Browsing by Author "Tokdemir, Efe"

Now showing 1 - 10 of 10

Open Access
Domestic diversion: Selective targeting of minority out-groups
(Sage Publications, 2019) Klein, G. R.; Tokdemir, Efe
Domestic political use of force is a strategy for political leaders to divert the public’s attention away from economic instability and rebuild political capital. But, diversionary incentives are not the only motivation; the targeted vulnerable minority’s capabilities are important. We analyze how the combination of diversionary incentive and out-group mobilization capabilities influences leaders’ decision-calculus. Embattled leaders make strategic decisions about both the target and the adequate severity of force to accomplish diversion without risking conflict escalation. We empirically test the resulting hypotheses using the Minorities at Risk dataset from 1998 to 2003 and find support for our expectations. Incentive alone does not determine domestic political use of force; the same incentive produces variance in the severity of force dependent on the targeted out-group’s mobilization capability. Governments match the severity of domestic force to political survival goals and the costs and risks of political use of force.
Open Access
Feels like home: effect of transnational identities on attitudes towards foreign countries
(SAGE Publications, 2021) Tokdemir, Efe
How do people react to foreign actors’ involvement in a conflict in a third party? Many studies have explored how individuals react to their country’s foreign policy choices, as well as how they react to the policies targeting their countries. Yet, we know less about how they form their attitudes regarding the policies not directly aiming at their own countries, and hence, their well-being. Building on intergroup relations and employing a social psychological approach, this article argues that identity serves as a heuristic through which individuals evaluate foreign actors, and their policies targeting in- and out-group members living abroad. Conducting a survey experiment in Turkey, I test my claims in the context of the Syrian Civil War. The findings of the experiments reveal that transnational identity ties have an impact on attitude formation: Turks and Kurds express positive/negative attitudes towards the USA and Russia conditional on whether their involvement to the conflict favor/disfavor their in-group/out-group across the border. Broadly speaking, the results show that domestic cleavages are of importance in predicting the public’s reaction to the developments in international politics, which implies a necessity of taking domestic politics in designing soft power promotion and public diplomacy strategies for many global and regional powers in attempting to win hearts and minds abroad.
Open Access
Rebel rivalry and the strategic nature of rebel group ideology and demands
(SAGE Publications, 2021) Tokdemir, Efe; Sedashov, E.; Öğütçü-Fu, S. H.; Leon, C. E. M.; Berkowitz, J.; Akçınaroğlu, S.
How does the presence of multiple combatants affect rebel groups’ ideological and demand positioning? Although violent forms of inter-group conflict have been widely studied in the civil war literature, rebel groups’ strategic use of ideology and demands has received scarce scholarly attention. We argue that the pressure of competition forces rebel groups to differentiate themselves ideologically and demand-wise from their rivals to maximize their chances of survival and success. Rebel groups strive to set themselves apart by offering unique products to their supporters and recruits. Thus, we contend that rebel groups are more likely to modify their ideologies and demands from the government in the face of competition from rival groups. We test this theory using novel data collected from rebel group manifestos and public statements. Our findings suggest that groups are more likely to shift their ideology and modify their demands as the number of rival groups increases.
Open Access
Reputation building as a strategy for terror group survival
(Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research, 2021-01-21) Tokdemir, Efe
In this paper I investigate terror groups' survival. The fate of terrorists hinges heavily on the power the terror group derives from its reputation. The reputation, which depends on policies and actions the group takes within their constituency, determines the degree to which each group can find recruits, resources, and support for its cause. I contend that terror groups investing on positive or negative reputation within their constituency— the people they claim to represent==are likely to survive longer. Yet, I argue, building a positive reputation has a greater impact on a group’s staying power given that this attracts loyal and committed supporters. Conversely, groups with no clearly defined reputation-building policies undergo an organizational change. I find support for my expectations by testing my arguments over all domestic terror groups active between 1980 and 2011 using the RTG and GTD databases. The findings reveal that once a terrorist group is formed, it is exceedingly difficult to obliterate it so long as it follows a clear reputational strategy to achieve their goals.
Open Access
Social-Psychology of Vaccine Intentions: The Mediating Role of Institutional Trust in the Fight Against Covid-19
(Springer, 2022-04-15) Dal, Aysenur; Tokdemir, Efe
This paper examines the social-psychological mechanisms behind how citizens deal with uncertainties stemming from the COVID-19 vaccine developments in societies with prominent social/political cleavages. We argue that existing social/political tensions influence individuals’ trust in institutions that are responsible for coping with crises through a motivated reasoning mechanism, which eventually shapes citizens’ COVID-19 vaccine intentions. Using a nationally representative face-toface survey conducted in the pre-vaccination period in Turkey, we demonstrate that both self-identifying as a Kurd or feeling close to an opposition party are associated with lower trust in institutions actively dealing with the pandemic, which in turn, results in weaker intentions for getting vaccinated. Testing our full theoretical model reveals that while ethnic and partisan identities do not directly influence vaccine intentions, they exhibit an indirect negative effect via institutional trust impeding the fight against the pandemic. We show that it is difficult to tackle a sudden collective threat that requires public cooperation with health policies if the society is strongly polarized. Our findings offer key policy implications for the vaccination phase of the pandemic, and contribute to the domains of public health, conflict studies and individual judgment and decision-making about social risks.
Open Access
Strategic Interaction of governments and terrorist groups in times of economic hardship
(Taylor & Francis, 2021-06-14) Tokdemir, Efe; Klein, G. R.
When governments’ ability to maintain power is threatened, they use any tool at their disposal to re-establish or boost their survival. In this paper, we theorize dyadic strategic choices and interactions between governments and domestic terrorist groups in times of economic turmoil. We contend that governments are more likely to increase their targeting of domestic terrorist groups, which provides legitimate opportunities to divert public attention from economic concerns and rally individuals around the flag. Meanwhile, observing such incentives, domestic terrorist groups make strategic decisions similar to those of interstate actors by either decreasing their attacks (strategic conflict avoidance) or increasing them (strategic conflict seeking) to add an inability to provide safety and security to the government’s existing struggles. We test these competing hypotheses by leveraging two recently released event datasets focusing on the Turkey-PKK conflict. Our findings contribute to the terrorism studies literature on decision-making and strategic choices, and broader scholarship about conflict processes by testing conflict dynamics at the domestic level.
Open Access
To instill fear or love: terrorist groups and the strategy of building reputation
(SAGE, 2018) Akçınaroğlu, S.; Tokdemir, Efe
Why does one terrorist group employ actions that win the hearts and minds of its constituency while another resorts to tactics that alienate their support? The paper investigates terrorist groups’ strategy of building reputation in their constituency/in-group population and non-constituency/out-group population. Studying all domestic terrorist groups between 1980 and 2011 with original data, we find that ethnic/religious groups and those with territorial control invest in positive reputation in their constituency as they can minimize the risks of returns. Radical groups and those with cross-border support, however, tend to build negative constituency reputation. While the former type of group has a small constituency, the latter ones can find resources across borders, which reduces their dependency on the constituency. Lastly, we find that terror groups seeking policy concessions avoid building a negative reputation in their non-constituency as this strategy enhances their chances of negotiating with the government.
Open Access
‘Wars of others’: national cleavages and attitudes toward external conflicts
(Taylor and Francis, 2020) Tokdemir, Efe; Akçınaroğlu, S.; Özen, H. E.; Karakoç, E.
Why do individuals sympathize with others’ wars, an antecedent of the decision to become a foreign fighter? By collecting original public opinion data from Lebanon, in 2015, and Turkey in 2017, about the actors of conflict in Syria, we test the argument that an ethno-religious cleavage at home shapes the proclivity of individuals to support others’ wars. Individuals may perceive a war abroad as endangering political and social balance of power at home – and hence own survival. Therefore, when transnational identities map onto a national cleavage, as in the Sunni–Shia cleavage in Lebanon, and Turk – Kurd cleavage in Turkey, individuals are more disposed to show sympathy for others’ wars both to help their kin and to protect the balance of power at home. Our findings imply that efforts to end the trend toward citizens becoming foreign fighters must start at home by mending the relations between ethnic and religious groups.
Open Access
‘Welcoming’ guests: The role of ideational and contextual factors in public perceptions about refugees and attitudes about their integration
(Uluslararası İlişkiler Konseyi Derneği İktisadi İşletmesi, 2023-12-19) Özen, H. E.; Dal, Ayşenur; Tokdemir, Efe
In this study, we aim to explore the ideational and contextual sources of perceptions about refugees. Contrary to many studies focusing on the interaction with and integration of refugees in developed countries, we examine the effect of social identity and refugee exposure on the perception of refugees in Turkey, which pose a substantive case with a background of ethnic conflict and scarce resources. We contend that social identities provide individuals with cues; however, we argue that identity type and its salience are key to understanding in-group vs. out-group formation processes, hence the perceptions about refugees. Moreover, we argue that socioeconomic status affects an individual’s support for refugee integration, as it challenges the existing status quo of access to scarce resources. Our findings challenge the conventional wisdom in migration studies by employing an original face-to-face survey among over 1,100 respondents in three cities (Istanbul, Diyarbakir, and Gaziantep) in Turkey. We find that those prioritizing national vs. religious identities reveal different levels of perceived threat. Additionally, we show that those belonging to lower-income socioeconomic groups are less supportive of refugee integration when the presence of refugees sets the ground for competition for economic and social resources where they reside.
Open Access
‘You are not my type’: the role of identity in evaluating democracy & human rights promotion
(Sage Publications, 2022-02) Tokdemir, Efe
In this article, we examine the impact of the democracy and human rights promotion efforts that are supposed to bolster positive attitudes among the public abroad and act as a tool to reach hearts and minds. Yet, we suggest that a salient in-group versus out-group dichotomy within a society could activate a reactive devaluation bias, and hence, conditions how individuals perceive and react to foreign actors and their policies depending on the source country and its links with in- and out-groups within the target state. By employing an original public opinion survey from Lebanon, we find that identities, and the level of attachment to the identity, affect individuals’ attitudes towards human rights and democracy promotion efforts. Our results offer important policy implications: practitioners should comprehensively reconsider the benefits of hearts and minds tools, as pre-existing attitudes are the main drivers of how these policies will be evaluated by the public abroad.