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161. The JDP’s Changing Discursive Strategies towards Israel: Rhetoric vs. Reality

Author:
Gencer Özcan
Publication Date:
06-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Institution:
International Relations Council of Turkey (UİK-IRCT)
Abstract:
Justice and Development Party [JDP] governments’ policies towards Israel were informed by the priorities that the party’s power strategies entailed. In a stark contrast to the friendly policies in its first term in power, the JDP began to employ different discursive strategies based on an anti-Israeli rhetoric since 2009. Geared to bolster the party’s prestige at home and abroad, the new rhetoric seemed to have addressed to the changing priorities of the party leadership. However, the new strategies led to the emergence of a widening gap between the anti-Israeli rhetoric and subtle efforts that the JDP paid to maintain its relations with Israel. Revisiting the last 15 years, the article tries to answer the question as to how Turkey’s relations with Israel were adjusted to meet necessities of miscellaneous power strategies that the JDP leadership pursued.
Topic:
International Relations, Politics, Arab Spring, and Political Parties
Political Geography:
Turkey, Middle East, and Israel

162. British–Russian Convention and Ottoman Empire in the Context of Polarization Politics

Author:
M. Volkan Atuk
Publication Date:
06-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Institution:
International Relations Council of Turkey (UİK-IRCT)
Abstract:
The British-Russian Convention of 1907 was seen as a joint effort by Britain and Russia to reconcile their areas of influence in Asia but apart from this purpose, it represented the last ring of the emerging tripartite blog that included France against Germany and its allies. The agreement, which mainly came into agenda for partitioning Iran, was handled by the Ottoman Foreign Affairs as a text about Asian affairs. The Ottoman statesmen, who considered only the part of this agreement concerning Afghanistan, Tibet and Iran, couldn’t realize that this was an important part of the polarization politics that pushed world to a general war.
Topic:
Politics, Treaties and Agreements, History, Ottoman Empire, and Polarization
Political Geography:
Britain, Afghanistan, Russia, Europe, Iran, Eurasia, and Tibet

163. TWAIL and the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) as a New Instrument of Domination: the Case of Libya

Author:
Tuğçe Kelleci and Marella Bodur Ün
Publication Date:
01-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Institution:
International Relations Council of Turkey (UİK-IRCT)
Abstract:
Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) points to the interactions between international law and colonial legacy and problematizes the concepts of humanitarian intervention and the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) within this framework. Humanitarian intervention is usually discussed in relation to its legitimacy in international law and the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions. TWAIL, however, analyzes those interventions that are constructed through discourses of human rights and democracy, highlighting the importance of issues other than legality and legitimacy. A historical reading of the Libyan case through the prism of TWAIL not only provides us with an opportunity to assess TWAIL’s assumptions in relation to international law, humanitarian intervention and R2P but also reveals how international law and R2P are used to legitimize interventions of the West into the Third World.
Topic:
International Law, Humanitarian Intervention, Responsibility to Protect (R2P), and UN Security Council
Political Geography:
Libya and North Africa

164. Juche Doctrine as the Official Ideology of North Korea and Effects on the North Korean Foreign Policy

Author:
Can Kakişim
Publication Date:
01-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Institution:
International Relations Council of Turkey (UİK-IRCT)
Abstract:
Juche, the official ideology of North Korea, is an original doctrine which influences every aspect of life and politics within the country. This ideology leads to one-man rule in the political area and highly statist and isolationist structure in the economic realm in North Korea. Effects of such an internal structure on the foreign relations of the country appear as the dominance of an uncompromising foreign policy philosophy. North Korea has a skeptical approach towards the external world and it pursues a military-first policy including nuclear armament in order to achieve its foreign policy goals and secure the continuation of Juche regime at home.
Topic:
Military Affairs, Nuclear Power, Ideology, Socialism, and Juche
Political Geography:
Asia and North Korea

165. Change in Turkey’s Northern Iraq Policy: A Comparative Analysis of Turgut Özal and Tayyip Erdoğan’s Tenures

Author:
Özlem Kayhan Pusane
Publication Date:
01-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Institution:
International Relations Council of Turkey (UİK-IRCT)
Abstract:
Since the 1960s, Turkish policymakers have developed a distant attitude towards the Kurdish movement in Iraq and they have been concerned about the possibility of similar developments taking place in Turkey. However, in the early 1990s, and then from 2007/2008 onwards, Turkey left its distant attitude towards northern Iraq and pursued an active policy developing close relations with the Iraqi Kurds. This paper explores to what extent Turkey’s foreign policy change towards northern Iraq in these two periods constituted leader-driven change and to what extent these changes resulted from structural/environmental factors.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, Politics, Kurds, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and Turgut Özal
Political Geography:
Iraq, Turkey, and Middle East

166. Transforming Turkey? Putting the Turkey-European Union Relations into a Historical Perspective

Author:
Galip L. Yalman and Asuman Göksel
Publication Date:
01-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Institution:
International Relations Council of Turkey (UİK-IRCT)
Abstract:
This article aims to provide an alternative critical reading of Turkey-European Union (EU) relations, by contending that Turkey’s EU accession process has been instrumental in changing the contours of the transformation of Turkish economy and its governance as part of its neoliberal restructuring. However, the “transformative power” attributed to the EU’s enlargement strategy by the EU Commission has been somewhat debatable since the 2008 global financial crisis as reflected in the slowdown of the accession process. With the rising authoritarian tendencies in its domestic governance, the protracted saga of Turkey’s quest for the EU membership is back to square one, as the proposal for the modernisation of the Customs Union underlines “respect for democracy and fundamental rights” as an indispensable basis for the future of the relations.
Topic:
Government, History, Bilateral Relations, Authoritarianism, European Union, Neoliberalism, and Global Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
Europe, Turkey, and Mediterranean

167. Turkey in the League of Nations: Between Optimism and Suspicion

Author:
Dilek Barlas
Publication Date:
10-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Institution:
International Relations Council of Turkey (UİK-IRCT)
Abstract:
This article discusses Turkey’s activities after its membership to the League of Nations in 1932 and especially to the Council in 1934 and its ambivalent position towards to the League. This work is based on the archival documents on Turkey at the League of Nations’ Archives in Switzerland. Even though bulk of documents on Turkey has not been classified yet, collection presently available is sufficient to reflect the ambivalent position of Ankara towards the League in the interwar era. Ankara believed that the League could contribute a great deal to the world peace but at the same time it questioned the implementation of its principles.
Topic:
International Relations, Diplomacy, History, and League of Nations
Political Geography:
Turkey, Middle East, and Mediterranean

168. Democratization in Tunisia and Elite Theory

Author:
M. Hüseyin Mercan and M. Tahir Kilavuz
Publication Date:
10-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Institution:
International Relations Council of Turkey (UİK-IRCT)
Abstract:
This study focuses on democratization process in Tunisia since January 14th, 2011, the date President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali left the country. The article examines democratization and normalization process of Tunisia as a starting point of the Arab Uprisings through the conceptual framework of elite choice theory. The theory postulates that if softliner regime and opposition elites cooperate, democratization process succeeds. Based upon this assumption, this paper seeks to answer how it was possible for Tunisia to follow a more successful transition path when compared to the other countries in the region through the steps and policies implemented by the representatives of the leading softliner actors in the Tunisian regime and opposition.
Topic:
Democratization, Politics, Arab Spring, Transition, and Elites
Political Geography:
Middle East, North Africa, and Tunisia

169. The External Dimension of European Union Counter-Terrorism Discourse: Good Governance, the Arab “Spring” and the “Foreign Fighters”

Author:
Beste Işleyen
Publication Date:
10-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Institution:
International Relations Council of Turkey (UİK-IRCT)
Abstract:
The central objective of this article is to contribute to studies on EU counter-terrorism discourse by bringing the “external dimension” in. To that end, it borrows concepts of the Discourse-Historical Approach and provides an in-depth linguistic examination of the international aspect of the EU’s counter-terrorism discourse. The article identifies good governance and the Arab “Spring” as two central themes of this discourse and illustrates the linguistic means in which the two topics are made “natural” and “normal” by reference to counter-terrorism. The analysis also discusses the political and normative effects of EU discursive construction of counter-terrorism.
Topic:
History, Governance, European Union, Counter-terrorism, and Arab Spring
Political Geography:
Europe and Middle East

170. An Analysis of Two Different Models of Civil-Military Relations: The Case of Turkey

Author:
Mustafa Uluçakar and H. Çağlar BAŞOL
Publication Date:
10-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Institution:
International Relations Council of Turkey (UİK-IRCT)
Abstract:
This article analyzes Turkish civil-military relations with the help of two different models of civil-military relations (separation and concordance) in order to bring a new perspective to the analysis of civil-military relations. The article begins with a short review of the theoretical framework of the separation and concordance models, followed by a brief history of four military interventions that occurred in Turkey in 1960, 1971, 1980, and 1997. The article will then analyze Turkish civil-military relations through the separation and concordance models in an attempt to decide which model would be more appropriate to explain the Turkish case. It reaches the conclusion that the concordance model is more appropriate than the separation model to serve that purpose. However, the concordance model has some methodological weaknesses, requiring modification in order to properly analyze the case of Turkey.
Topic:
History and Civil-Military Relations
Political Geography:
Turkey and Mediterranean

171. Is it Possible to Ensure Development without Security and Security without Development? Transformation of Security-Development Relationship and its Conceptualization with Different Approaches

Author:
Arda Bilgen
Publication Date:
10-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Institution:
International Relations Council of Turkey (UİK-IRCT)
Abstract:
Despite radical changes and transformations at global scale in the past decades, security and development have retained their critical positions in global political agenda with their theoretical and practical dimensions. Over time, two areas have also undergone significant changes and transformations and converged to each other, especially after the emergence of human security and human development. The aim of this study is to broadly describe and discuss how “human” has become the common denominator of security and development and in what ways two areas have been conceptualized under security-development nexus. In this regard, common characteristics of security and development, paradigm shifts in both areas, their convergence process, different ways as to how security-development relationship has been conceptualized, and critiques towards such attempts will be discussed.
Topic:
Security, Development, and Human Security
Political Geography:
Turkey and Global Focus