Browsing by Subject "State, The."

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4

Open Access
De Facto states and inter-state military conflicts
(2010) Özpek, Burak Bilgehan
The end of the Cold War has given rise to the number of non-state political actors such as de facto states. While scholarly attention has been given to the concept of sovereignty and to empirical analyses of de facto statehood, de facto states as influential non-state political actors remained theoretically under-studied. This dissertation tackles the research question of how an issue that de facto states causes affects the likelihood of conflict between a parent and an external state. I examine the “opportunity and willingness” pre-theoretical framework of Most and Starr (1989) in order to comprehend how de facto states cause inter-state military conflict. I argue that the process of fighting for de facto statehood and the outcome of becoming a de facto state both create opportunity for the parent and external states. Moreover, internal dynamics in a state are important to understand whether the states are willing to exploit the interaction opportunity de facto states generate. I especially examine regime type and levels of democracy in parent, external and de facto states and argue that when these are all democracies, v likelihood of militarized disputes decrease. Using the comparative method and most similar systems design, I analyze two cases: Kurdistan Regional Government, Iraq, Turkey and South Ossetia, Georgia, Russia. Both cases support the arguments of the dissertation. I conclude with a brief summary and implications of the findings for future scholarship.
Open Access
The impact of strong state tradition on the early republican reforms of secularization in Turkey (1923-1938)
(2005) Taş, Hakkı
This thesis aims at identifying the implications of strong state tradition from the Ottoman Empire to the Early Republic within the case of the secularization process. It relies on the theory that the Turkish nation-state has inherited from its predecessor a strong state tradition, in which the state is more than the sum of sectional interests within the society. In the Ottoman-Turkish polity, the state enjoyed a supreme position, which resulted in a pragmatic view toward social institutions like religion. In addition, elitism appeared through the conception of state as the sole agent for total development. Atatürk maintained the same mentality parallel to the Turkish state tradition: he had a pragmatic approach to religion along with the conception of the supreme state. He also continued the elitist top-down modernization launched by the Ottoman reformers. This thesis argues that in Turkish practice, it is the state that prevails.
Open Access
The state and intellectual in Turkey: between liberal ethos and the myth of democracy
(1997) Coşar, Simten
This study analyzes the liberal discourse in the Republican Turkey with a view to shedding light on the state-intellectual relationship. The aim is to elaborate the reasons for the lack of an intellectual tradition of liberalism in Turkey, The answer is searched in the historical unfolding of the state-intellectual relationship within a state dominant, ever-modernizing context. The bulk of the study has been shaped by the periodization beginning from the foundation of the Turkish Republic and extending throughout the 1990s. The Ottoman period, especially, the Tanzimat era (1839-1876) has been examined with the aim of providing an historical background. The emergence of a liberal identity in different periods, has been analyzed in relation to the problématique that shaped the intellectual discourse in different periods, namely modernization, democratization, and liberalization. In the study the state-opposition pendulum has been taken as the clue to gain an understanding of the impasse that the Turkish liberal intellectual has experienced. In this respect, it is concluded that the liberal intellectual in Turkey has always had to walk on a tightrope between the premises that fed his intellectual matrix and his self-identification with the state. His quest for liberty and salvation of the individual from m the constraints of the state was inspired by the West. Yet, due to his concern for the state he has had to construct the ideal individual which turned his liberal agenda into a project.
Open Access
Transnationalism and the state : Turkish foreign policy towards the Turkic world
(2010) Köstem, Seçkin
Transformation in world politics, which is marked by globalization, has led to the emergence of transnational actors. This on the one hand caused different forms of governance to occur and on the other hand resulted in cooperative behavior by states in their interaction with non-state units. This cooperation is a result of the necessity felt by states to incorporate normative issues in their national interests as well as changing identity perceptions of decision-makers. This study focuses on how Turkish foreign policy towards Turkic-speaking states and communities has been influenced by the transnational idea of “Turkic World” in the post-Cold War era. The explanatory factor or the independent behavior in this case study is the transnational idea of “Turkic World”, which is advocated by non-state actors. Although the Turkish state distanced itself from the idea of “Turkic World” in the early Republican period and during the Cold War, it re-emerged in Turkish politics in 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed. In the last two decades Turkish foreign policy towards the Turkic world has passed through a process evolution; in which stages were rapid entrance in the early 1990s, disappointment in the late 1990s and revision in the 2000s. This evolution includes certain patterns of behavior that indicate that the idea of “Turkic World” is institutionalizing in Turkish foreign policy. This institutionalization stages indicate that Turkish foreign policy in this case is not only influenced by the geopolitical factor, but by ideational factor, which has driven Turkish decision-makers towards closer political, economic and cultural cooperation with Turkic states.