Saudi Arabia

365. The Alevi / Alawite Factor in Turkey - Syria Relations in the Light of the Syrian Crisis

Author:: Mkrtich Karapetyan
Publication Date:: 01-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Liberty and International Affairs
Institution:: Institute for Research and European Studies (IRES)
Abstract:: The Syrian civil war exacerbated sectarian divisions between the Alawite-ruled Syrian government and Syria’s Sunni population, straining also the relations between the Sunni majority and Alawite and Alevi minorities of neighboring Turkey. The Alawites and Alevis of Turkey were predominantly supporting Syria’s President Bashar al-Asad, while the Turkish government greatly supported the Sunni insurgents of Syria. The paper aims at examining how Alawites and Alevis have influenced the relations between Turkey and Syria in the light of the Syrian civil war, the reasons behind the sympathy of Alevis for the Syrian government, and the implications that Turkey’s Syria policy has had domestically. It finds that the Alevi / Alawite factor has had some restraining effects on Turkey’s antagonistic policy towards Syria. In the introductory part, the article touches upon the differences and the similarities between Alevis and Alawites, then it analyzes the developments in regards Turkey’s policy towards the Syrian crisis that were also reflected in Ankara’s domestic policy vis-à-vis its Alevi and Alawite minorities.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Sectarianism, Syrian War, and Alawites
Political Geography:: Turkey, Middle East, and Syria

366. INSTC vs. BRI: The India-China Competition Over the Port of Chabahar and Infrastructure in Asia

Author:: Syed Fazl-e Haider
Publication Date:: 12-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: China Brief
Institution:: The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:: The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the central component of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in South Asia, has been a source of significant attention and controversy (China Brief, January 12, 2018; China Brief, February 15). Parts of South Asia, the Middle East, Central Asia, and Europe, however, are also host to another ambitious infrastructure program: the “International North-South Transport Corridor” (INSTC), a transportation development plan first established in 2000 by Iran, Russia and India. The INSTC envisions a network to connect Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf ports and rail centers to the Caspian Sea, and then onwards through the Russian Federation to St. Petersburg and northern Europe.
Topic:: Development, International Trade and Finance, Infrastructure, and Economy
Political Geography:: Russia, China, Iran, Middle East, India, and Asia

367. Islamic Countries Engage with China Against the Background of Repression in Xinjiang

Author:: Roie Yellinek
Publication Date:: 03-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: China Brief
Institution:: The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:: State-directed repression and harassment directed against Muslims in China has drawn broad international condemnation throughout the Western world. However, what has been the reaction from the Islamic world itself? Although reactions among major states have varied (as discussed below), the reaction throughout the Islamic world has largely been one of deafening silence—and when voices are raised, they have been faint.
Topic:: International Relations, Islam, Prisons/Penal Systems, State Violence, and Surveillance
Political Geography:: China, Iran, Turkey, Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Xinjiang

368. Spring 2019 edition of Strategic Visions

Author:: Alan McPherson
Publication Date:: 03-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Strategic Visions
Institution:: Center for the Study of Force and Diplomacy, Temple University
Abstract:: Strategic Visions: Volume 18, Number II Contents News from the Director ................................2 Spring 2019 Colloquium.........................2 Spring 2019 Prizes...................................2 Diplomatic History...................................3 SHAFR Conference.................................4 Thanks to the Davis Fellow.......................4 Note from the Davis Fellow..........................5 Note from the Non-Resident Fellow...............6 News from the CENFAD Community............8 Spring 2019 Interviews...................................11 Erik Moore..............................................11 Eliga Gould Conducted by Taylor Christian..........13 Nancy Mitchell.......................................15 Book Reviews.................................................18 Jimmy Carter in Africa Review by Brandon Kinney................18 The Girl Next Door: Bringing the Home front to the Front Line Review by Ariel Natalo-Lifotn...........20 Armies of Sand: The Past, Present and Future of Arab Military Effectiveness Review by Brandon Kinney...............23 Jimmy Carter in Africa Review by Graydon Dennison...........25
Topic:: Diplomacy, Gender Issues, Power Politics, Military Affairs, and Geopolitics
Political Geography:: Africa, United States, Middle East, and Global Focus

369. Militant Islamism in Southeastern Europe: Infrastructure, Actions and the Future Threat Horizon

Author:: Gordon S. Bardos
Publication Date:: 01-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Warsaw East European Review (WEER)
Institution:: Centre for East European Studies, University of Warsaw
Abstract:: The decline in the number of Balkan jihad volunteers setting off for the Islamic State over the past couple of years should not lull observers into the belief that the threat posed by the militant Islamist movement in southeastern Europe has declined as well. In fact, the collapse of the Caliphate might increase the threat in the Balkans; as Bajro Ikanović, a Bosnian extremist warned, “your intelligence agencies made a mistake thinking that they would be rid of us, however, the problem for them will be the return of individuals trained for war.” Ikanović himself will not be carrying out this threat, however, because he was killed in Syria, but no doubt many of his comrades feel the same way.
Topic:: Terrorism and Islamic State
Political Geography:: Europe, Bosnia, Middle East, and Syria

370. Empowerment and compassion in refugee crisis response: A conversation with UNHCR MENA Director Amin Awad

Author:: Kelsey Wise and Amin Awad
Publication Date:: 01-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Harvard Journal of Middle Eastern Politics and Policy
Institution:: The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:: The series of refugee crises in the Middle East and North Africa has created urgent need for coordinated international responses and advocacy. To learn more about the complexities of meeting the needs of diverse refugee populations across the region, and addressing their root causes, JMEPP Levant Regional Editor Kelsey Wise sat down with Amin Awad in advance of his appearance at the Harvard Arab Conference. Mr. Awad currently serves as the Director for the Middle East and North Africa with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and has extensive experience working on refugee issues and in humanitarian relief in the MENA region. He is also the Regional Refugee Coordinator for Syria and Iraq.
Topic:: Nationalism, Refugee Crisis, Displacement, Syrian War, Resettlement, and Child Marriage
Political Geography:: Turkey, Middle East, Yemen, United Nations, North Africa, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan

371. The Israeli Elections Just Got Interesting: Netanyahu’s Indictment and the New Center Left Alliance

Author:: Josh Dean
Publication Date:: 01-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Harvard Journal of Middle Eastern Politics and Policy
Institution:: The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:: A little over a month ago, I wrote of an atmosphere of resignation in Israel among Netanyahu’s political opponents leading up to the Israeli parliamentary elections on April 9th. The smattering of center-left parties seeking to rival Netanyahu’s Likud at the ballot box were divided across a range of tickets, unable to put their egos aside and form a joint bloc capable of presenting a veritable challenge to the incumbent prime minister. The long-reigning Israeli leader’s tenure looked, therefore, set to extend even further. The question was not who will be the next prime minister, but rather “Who will be the next Bibi [Netanyahu]?” as Israeli comedian Tom Aharon quipped. But a lot can change in a day of Israeli politics, never mind a month. As political alliances shift rapidly, the announcement of Netanyahu’s indictment on fraud and corruption charges has further destabilized the already-turbulent atmosphere leading up to the April elections.
Topic:: Corruption, Politics, Law, and Elections
Political Geography:: Middle East, Israel, and Palestine

372. The politics of hope: a nation’s patience tested

Author:: Ali Tehrani and Azadeh Pourzand
Publication Date:: 01-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Harvard Journal of Middle Eastern Politics and Policy
Institution:: The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:: Winter 2019 marked the 40th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. The anniversary celebrations occurred in the midst of a difficult era of socio-economic turmoil, the return ofَ U.S. sanctions, and deepening political infighting in the Islamic Republic. Tensions between the government and the people are especially high. The tectonic plates of social change have been shifting below the surface in Iran over the past two decades, with major discontent erupting in the past year. While the country’s political facade appears largely unchanged, tensions and fragmentations among the ruling elite have deepened. Economic conditions are fast deteriorating for the average citizen, while political repression remains a harsh reality. Iran’s citizens, who have clung to hope and the possibility for change through decades of domestic repression and isolation from the global economy, struggle to remain hopeful. Collective fatigue stemming from years of isolation from the global economy, as well as domestic economic hardship, compounds the disappointment Iranians feel from unfulfilled political promises. The Iranian government has repeatedly failed to carry out promised reforms; in recent years alone, President Hassan Rouhani has proven unable to carry out his promises to “open up Iran politically, ease rigid social restrictions and address human rights abuses.” As this situation continues, Iran risks despair and chaos.
Topic:: Government, Politics, Social Movement, Sanctions, Nuclear Power, Reform, Economy, and Memory
Political Geography:: Iran and Middle East

373. Event Review: Critique, Dissent, and Solidarity--the Politics of Modern Middle Eastern Art

Author:: Asma Elgamal
Publication Date:: 01-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Harvard Journal of Middle Eastern Politics and Policy
Institution:: The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:: Described as one of the “greatest fusers of politics and art,” Sultan Sooud al-Qassemi has spent much of his life studying – and talking about – Arab art. Between founding the Barjeel Art Foundation, an Emirati-based initiative that collects and preserves Arab art, to live-tweeting the events of the Arab-spring to millions of Twitter users, al-Qassemi has a reputation for breaking silence on topics most members of an Arab royal family would be reluctant to touch. On February 7th, at an event hosted by the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Security, al-Qassemi gave a talk entitled “Politics of Modern Middle Eastern Art” in which he explored the greatest hits of modern political Arab art.
Topic:: Politics, History, Arts, and Culture
Political Geography:: Middle East and Gulf Nations

374. Facing a President’s veto: a series on Congress’s options to limit arms sales and aid to Saudi Arabia, part 1

Author:: Jacques Singer-Emery
Publication Date:: 01-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Harvard Journal of Middle Eastern Politics and Policy
Institution:: The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:: This is the first of a three-part essay series on the different paths the U.S. Congress might take to limit Washington’s support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen. Congress is considering a range of options to express its displeasure with Riyadh after Saudi agents murdered prominent Saudi journalist and critic Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in September 2018, and journalists and NGOs around the world continue to highlight human rights abuses perpetrated by Saudi-led coalition forces in Yemen. Of these options, the most notable is the Saudi Arabia Accountability and Yemen Act of 2019. Congress has already voted to condemn President Donald Trump’s unequivocal support for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: the Senate voted March 13th to end US support for the war in Yemen, echoing a measure that passed the House in mid-February. But, the Saudi Arabia Accountability and Yemen Act would go further still, sanctioning those in the Saudi government responsible for Khashoggi’s death and curtailing U.S. arms sales and military aid critical to the Saudi-led coalition’s war in Yemen. The White House vehemently opposes the bill. If it passes, President Trump is expected to veto it, just as he is expected to veto the Senate’s March and House’s February resolutions.
Topic:: Government, Law, Military Affairs, and Legislation
Political Geography:: Middle East, Yemen, North America, United States of America, and Gulf Nations

375. Character Reform: Egypt’s Year of Education

Author:: James Aird
Publication Date:: 01-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Harvard Journal of Middle Eastern Politics and Policy
Institution:: The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:: As Egypt’s ‘Year of Education’ begins, the government pushes much needed reform in pre-university education across the country. Supported by a $500 million World Bank loan, the government is accelerating efforts to train teachers, build schools, and implement tablet technology in primary and secondary education. The reforms include one ambitious project that is especially deserving of more attention: the expansion of a pilot program adapting Japanese educational techniques to the Egyptian context. At a meeting in Tokyo on February 29th, 2016, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi announced a joint partnership that sought to link Egypt to Japan through educational development, in part thanks to al Sisi’s personal admiration for Japan’s education system. As part of the joint partnership, Japanese and Egyptian administrators and policymakers set out to reshape Egyptian pedagogy. Modeled on Japan’s Tokkatsu education system, which refers to a program of “whole child development,” Egypt aims to build schools that place great emphasis on teaching students to be responsible, disciplined, and clean, as opposed to the more traditional model prioritizing higher standardized testing scores. A Tokkatsu-inspired curriculum is already being used at over forty schools that accepted more than 13,000 students in September 2018. While President al Sisi plans to personally monitor the new education system, other MENA states should also watch closely. If it successfully contributes to building Egypt’s human capital and improving students’ competitiveness, other states in the region might consider implementing similar educational policies.
Topic:: Development, Education, Reform, Children, Partnerships, and Youth
Political Geography:: Japan, Middle East, North Africa, and Egypt

376. Worsening gaps in education for Syrian refugees: Lessons from the early education response in Jordan

Author:: Reva Dhingra
Publication Date:: 01-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Harvard Journal of Middle Eastern Politics and Policy
Institution:: The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:: The 2018-2019 school year opened with some worrying figures for Syrian children in Jordan. Over forty percent of an estimated 240,000 registered Syrian school-aged refugees remain out of formal school. Despite ongoing efforts, enrollment levels of about 131,000 in September remained well below the target of 170,000 children. With most refugees unlikely to return to Syria in the immediate future—the number of registered refugees increased in 2018—education while in Jordan remains a pressing concern. Funding cuts, school and teacher quality, documentation barriers, and complex mental health and psychosocial problems among refugee children contribute to education shortfalls, but only partially explain the unexpectedly low enrollment of refugee children. The initial education response was fractured between the immediate imperative of keeping children off the streets and the long-term imperative of integrating children into formal school. As the crisis stretches into its eighth year, however, the impulses of the early education response continue to impede efforts to educate Syrian children in Jordan. Despite the best efforts of donors, NGOs, and the Jordanian government, this early approach may have inadvertently increased time out of school for children who, under government regulations, are not allowed to re-enroll after three years. As a result, many of these children will likely never be able to enroll in school again. Examining the refugee education response in Jordan offers lessons for providing education during the early stages of refugee crises.
Topic:: Education, Children, Refugees, and Syrian War
Political Geography:: Middle East, Syria, and Jordan

377. America’s Unipolar Moment of Renewal or Collapse?

Author:: Ofer Israeli
Publication Date:: 02-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: American Diplomacy
Institution:: American Diplomacy
Abstract:: After a century of an American world order established by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson at the end of the First World War, we are facing a shift in Washington’s global attitude. President Trump’s approach to world affairs is different. Although Obama, and to some extent Bush before the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, was starting to withdraw from the U.S. historical position of key global superpower, President Trump’s approach to world affairs is a much more drastic acceleration of this move. Continuing in this direction means we may soon face a collapse of America’s century-long preeminence, and the creation of a new world order in which the U.S. is no longer leading the global power, but only first among sovereigns, if at all.
Topic:: International Relations, Cold War, Government, World War I, World War II, and Institutionalism
Political Geography:: Russia, Europe, Iran, Middle East, Israel, Soviet Union, and United States of America

378. America’s Yemen Policy

Author:: William A. Rugh
Publication Date:: 02-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: American Diplomacy
Institution:: American Diplomacy
Abstract:: Despite the focus on the results of the Yemeni conflict, its underlying causes have not been very well understood. It is a complicated story but this essay seeks to highlight three important factors behind the current turmoil in Yemen that are often overlooked. First, the country has major domestic divisions that are the primary reasons for the conflict in the first place. Second, Saudi direct intervention in Yemen is nothing new and is motivated by Saudi leadership’s strong views about the country. Third, American policy toward Yemen has more to do with Saudi Arabia and the region than with Yemen itself.
Topic:: Civil War, Cold War, Diplomacy, Politics, and Conflict
Political Geography:: Middle East, Soviet Union, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, United States of America, and Gulf Nations

379. Learning About Islam: From Ignorance to Understanding

Author:: Benjamin Tua
Publication Date:: 09-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: American Diplomacy
Institution:: American Diplomacy
Abstract:: Efforts to portray Muslims and their faith as threatening diminish our society by stigmatizing a significant American minority. They also can facilitate costly foreign policy blunders such as the 2017 Executive Order banning entry into the US of visitors from several Middle Eastern majority-Muslim countries, an order purportedly based on terrorist activity, technical hurdles to properly document these countries’ travelers, and poor coordination with US officials. Two recent books, “Mohammad: Prophet of Peace Amid the Clash of Empires” and “What the Qur’an Meant: And Why it Matters,” take on the task of broadening Americans’ still unacceptably low understanding of Islam. The authors – Juan Cole, a professor of history at the University of Michigan, and Garry Wills, a Pulitzer Prize winning lay scholar of American Catholicism – approach their subject in distinctly different manners. Yet, their message and conclusions are remarkably similar – namely, that ignorance of and distortions of Islam and what the Quran says both alienate vast numbers of Muslims and have led to foreign policy missteps. The books complement each other nicely.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Islam, Peace Studies, Religion, Judaism, Islamophobia, and Xenophobia
Political Geography:: Iraq, Ukraine, Middle East, Eastern Europe, Soviet Union, North America, and United States of America

380. Preventing an Israeli-Iran War

Author:: Alon Ben-Meir
Publication Date:: 05-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: American Diplomacy
Institution:: American Diplomacy
Abstract:: The EU is in a unique position to prevent the outbreak of a war between Israel and Iran that could engulf the Middle East in a war that no one can win.
Topic:: Conflict Prevention, Civil War, Diplomacy, Nuclear Weapons, and Nuclear Power
Political Geography:: Iran, Middle East, Israel, and United States of America

381. Terrorism: Agreeing on the Basics

Author:: Ophir Falk
Publication Date:: 05-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: American Diplomacy
Institution:: American Diplomacy
Abstract:: Today, after years of modern terrorism and counterterrorism, the international community still does not agree on a single definition of terrorism. Despite the daily threats posed to many states, the definition conundrum prevents an agreed classification that could better facilitate the fight against terrorism and thwart the public legitimacy that most terrorist organizations seek. When a problem is accurately and acceptably defined, it should be easier to solve. Terrorism is an overly used term often heard in different discourses and contexts. It is used by the general public and in the course of academic, political, and legal debates, not to mention constantly referenced in the media. It may not be feasible to verse one universal definition for all discourses, but the term’s key criteria can and should be agreed upon.
Topic:: International Law, Politics, Terrorism, Military Affairs, Violence, Hezbollah, and White Supremacy
Political Geography:: Middle East, Israel, North America, and United States of America

382. The Challenges of the Middle East

Author:: Haviland Smith
Publication Date:: 09-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: American Diplomacy
Institution:: American Diplomacy
Abstract:: It is clear that there are powerful people both in the United States and in Iran who would like to force a real confrontation between our two countries. What is completely unclear is whether or not those hawks on both sides want a modified Cold War type confrontation, built perhaps on cyber warfare, or an all-out military confrontation. What this situation, with all its incredibly profound dangers and possible disastrous outcomes, has done is once again prompt the question, “what is the United States doing in the Middle East and what precisely are our goals there?”
Topic:: Cold War, Islam, Religion, Terrorism, Minorities, and Ethnicity
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Syria, and United States of America

383. The Zombie Returns: Middle East Peace Plan Would Create Palestinian Bantustan

Author:: Edward Marks
Publication Date:: 09-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: American Diplomacy
Institution:: American Diplomacy
Abstract:: The Trump Administration Middle East Plan appears to call for a Palestinian “Bantustan” (maybe two with Gaza) and legally enforced separation of communities based on ethnic grounds. It is difficult to believe that this resurrection from the discredited past could be acceptable to anyone but its authors, who appear to be completely oblivious to the history of South Africa. That includes Netanyahu, who has obviously been fully engaged in the plan’s development. However the plan will be unacceptable to everyone else, including Saudi Arabia and other Arab governments who have been flirting with Israel and the US in an informal anti-Iranian alliance. The plan would certainly exacerbate – if that is possible – the relationship between Israel and the Palestinians. The Kushner Plan would be like throwing oil on a fire; it will end badly for everyone concerned.
Topic:: Conflict Resolution, Apartheid, Development, Diplomacy, and Economic Growth
Political Geography:: Middle East, Israel, Palestine, North America, United States of America, West Bank, and Golan Heights

384. The Secret Testimony of the Peel Commission (Part 1): Underbelly of Empire

Author:: Laila Parsons
Publication Date:: 09-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:: Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:: The Peel Commission (1936–37) was the first British commission of inquiry to recommend the partition of Palestine into two states. The commissioners made their recommendation after listening to several weeks of testimony, delivered in both public and secret sessions. The transcripts of the public testimony were published soon afterward, but the secret testimony transcripts were only released by the United Kingdom’s National Archives in March 2017. Divided into two parts, this article closely examines the secret testimony. Part I discusses how the secret testimony deepens our understanding of key themes in Mandate history, including: the structural exclusion of the Palestinians from the Mandate state, the place of development projects in that structural exclusion, the different roles played by British anti-Semitism and anti-Arab racism, and the importance of the procedural aspects of committee work for understanding the mechanics of British governance. Part II extends this analysis by focusing on what the secret testimony reveals about how the Peel Commission came to recommend partition.
Topic:: Nationalism, Developments, Zionism, Colonialism, Empire, and Anti-Semitism
Political Geography:: United Kingdom, Europe, Middle East, Israel, and Palestine

385. Signalling for Status: UAE and Women’s Rights

Author:: Vânia Carvalho Pinto
Publication Date:: 08-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Contexto Internacional
Institution:: Institute of International Relations, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro
Abstract:: That societies should be gender-equal is a prevailing normative ideal to which states at the very least pay lip service. The UAE as a highly globalised state that aspires to a superior status has not stood outside of these dynamics. Whereas in the decades since independence in 1971 women’s rights were emphasised as a sign of the country’s progress, nowadays, the UAE government portrays women’s rights as being advanced to such an extent that they are setting up a new gender empowerment benchmark for the Middle Eastern region. Additionally, the UAE has also proclaimed the goal of becoming one of the top 25 gender-equal states in the world by 2021. I suggest that these official proclamations are indicative of a signalling strategy whose aim is to advocate to an international audience that the UAE deserves a status higher than it currently holds. Based on Larson and Svechenko’s interpretation of social identity theory, I claim that the UAE’s strategy is one of social creativity. It rests on creating a new value – the Emirati standard of gender equality – within the Arab group. The former is operationalised through, on the one hand, ‘teaching to the test’ tactics in the area of women’s political participation, a field that can be easily regulated by the government. And on the other, on overemphasising the professional deeds of a small group of high-achieving women. In the latter case, as the numbers of females in employment are rather low, the government elects to call attention to women in specific and unconventional positions so as to lend greater credence to the existence of their own superior standard of gender equality within the Arab region.
Topic:: International Relations, Gender Issues, Women, and Democracy
Political Geography:: Middle East, North Africa, and United Arab Emirates

386. An Evaluatıon Model Based On Sustaınable Development For The Istanbul Shoppıng Center Market

Author:: Dursun Onur İlhan and Ali Murat Ferman
Publication Date:: 12-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: AURUM Journal of Social Sciences
Institution:: Altinbas University
Abstract:: Istanbul shopping center market is currently facing considerable internal and external socioeconomic challenges. After the recent shopping center investment rush, problems (not only in the commercial sphere, but also in social and environmental spheres) have become more visible. In this study, an evaluative multi factor model for the Istanbul market that is based on the principles of “sustainable development” has been put forward. After the identification of the three major pillars (i.e. Commercial, Social and Environmental Pillars), what they mean for the shopping center business and their industry-related sub-factors (three for each pillar, nine in total) through literature review, valuable primary data has been gathered from two sources. First source is the face-to-face surveys based on the analytical hierarchy process model (AHP) conducted with the top decision-makers of twenty-one out of twenty-five members of the Council of Shopping Centers – Turkey (AYD) which have at least one self-developed Istanbul shopping center. The pre-determined pillars and subfactors have been offered to AYD participants for pair-wise comparison and they strongly prioritized the Commercial Pillar (with 58.1%) above Social and Environmental Pillars. In the light of this outcome, a second primary research layer in the form of an expert panel to re-think the commercial stance of AYD participants is conducted. Accordingly, structured face-to-face interviews that contained two open-ended questions are realized with three sustainability experts. Their insights are in line with the findings of the literature review. This has led to assigning ethical protection to the Social and Environmental Pillars of the model against the risks created by the commercial practices.
Topic:: Sustainable Development Goals, Investment, Decision-Making, and Shopping Centers
Political Geography:: Turkey, Middle East, and Istanbul

387. The Daydreams of Polyphony: From The Music Revolution to The Birth of Turkish Popular Culture

Author:: Poyraz Kolluoğlu
Publication Date:: 07-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: AURUM Journal of Social Sciences
Institution:: Altinbas University
Abstract:: The Turkish Cultural Revolution has been a steady of debate and controversy for scholars coming from different disciplines of social science since the founding elites attempted to build the new secular society upon a disintegrating cosmopolitan empire in 1923. One of the off shoots of this modernization project championed by a group of elite soldiers under the leadership of Atatürk was the so-called Turkish music revolution. In this paper, I am defining the imagination of a nation and its cultural modular forms in an underdeveloped oriental milieu as that of Turkey as daydreaming because I would argue that the so-called music revolution of this total cultural fabrication throughout the 1930s, 1940s resulted in confusion, feelings of anxiety, artistic and cultural volatility, and, thereby, paved the way for an opportunity to navigate in a space between the Occident and the Orient spatio-temporality in parallel to ethno-racist discourses.
Topic:: Nationalism, Culture, Music, Modernity, Cultural Revolution, and Occidentalism
Political Geography:: Turkey, Middle East, and Mediterranean

388. The Intelligence Cycle of Targeted Killing in the United States

Author:: Christine Sixta Rinehart
Publication Date:: 07-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Fletcher Security Review
Institution:: The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:: The United States has been using Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) to assassinate terrorist targets since its first RPA strike on November 3, 2002, when a U.S. Predator fired a hellfire missile at a car traveling through the Mar’ib province of Yemen. The intelligence cycle of this targeted killing process is murky at best, and the policy has changed throughout the successive administrations of U.S. presidents. Details exist but there is no defined tangible chain of analysis concerning the selection of the target, the monitoring of the target, and finally, the assassination of the target. This paper attempts to elucidate the intelligence chain of analysis concerning American targeted killing and examine how the intelligence cycle of targeted killing varies through successive presidential administrations. This paper will begin with a short analysis of relevant literature, although sources concerning this topic are scarce. The occurrence of targeted killings of U.S. citizens will also be explained in the literature section. The paper will continue with an elaboration of a generic intelligence cycle model, which will be used to illustrate the intelligence cycle of U.S. targeted killings using both the Reaper and the Predator RPA.[1] The paper will then address differences in the intelligence cycles and processes that have occurred between successive presidents since targeted killing first began in 2002 with President George W. Bush. Lastly, the paper will provide policy prescriptions in reference to improving targeted killing in the Middle East and Africa...
Topic:: Security, Intelligence, Drones, and Targeted Killing
Political Geography:: Africa, Middle East, North America, and United States of America

389. PARADOXICAL PERCEPTIONS ON SYRIANS’ FORCED MIGRATION TO TURKEY: A CASE STUDY OF ISTANBUL MUHTARS

Author:: H. Deniz GENÇ and Merve ÖZDEMİRKIRAN-EMBEL
Publication Date:: 02-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Alternative Politics
Institution:: Department of International Relations, Abant Izzet Baysal University, Turkey
Abstract:: As one of Syria’s neighbors, Turkey has become a refuge for more than 3.5 million forced Syrian migrants. Though many of them are living in Turkey’s border cities, in or around the refugee camps, many others have already dispersed to other cities. Among these cities, Istanbul has the largest Syrian community. Drawing on a qualitative field work in Istanbul’s neighborhoods, this study explores the Syrian migration to Istanbul and reports the attitudes towards this movement of the local neighborhood and village headmen, known as muhtars in the Turkish local administrative system. As the study shows, their attitudes towards forced Syrian migrants are paradoxical, marked both by feelings of disturbance, worry and uneasiness, and at the same time welcome and support. The study concludes by discussing historical and cultural reasons for these paradoxical attitudes by relating them to the understanding of hospitality in Turkish society to show how socio-psychological explanations of attitude formation towards Syria’s forced migrants seem more appropriate.
Topic:: Migration, Regional Cooperation, United Nations, Diaspora, and Refugees
Political Geography:: Europe, Turkey, Middle East, Asia, Istanbul, Syria, and Ankara

390. TURKISH MEDIA’S RESPONSE TO THE 2015 ‘REFUGEE CRISIS’

Author:: Fulya MEMİŞOĞLU and H. Çağlar BAŞOL
Publication Date:: 02-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Alternative Politics
Institution:: Department of International Relations, Abant Izzet Baysal University, Turkey
Abstract:: In 2015 the forced displacement of Syrians entered a new phase with the sharp rise in the numbers of refugees arriving at Europe’s shores mainly through the Eastern Mediterranean route. Grabbing widespread media and public attention, this unprecedent refugee influx and its surrounding events are commonly dubbed as ‘Europe’s refugee crisis’, which as some scholars highlight, is a ‘re-contextualised’ version of already existing processes of politicisation and mediatisation of immigration. This paper intends to contribute to the debate on ‘mediatisation of refugee crisis’ by giving an insight on the role of Turkish media in telling its readers what to think about the ‘refugee crisis’ during this period of particular significance. The paper relies on a content analysis of front-page articles from three Turkish newspapers (Birgün, Hürriyet and Yeni Akit) between July and November 2015. By limiting our analysis to ‘small data’, we look closely how these newspapers on different sides of the political spectrum react to the spread of the refugee crisis to Europe and its implications on Turkey. We highlight the type of coverage and the definition of issues in this particular media content. Overall, we find that the highly mediatised coverage of the Aylan Kurdi incident triggered a significant discursive shift as it has in other national contexts. While all the three newspapers –regardless of ideological stance– were responsive to the spread of the refugee crisis into Europe, news coverage about topics such as socio-economic vulnerabilities of refugees, issues of legal status and social integration in the domestic context was minimal within our period of analysis. We also assert that the way the three newspapers frame the ‘refugee crisis’ especially in relation to domestic or foreign politics shows significant variation. While we find that issues related to border security and border violations received the most intense coverage during the analysis period, we highlight that the coverage is embedded in a humanitarian narrative rather than a security narrative.
Topic:: Migration, United Nations, Mass Media, Diaspora, European Union, Media, and Refugee Crisis
Political Geography:: Europe, Turkey, Middle East, Asia, and Syria

391. The use of weaponized kites and balloons in the Israeli – Palestinian conflict

Author:: Joanna Zych
Publication Date:: 12-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Security and Defence Quarterly
Institution:: War Studies University
Abstract:: The aim of this paper is to analyse the use of weaponised incendiary kites and helium balloons in the Israeli-Palestinian hostilities between March and December 2018. The paper argues that arson started with incendiary kites and balloons can easily be exploited for terrorist purposes and poses a serious challenge for regular armed forces and for civilian emergency services. The paper examines the Palestinian ‘Great March of Return’ as a background for the development of a new Hamas’ tactic and briefly describes the chronology of arson terrorism in the context of other hostilities at the Gaza-Israeli border. The study focuses on the two following questions: why are the kites and balloons useful for the current goals of Hamas and how do the Israelis respond to this new threat? The study uses comparative scientific literature and document analysis, the analysis of statements released by the Israeli authorities and the Israeli media reports related to the arson attacks. The main findings include the role of simple, non-lethal weapons in spreading fear for terrorist purposes and the advantages of turning everyday-use materials into weapons in a situation where there is limited access to regular arms. The second part of the study deals with the effects of arson attacks on the Israeli side of the conflict and the countermeasures undertaken in the Gaza Periphery. The author concludes that airborne arson attacks pose a serious threat to advanced Israeli defence systems, solely because of their primitive and unpredictable character. The overall findings of this paper present the threat of arson terrorism in the context of an asymmetric conflict.
Topic:: Conflict, Arson, Asymmetric Warfare, and Incendiary Devices
Political Geography:: Middle East, Israel, Palestine, and Gaza

392. On the variable of strategic culture: Modus operandi of military interventions in the Middle East

Author:: Andrius Bivainis
Publication Date:: 03-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Security and Defence Quarterly
Institution:: War Studies University
Abstract:: The research subject of this article is the variable of strategic culture that has been subjected to some academic inertia since the Cold War period. The aim of this article is to define practical implications of the strategic culture through the prism of the neoclassical realist theory. It supports the argument that military interventional precedents in the Middle East since 2011 have been revealing adaptive considerations of the strategic culture as an intervening variable that implies interventional military decisions by the U.S. and its coalition partners. The first part of the article defines the precise role of this intervening variable as military interventional precedents are researched. This task is conducted by defining the general understanding of interventional initiatives, revealing structured assumptions of the neoclassical realist theory, and reconsidering the role of the strategic culture within that theoretical framework. The second part of the article shifts the attention to supportive empirical considerations regarding the strategic culture and perception of operational ideas – two specifi cally highlighted neoclassical realist assumptions. The article discloses that Western strategic culture is a changing intervening variable with a different level of permissiveness. A changing continuum of permissiveness is implied by interventional experiences that shape perception of the structural environment and dictate preferences for the power scale of interventional decisions. From this, the level of the structural environment’s permissiveness is defined. This permissiveness is associated with capabilities for implementing political objectives without further escalations of military power. Once the systemic environment becomes more permissive, the possibility of activating military intervention of various force-escalation becomes more conceivable.
Topic:: Military Intervention, Strategic Culture, and Military
Political Geography:: Middle East

393. Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses (CTTA) – Volume 11 Issue 07: Southeast Asia’s Evolving and Resilient Militant Landscape

Author:: Nur Aziemah Azman, V. Arianti, Amalina Abdul Nasir, Sylvia Windya Laksmi, and Kenneth Yeo
Publication Date:: 09-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Counter Terrorist Trends and Analysis
Institution:: Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Abstract:: The Islamic State’s (IS) territorial losses and military defeat in Iraq and Syria have not weakened the militant landscape in Southeast Asia. Rather, the regional threat landscape has become more resilient and competitive, with pro-IS militant groups exhibiting better operational capabilities, knowledge of explosive-making and networking linkages. Moreover, pro-IS groups in the region have found traction by exploiting local issues to spread the terror group’s extremist ideology. Several major challenges have emerged from the recent setback to IS in the Middle East. First is the issue of returning foreign fighters (FTFs) and how to deal with them. Such returnees pose a plethora of legal, political and security challenges to Southeast countries, particularly Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. A second challenge is IS’ efforts to declare new wilayat (provinces) in different parts of the world. While IS has officially declared the East Asia wilayat based in the Philippines, the declaration of new wilayat cannot be ruled out as witnessed in South Asia and Africa. Further, terrorist groups such as IS constantly require increasing financial resources to expand and sustain their operations. In Southeast Asia, IS-linked groups have set up Islamic charities to raise funds and conceal their activities. Against this backdrop, the September issue of the Counter Terrorists Trends and Analyses (CTTA) features four articles looking at different aspects and dimensions of Southeast Asia’s threat landscape in the post-territorial caliphate environment. The first article by V. Arianti and Nur Aziemah Azman argues that the IS fighters in Indonesia may continue to empower their affiliated groups in the country. According to the authors, this is evident by the apparent attempts by Indonesian IS fighters in Syria to create a wilayah (province) in Indonesia by strengthening two Indonesian militant groups, the Mujahidin Indonesia Timur (MIT, Mujahidin of Eastern Indonesia) and Jamaah Ansharud Daulah (JAD, Congregation of Supporters of IS). IS acknowledged Indonesia as part of its East Asia Wilayah (encompassing primarily the Philippines and Indonesia) in July 2018. In the second article, Sylvia Windya Laksmi examines the nexus between charities and terrorism financing, through the case-study of the IS-affiliated Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD) in Indonesia. Given recent reports of convictions around the world of non-profit organisations that misuse their revenues to finance the activities of terrorists, the article details three themes that emerge from JAD’s activities in Indonesia: (i) sham charities set up by the group as a conduit to generate funds to ensure its sustainability; (ii) funds raised for charitable causes funneled into terrorist activities and (iii) social media used to not only recruit members but also raise funds. Given IS’ focus on global expansion in the post-caliphate era, the multi-pronged threat posed by its affiliate networks in Indonesia and surrounding region, of which terrorism financing is a component, will need to be addressed by policymakers and security agencies going forward. The next article by Amalina Abdul Nasir upholds that despite numerous setbacks in Syria, IS is quite determined to stay alive in Malaysia. The pro-IS Malaysian militant groups are exploiting local issues to advance the terror group’s extremist ideology. In this new phase, according to the author, Malaysian IS supporters have acquired better bomb-making capabilities and fostered deeper operational linkages with foreign militants. Moreover, Malaysia is also dealing with the issue of returning fighters. The Malaysian policymakers need to ensure an effective rehabilitation policy in dealing with returning militants and to continue to carefully manage the ethnic and religious climate in Malaysia so as to minimise exploitation of related local issues by pro-IS groups. Finally, Kenneth Yeo discusses the prospects for a consolidation of foreign terrorist fighters (FTFs) in the Southern Philippines following IS‘ territorial losses this year. According to the author, IS’ weakened presence in the Iraq-Syria theatre has positioned the Philippines as an attractive destination for FTFs in Southeast Asia given its status as an alternate conflict theatre within jihadist discourse. The article argues there could be a consolidation of rebel forces in hotspots such as Mindanao, with IS affiliated groups seeking to complement local fighters with FTFs and youth militants to launch attacks and gain territory. With the added impetus of a leadership transition within IS’ networks in the Philippines, comprehensive counter-terrorism measures are needed to address these developments, which also have regional implications.
Topic:: Security, Terrorism, Counter-terrorism, Islamic State, Political stability, and Conflict
Political Geography:: Indonesia, Malaysia, Middle East, Philippines, and Southeast Asia

394. Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses (CTTA) – Volume 11 Issue 06: June Issue

Author:: Abdul Basit, Iftekharul Bashar, Amresh Lavan Gunasingham, and Jade Hutchinson
Publication Date:: 06-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Counter Terrorist Trends and Analysis
Institution:: Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Abstract:: Current narratives on terrorism and violent extremism by governments, policymakers and law enforcement agencies are largely Islam-centric with an overt focus on the military defeat of terrorist groups. This issue firstly looks into the assumed link between a reduction or elimination of territorial control by terrorist groups and their so-called ‘defeat’. Using the Islamic State (IS) as a study, this issue explicates further on a group’s cross-border/global networks, linkages and ideological spread to assert that the victory-defeat framework against IS is flawed, as its threat has transformed into a network of smaller cells and geographically dispersed cells. Secondly, this issue looks at the rising threat of far-right extremism and terrorism; a phenomenon which has been under-explored, given the Islam-centric nature of terrorism in recent decades. For instance, it has been reported that 71 percent of fatalities linked to terrorism between 2008 and 2017 in the United States were committed by far-right extremists and white supremacists. This issue specifically examines the recent Christchurch terrorist attack in New Zealand by a far-right extremist and possible implications for the Asia Pacific region. In the first article, Abdul Basit discusses the narrative of defeat against IS after US forces eliminated its last physical stronghold in Syria. It is argued that while IS territory shrank considerably, the group is still active with its ideological appeal attracting smaller networks and cells globally. The author states that IS has managed to remain relevant and active despite losing its physical sanctuaries due to three reasons: (i) revising the ideological narrative; (ii) organisational restructuring; and (iii) forming new networks. This is likely to have far-reaching implications on the global threat landscape that will witness a rise in low-end urban terrorism, more competition from rival groups and reactionary violence from right-wing extremists. Next, Amresh Gunasingham studies the recent attacks in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday that heightened post-war ethnic tensions and brought forth civil war traumas amidst an ongoing political crisis. The article examines the possibility of a communication gap among security agencies that prevented early detection of one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in the country’s history. It further details the motivations for the attack as: (i) the Wahhabi factor; (ii) anti-Muslim violence furthering radicalization; and (iii) the possible links to IS. Possible implications and responses to the attack include a rise in anti-Muslim sentiments and violence with tightened security measures imposed by the state. In order to ensure long-term stability, the state needs measures to promote ethnic and religious harmony with strong counter-terrorism legislation. Iftekharul Bashar details the threat landscape in Western Myanmar, focusing on (i) Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), an ethno-nationalist group and (ii) IS and Al-Qaeda (AQ), both Islamist terrorist groups. The article argues that the threat brought on by ethnic violence and Islamist terrorism is facilitated by grievances of the local Rohingya Muslims and motivations for revenge and active presence of IS and AQ networks in the South and Southeast Asia region. The exploitation of the local refugee crisis by IS and AQ coupled with ARSA’s resilience requires comprehensive responses that centre on communal harmony in addition to hard-power measures. Lastly, Jade Hutchinson discusses the far-right terrorist threat, specifically in light of the Christchurch shooting at two mosques in New Zealand in March 2019 where 51 people were killed. The article focuses on the attack, the attacker, his links to other far-right extremist groups and the key role the Internet and social media played in facilitating the attack. This incident in New Zealand signals the possibility of further copycat attacks in Australia and other countries, further recruitment towards far-right extremism online and the need to devise policies to effectively counter far-right extremism in the online space.
Topic:: Security, Terrorism, Counter-terrorism, Refugees, Islamic State, Political stability, Conflict, and Syrian War
Political Geography:: South Asia, Middle East, Sri Lanka, Syria, New Zealand, Myanmar, and United States of America

395. Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses (CTTA) – Volume 11 Issue 05: Thematic Challenges in Terrorism: Foreign Terrorist Fighters, De-radicalisation and Far-Right Groups

Author:: Syed Huzaifah Bin Othman Alkaff, Natasha Quek, Md. Didarul Islam, and Naman Rawat
Publication Date:: 05-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Counter Terrorist Trends and Analysis
Institution:: Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Abstract:: The Islamic State’s (IS) territorial defeat reflects a shift in the epicentre of violence from Iraq and Syria to the peripheries (countries with an active presence of IS cells or other insurgent and terrorist threats). In the study of terrorism and insurgency, age-old threats can persist while new threats are always emerging, either due to policy shifts that give rise to new opportunities for insurgents to exploit, or due to changes in the political climate of societies. As such, the May issue deals with three key thematic challenges in a post-IS threat landscape. First, it looks at returning foreign terrorist fighters (FTFs), who after IS’ territorial defeat have either traveled to or attempted to return to their home countries. According to the United Nations (UN) more than 40,000 FTFs from 110 countries had traveled to Iraq and Syria to join IS. The return of segments of the FTFs indicates escalation of threats in their home countries as they come armed with operational skills and could possibly regroup, establish local cells and engage in violence. In this case, a high number of FTFs travelled to Iraq and Syria from Tunisia despite the country’s peaceful transition towards a participatory democracy, in the aftermath of the 2011 Arab uprisings. Second, in order to deal with the shifting threat landscape, it is necessary to develop new and strengthen existing de-radicalisation programmes. De-radicalisation is a smaller part of broader counter-terrorism and counter-radicalisation efforts that focus on terrorists or returning FTFs in custody. Effective de-radicalisation programmes will provide detainees with opportunities to reintegrate back into the society by rejecting violence and promoting peaceful coexistence. This issue critically evaluates de-radicalisation as a concept and specific programmes in Yemen, Pakistan, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia, while extoling the need for holistic approaches for effective outcomes. Lastly, beyond the Islamist extremist threat emanating from IS and other affiliated or local groups, other non-Islamist threats continue to persist. This includes far-right extremists gaining traction and engaging in violence in parts of United States, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. In addition, ethno-separatist groups (Baloch Liberation Army in Pakistan) and communist groups (The New People’s Army in Philippines and the Naxalites in India) also have a strong support structure and operational presence. According to the Global Terrorism Index, the Communist Party of India (Maoist) or Naxalites killed 205 people in 190 different incidents across 2018. This issue specifically delves into the Naxalite insurgency in India, which has evolved from a mass-mobilisation movement to a militant insurgency over the last few decades. The article advocates for institutional reforms to address various grievances to reduce the agency to violence. In the first article, Natasha Quek and Syed Huzaifah Bin Othman Alkaff explore the causal factors behind Tunisia contributing one of the highest numbers of FTFs in theatres of conflict in the Middle East and beyond. The authors contend that the proliferation of Tunisian FTFs and surge in jihadist-linked violence domestically in recent years, poses a threat to long term stability, and could also fuel conflict in the wider region. Tunisia’s strong history of secularism provides an advantage, as the government can rely on a robust civil society rather than adopt a purely security-based approach. However, additional policy responses are needed to curtail jihadist activities and safeguard the country’s democratic achievements. Md. Didarul Islam then assesses various definitional aspects and theoretical models of de-radicalisation programmes. The author further provides observations on the gains, limitations and local context of de-radicalisation programmes, gleaned from four country case studies, which suggest that effective de-radicalisation of individuals necessitates a holistic approach focused on three key areas: (i) re-education or ideological interventions; (ii) vocational training or financial support; (iii) and a viable reintegration environment. Isolated approaches towards de-radicalisation that discount these variables are likely to only bring short-term success and a higher likelihood of recidivism. Lastly, Naman Rawat then examines different factors and underlying causes which have sustained the Naxalite insurgency in India for over fifty years. The author argues that since the 1960s, the lack of legitimate political institutions as well as corrupt practices of the government and bureaucracy have contributed to the Naxalites’ socio-political alienation in India. Additionally, the ineffective implementation of land reform laws, which prohibit acquisition of the tribal lands by non-Adivasis, has pushed the more extreme sections of tribal and peasant people to revolt against the government. Though the insurgency has been weakened in recent years, it is far from over.
Topic:: Terrorism, Counter-terrorism, Radicalization, Islamic State, Political stability, Conflict, and Radical Right
Political Geography:: Pakistan, Iraq, South Asia, Indonesia, Middle East, India, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, North Africa, Syria, and Tunisia

396. Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses (CTTA) – Volume 11 Issue 02: Geographically Diverse, Organisationally Complex and Gender Inclusive Islamist Terrorist Landscape

Author:: Amalina Abdul Nasir, Mustapha Kulungu, and Shafi Mostofa
Publication Date:: 02-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Counter Terrorist Trends and Analysis
Institution:: Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Abstract:: The landscape of Islamist terrorism is diverse, multifaceted and fractious, simultaneously characterised by inter and intra-group rivalries and various forms of cooperation at the operational, tactical and strategic levels. It cuts across geographical, gender and ideological lines/boundaries. More importantly, it evolves at a very rapid pace resulting in fluid security and conflict environments in different geographical locales. For instance, there are local groups like Nigerian Boko Haram that are trying to globalise their jihadist agenda through affiliations with the Islamic State (IS). However, this cooperation is not entirely collegial and is marked by friction and a trust deficit on both ends. In contrast, Al-Qaeda’s (AQ) South Asian affiliate, Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), despite its regional character is localising its recruitment and operational strategies to avoid visibility from media and security agencies. AQIS is abstaining from violence while Boko Haram is engaging in violence to gain public attention. At the same time, the evolution of the terrorist landscape in Indonesia and Malaysia from Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) and AQ-dominated to IS-led and inspired, has affected the recruitment and participation of women. The growing involvement of female militants in diverse roles gives rise to further security threats. In this issue, the first article by Mustapha Kulungu examines the genesis of Boko Haram in Nigeria as a local movement representing grievances of Muslims to its transformation as an operationally strong terrorist group. The author writes that the growing links over the last few years between IS and Boko Haram have added to the lethality and brutality of the latter, which has relied on narratives of Muslim victimhood in Nigeria to expand its footprint outside the country. The article analyses Boko Haram’s organisational structure, operational strategies, sources of funding and ideological ambitions. While it is argued that Boko Haram’s growing capabilities will undermine the US’ interests in Africa, enhancing US-Nigerian security cooperation may act as a counter Boko Haram’s threat. The second article by Shafi Mostofa discusses AQIS’ online and offline propaganda operations in Bangladesh and the various political and ideological narratives the group has used to grow further. Along with issuing several online videos and pamphlets, AQIS publishes two Bengali language magazines: Al-Balagh and Azan. In these publications, AQIS has frequently invoked four themes to justify its activities in Bangladesh. These four themes are: Indian hegemonic ambitions in South Asia, Muslim persecution, religious credentials of the head of a Muslim state and Islamic values. The author argues that AQIS is targeting affluent Bangladeshi youth for recruitment. AQIS’ continued online propaganda is likely to have negative security implications. As such, the author recommends adoption of long-term kinetic and non-kinetic counter-terrorism and counter-extremism strategies to neutralise AQIS. The last article by Amalina Abdul Nasir observes how women’s roles in terrorism have evolved in Indonesia and Malaysia from JI to an IS-dominated threat landscape. Overall, the roles of women have become more diverse due to IS’ physical inroads in the region, particularly in light of online recruitment through the open and close media platforms. The author discusses the evolution of women’s roles from wives and mothers to suicide bombers and combatants as recently witnessed in Indonesia and Malaysia. This development will need to be addressed by counter-terrorism agencies so as to mitigate its impact on the security threat landscape. It also requires an examination of the current perception of women in terrorist groups, and developing policies that factor in the gender-inclusive nature of the terrorist landscape in parts of Southeast Asia.
Topic:: Security, Gender Issues, Terrorism, Counter-terrorism, Women, Al Qaeda, Islamic State, and Boko Haram
Political Geography:: Bangladesh, Africa, South Asia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Middle East, North Africa, Nigeria, and Southeast Asia

397. Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses (CTTA) – Volume 11 Issue 01: Annual Threat Assessment

Author:: Rohan Gunaratna, Mahfuh Bin Haji Halimi, Muhammad Saiful Alam Shah Bin Sudiman, Nur Aziemah Azman, and Mohammed Sinan Siyech
Publication Date:: 01-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Counter Terrorist Trends and Analysis
Institution:: Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Abstract:: The January issue focuses on an overview of the terrorist and violent extremist threats in key countries and conflict zones in the Asia-Pacific throughout 2018. The articles discuss the regional terrorism threat and responses in Southeast Asia, South Asia, Central Asia, China and the Middle East. Thematically, the articles also analyse online extremism and the counter-ideology dimensions of terrorism and violent extremism in 2019. The lead article argues that global terrorist and extremist threat is likely to persist in 2019 as the Islamic State (IS) is going through a phase of readaptation and decentralisation. The group has established clandestine and underground structures to survive in Iraq and Syria. Its ideology is still intact and continues to be propagated in the cyber space. In the provinces, groups, networks and cells which have pledged allegiance to IS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi are radicalising Muslims and conducting attacks. Harnessing both the physical and virtual space, IS continues to present an enduring threat worldwide. Although the apex of IS leadership and many of the directing figures are on the run and might be eliminated in 2019, the penultimate leadership enabling the fight and supporting the infrastructure will continue to operate in the shadows as they become agile and more cunning. The IS and Al-Qaeda (AQ)-centric threats are likely to remain given the lack of an effective global counter terrorism plan and strategy, the continuation of superpower and geopolitical rivalry, and the failure to resolve the underlying causes of extremism and terrorism.
Topic:: Terrorism, Counter-terrorism, Islamic State, Political stability, and Conflict
Political Geography:: Iraq, South Asia, Central Asia, Middle East, North Africa, Syria, and Southeast Asia

398. Deconstructing the EU’s “Standards of Civilisation”: The Case of Turkey

Author:: Münevver cebeci
Publication Date:: 12-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Institution:: International Relations Council of Turkey (UİK-IRCT)
Abstract:: Arguing that the European Union’s (EU) imposition of its norms and values on Turkey is a continuation of the logic of “European standards of civilisation”, this article offers a second reading of European discourses about Turkey. It regards enlargement conditionality as an apparatus through which the EU constructs its own identity as “ideal” and its others as imperfect. Thus, it attempts to deconstruct the EU’s standards of civilisation through three major lines on which they are built: the authoritative application of standards, unequal treatment and a geopolitical approach – as set by Hartmut Behr in 2007.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, and Civilization
Political Geography:: Europe, Turkey, Middle East, and European Union

399. Debating the Dual Citizenship – Integration Nexus in Turkey

Author:: Deniz Karci Korfali and Deniz Şenol Sert
Publication Date:: 12-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Institution:: International Relations Council of Turkey (UİK-IRCT)
Abstract:: This article explores the institution of dual citizenship outside of the West and focuses on Turkey to assess the possible relationship between dual citizenship and the integration of migrants, drawing on Kymlicka and Norman’s (2000) dimensions of citizenship framework, with its tripartite focus on formal status, activity and identity. The research incorporates the perspectives of the three key groups of actors involved in international migration: the host state, the major sending states, and the migrants themselves. Our findings indicate that dual citizenship is neither a barrier to, nor facilitator of, integration in the citizenship dimension of activity in Turkey. Rather, integration — perceived as economic participation by the great majority of the actors — is linked not to dual citizenship per se, but to the acquisition of citizenship in the host country.
Topic:: Immigration, Citizenship, Integration, and Dual Citizenship
Political Geography:: Turkey, Middle East, and Mediterranean

400. The Viewpoint of the Political Elite towards Syria from the Late Ottoman to the Early Republic: The Cases of Hüseyin Cahit Yalçın and Falih Rıfkı Atay

Author:: Ozan Kuyumcuoglu
Publication Date:: 12-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Institution:: International Relations Council of Turkey (UİK-IRCT)
Abstract:: Developments in Syria over the past eight years prompted the arguments claiming that Early Republican Turkey had turned her back to the Middle East. However, after a close consideration regarding the discourses of the political elite in Turkey, it becomes evident that Early Republican Turkey’s Middle East policy had been tending to rapprochement with Arab countries rather than avoidance of getting involved in regional issues. This article aims to scrutinize the viewpoints of the outstanding political elite of the Late Ottoman and Early Republican periods like Hüseyin Cahit Yalçın and Falih Rıfkı Atay toward Greater Syria (Bilad-al-Sham) in order to understand the historical and intellectual backgrounds of Early Republican Turkey’s Middle East policy.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, History, Elites, and Ottoman Empire
Political Geography:: Turkey, Middle East, and Syria

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COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS