Department of International Relations

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Open Access
THE LAYERS OF AN ONION Food and nation in Turkey
(Routledge, 2022-08-10) Day, John William; Day, John William; Jongerden, J
Food is a bundled social fact, banal and eminently practical, but also shot through with broader questions of markets, nation making, the power of place, inclusion and exclusion, and the politics of affect. This chapter explores the political meanings and practices surrounding food in Turkey. Food is shown to be deeply entangled with the unfinished project of nation-building in Turkey, and with attendant questions related to the politics of localism and topophilia, of the limits of belonging and nation-building as damage, and the anxieties of daily life in times of neoliberal precarity. The overall aim is to offer a way of thinking about food as a rich practical site where the sensual and semiotic overlap with tensions of inequality, injustice, biopolitics, and power, and to raise some questions about future work on the political lives of food in Turkey.
Open Access
Balance of power redux: Nuclear alliances and the logic of extended deterrence
(Oxford University Press, 2022-03-01) Gheorghe, Eliza; Gheorghe, Eliza
How do unbalanced nuclear alliances provide extended nuclear deterrence (END) to their members? Why have nuclear alliances chosen certain types of END strategy and not others? Existing accounts regard END as a function of the inter-alliance balance of power, regime type, or institutional design. END strategies inspired by theories focused on regime type and institutional design have not yet materialised, while the inter-alliance balance of power does not suffice to explain the choice of END strategy. To elucidate variations in END strategy, this article puts forward an argument centred on the intra-alliance balance of power. Drawing on the history of the US-led and the Soviet-led alliances during the Cold War, namely North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Warsaw Pact, it shows how the two superpowers changed their approach to defending their allies with nuclear weapons according to quantitative and qualitative shifts in the distribution of power within the alliance.
Open Access
Geopolitics, geography and the Ukrainian - Russian war
(Turkish Policy Quarterly, 2022-08-22) Guner, Serdar S.; Guner, Serdar S.
The trigger of the Ukraine-Russia war is the enlargement of NATO, essentially a Western exploitation of Russian weakness emanating from Soviet Union's dissolution. Russia has communicated her reactions to the enlargement peacefully until the prospect of Ukraine becoming a NATO member. The second wave of enlargement coming from the direction of neutral states such Finland and Sweden originates from Finnish and Swedish fears of being the next targets of Russian military campaigns. NATO enlargement to Ukraine has caused Russia-Ukraine war that in turn has caused some neutral states to leave their neutrality and become NATO members. Therefore, NATO expansion efforts has led to a further expansion through war. However, the exclusion of and warring with Russia only obliterates the opportunity to form a large alliance to balance China. The West should understand that it is not wise to create incentives for the formation of a Sino-Russian alliance.
Open Access
Inclusive globalization or old wine in a new bottle? China-led globalization in sub-Saharan Africa
(Routledge, 2022-02-15) Verkhovets, Stepan; Karaoğuz, E.; Verkhovets, Stepan
This article questions whether China’s economic initiatives lead to ‘inclusive globalization’ or tend to sustain the distributional inequalities of neoliberal globalization in the context of sub-Saharan Africa. It argues that many considerations, including China’s so-called ‘no strings attached’ policy and lending behaviour, unfavourable trade relations, concentration of Chinese investments in a few sectors, and limited technology and knowledge transfer, cast doubt on the realization of inclusive globalization. Even though economic relations with China may foster economic growth and provide short-term relief to the poor, which is also conditioned by the recipient countries’ degree of state capacity, it is questionable to what degree these relations lead to sustainable pro-poor development. No matter what the underlying political economy explanation is (China’s motivations and approach to globalization, weak state capacities in sub-Saharan Africa, structural impediments to development), it is misleading to conclude that China-driven economic globalization is inclusive.
Open Access
Opening the box of parties and party systems under autocratization: evidence from Turkey
(Routledge, 2022-10-25) Tsarouhas, Dimitris; Yavuzyılmaz, H.; Tsarouhas, Dimitris
Party institutionalization (PI) and party system institutionalization (PSI) are critical for processes of democratization and democratic consolidation, yet their impact and relationship have not been explored under conditions of autocratization. How does autocratization relate to party and party system stability, and how does that link manifest itself? To answer those questions, we draw evidence from Turkey to demonstrate that when autocratization occurs, stabilization at the systemic level can go hand in hand with declining levels of PI. We also conceptualize the process of stabilization at the systemic level alongside unit-level de-institutionalization as a form of systemic ossification. Ossified party systems appear stable but are continuously subject to the possibility of de-stabilization, or even implosion, due to the under-institutionalization of incumbent parties. Driving factors of such (de)stabilization are: (1) the increasing unevenness of party competition and (2) increasing levels of societal and political polarization resulting from autocratization.
Open Access
The ‘migrant crisis in the Mediterranean’ as a threat to women’s security in the EU? a contrapuntal reading
(Routledge, 2020-10-29) Bilgin, Pınar; Bilgin, Pınar
The decentring agenda in European Studies has called for turning our gaze from the ‘centre’ towards the ‘periphery’. This essay offers one decentred approach to EU migration governance in the Mediterranean: Studying geopolitical encounters between the receiving and sending spaces as constitutive of the very issues that are otherwise portrayed as autonomously developed. I will do this by adopting Edward Said’s method of contrapuntal reading, which involves ‘thinking through and interpreting together’ narratives from different parts of the world towards recovering ‘intertwined and overlapping histories’ of humankind. The specific case I look at is the 2015 ‘migrant crisis in the Mediterranean’ and the ways in which women’s insecurities were portrayed. While such representations presume women’s insecurities to have developed in the South/east and arrived in the North/west via migration, a contrapuntal reading of Fatima Mernissi’s writings together with everyday portrayals of the ‘crisis’ points to the connectedness of otherwise differentiated experiences. What is represented as ‘before Europe’ (in Bernard McGrane's felicitous turn of phrase) is, at the same time, the ‘aftermath of Europe’ insofar as geopolitical encounters between North/west and South/east of the Mediterranean have been constitutive of women’s insecurities.
Open Access
The Last Ottoman Wars: The Human Cost, 1877–1923, by Salt Jeremy. University of Utah Press, 2019. 432 pages. $40, hardcover.
(Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, Inc., 2022-09-12) Criss, Nur Bilge; Criss, Nur Bilge
Open Access
Everyday boundaries, borders and post-conflict societies
(Routledge, 2022-02-01) Dikmen Alsancak, Neslihan; Dikmen Alsancak, Neslihan
Open Access
Managed regional rivalry between russia and Turkey after the annexation of crimea
(Routledge, 2022-11-17) Köstem, Seçkin; Köstem, Seçkin
This essay explores the regional rivalry between Russia and Turkey from the former’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 to its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The main argument is that Russia and Turkey have maintained a managed regional rivalry. The two have continuously supported opposing sides in regional conflict theatres. At the same time, Russia and Turkey have learned to accommodate the interests and spheres of influence of each other and cooperate through various bilateral mechanisms. The essay concludes that a form of managed regional rivalry will continue to shape Russian–Turkish relations in Eurasia in the foreseeable future.
Open Access
Democratisation and social conflict in timor leste: a not so great transformation
(Routledge, 2022-10-11) Verkhovets, Stepan; Şahin, Selver; Verkhovets, Stepan; Şahin, Selver
The idea of democratic state-building constituted the basis of the peace promotion engagement of the United Nations and other international agencies in Timor-Leste. Yet, this process of internationally assisted socio-political reconstruction has produced mixed results in terms of achieving a liberal democratic transformation. In accounting for these outcomes, the existing scholarship highlights the ways in which the intensifying power struggles between different competing social groups gave rise to a socio-political order where clientelist, neo-patrimonial governance structures and practices co-exist with those of the Western Weberian state. This article draws on social conflict theory to examine the underlying political economy dynamics of these governance outcomes. It concludes that the process of socio-political ordering experienced in Timor-Leste is not a deviation from the liberal democratic blueprint. It rather results from it, reflects the balance of power between competing groups in society, and develops in such a way that serves the interests of particular social forces while marginalising others. Following from this premise, the article emphasises the point that the analysis of the political environment in Timor-Leste should consider the state-society complex rather than focusing on the quality of state institutions misguidedly insulated from societal interest and influence.
Open Access
Interwar territoriality and Soviet-Turkish convergence across the Aras river
(Brill, 2022-11-10) İşçi, Onur; İşçi, Onur
Focusing on new nation states and mandates in post-Ottoman territories, Borders, Boundaries and Belonging in Post-Ottoman Space in the Interwar Period examines how people negotiated, imagined or ignored new state borders and how they conceived of or constructed belonging. Through investigations of border crossing, population transfer, exile and emigration, this book explores the intricacies of survival within and beyond newly imposed state borders, the exploitation of opportunities and the human cost of political partition.
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; 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
9/11 was an instance of transnational balancing: An intervention in statist IR theory
(SAGE, 2022) Aydinli, Ersel; Aydinli, Ersel
With the end of the Cold War and through the start of the 21st century, conventional IR theories were anticipating an eventual balancing against the United States. Puzzled when this phenomenon did not occur, balancing theorists engaged in a lively discussion, bringing with it the development of proposed alternative forms of balancing and a debate over whether the concept itself had perhaps outlived its relevance. This article reengages with this discussion, suggesting that many of the involved theorists were hampered by theoretical blinders based on statism, and that in fact balancing did occur, but in an unconventional manner and at the hands of an unexpected suspect: al Qaeda, a violent non state actor, acting in a transnational manner. In this context, this article treats the 9/11 attacks of the violent Jihadist anti-Western movement as an instance of balancing against the hegemon, a successful one in that the Jihadists arguably aimed not at “winning,” but at revealing the superpower’s weaknesses so that others would subsequently join the balancing effort. By failing to view the Jihadists’ efforts as an ideological balancing effort, the United States responded with force rather than ideational counter-balancing. They waged a war instead of emphasizing efforts to separate the radical violent Jihadist perpetrators from the idea they were championing—a struggle in the name of Muslims/the downtrodden East against the United States—and thus allowing the challenger to rise into a position of "dissident" in the Muslim world, and, arguably, paving the path for today’s state revisionist behaviors. The article proposes a framework based on traditionally state-based concepts of intent and impact/capacity to show how non-state actors can in fact balance superpowers and therefore should be incorporated into balancing theories, and presents the actions of the violent Jihadists as an example of transnational, ideational balancing—a phenomenon as real and consequential as state-balancing.
Open Access
When do imposed sanctions work? The role of target regime type
(SAGE, 2022) Zarpli, Omer; Zarpli, Omer
A number of studies on sanction effectiveness have highlighted the importance of regime type and how it affects the sensitivity of sanctioned states (target) to the economic costs of sanctions. The scholarly consensus holds that mainly because of their responsiveness to domestic audiences, democratic regimes are most likely to give in to the demands of the sanctioning state (sender). I argue that regime type is important not only in influencing leaders’ sensitivity to economic costs—which create incentives to back down—but also to the audience costs—which create incentives to stand firm. I argue that taking the audience cost into account would lead to different predictions about the effect of democracy. Particularly, I argue that the effect of democracy is inverted- U shaped, where full democracies have no higher likelihood of meeting the demands of the sender than mixed (hybrid) regimes. Using a newly released dataset on economic sanctions between 1950-2020, I find robust support for my argument.
Open Access
Understanding the BRICS framing of climate change: The role of collective identity formation
(SAGE, 2022) Kıprızlı, Göktuğ; Kostem, Seçkin; Kıprızlı, Göktuğ
This article explores how the BRICS states (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) frame the issue of climate change. Based on constructivist insights, the article argues that the formation of collective identity has fundamentally shaped the BRICS framing of climate change. On the one hand, BRICS0 connections to the developing world explain why BRICS has given voice to the arguments of developing countries with respect to climate change. On the other hand, BRICS0 policy concepts, ideas, and discourse reflect the attributes associated with the identity of emerging powers. This article argues that emerging power status encourages the BRICS states to portray themselves as responsible actors on the global scale and conceptualize a climatesensitive economic development model in contrast to the Western production paradigm that is regarded as unsympathetic towards the needs of developing nations. In this process, the perception of the developed world as the relational other supports the sense of we-ness among the BRICS states, thereby shaping their policy formulations with respect to climate change.
Open Access
Consequences of economic sanctions: the state of the art and paths forward
(Oxford University Press, 2021-06-22) Özdamar, Özgür; Shahin, Evgeniia; Özdamar, Özgür; Shahin, Evgeniia
What determines the consequences of economic sanctions? Is there a common explanation for these consequences? This article provides a comprehensive review of the fragmented literature focusing on the consequences of sanctions. We critically discuss the complex relationships between types of sanctions and sanction senders and their targets, as well as the structural factors that account for the specific consequences of different sanction cases. A discussion on the thematic, methodological, and theoretical shortcomings of the existing literature on sanction consequences follows. We argue that a “common approach” to sanction consequences research should be framed within the framework of international interdependence. We also present several nascent trends and propose new directions for sanction researchers and other disciplines. ¿Qué determina las consecuencias de las sanciones económicas? ¿Existe una explicación común para estas consecuencias? Este artículo proporciona un análisis completo de la literatura fragmentada centrándose en las consecuencias de las sanciones. Tratamos de manera crítica las relaciones complejas entre los tipos de sanciones y los responsables de imponerlas y los receptores, así como los factores estructurales que explican las consecuencias específicas de los diferentes casos de sanciones. A continuación, se incluye un debate sobre los defectos temáticos, metodológicos y teóricos de la literatura existente sobre las consecuencias de las sanciones. Sostenemos que debería plantearse un “enfoque común” para la investigación sobre las consecuencias de las sanciones dentro del marco de la interdependencia internacional. También presentamos varias tendencias nacientes y proponemos nuevas orientaciones para los investigadores de sanciones y otras disciplinas. Par quoi les conséquences des sanctions économiques sont-elles déterminées? Existe-t-il une explication commune de ces conséquences? Cet article propose un examen complet de la littérature fragmentée se concentrant sur les conséquences des sanctions. Nous abordons d'un œil critique les relations complexes entre les types de sanctions et les émetteurs de sanctions et leurs cibles, ainsi que les facteurs structurels qui expliquent les conséquences spécifiques des différents cas de sanctions. Nous poursuivons par une discussion sur les lacunes thématiques, méthodologiques et théoriques de la littérature existante sur les conséquences des sanctions. Nous soutenons qu'une « approche commune » des recherches sur les conséquences des sanctions devrait s'inscrire dans le cadre de l'interdépendance internationale. Nous présentons également plusieurs tendances naissantes et nous proposons de nouvelles orientations pour les chercheurs spécialisés en sanctions et les autres disciplines.
Open Access
Introduction to the special issue regional international relations and global worlds: Globalising international relations
(International Relations Council of Turkey, 2021-08-13) Bilgin, Pınar; Çapan, Z. G.; Bilgin, Pınar
The call for globalising International Relations (IR) is about students of IR coming to terms with a globalising world and embracing a plurality of approaches reflective of multiple experiences and interpretations of ‘the international’ around the world.
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The quest for Soviet legacy in Russian foreign policy
(Siyaset Ekonomi ve Toplum Araştırmaları Vakfı, 2021-02-21) Güler, Mehmet Çağatay; Güler, Mehmet Çağatay
Russian foreign policy is a popular subject on which scholars have lately conducted much research. The current stage of these studies is competent in explaining various aspects of Russian foreign policy. Yet, considering both earlier and more recent works, there seems to be a trend of focusing solely on the post-Soviet era. Relatedly, the majority of the current literature adopts perspectives that analyze the period after Vladimir Putin’s rise to power. Moreover, almost all of the prominent and relatively less-cited research takes a leader-oriented approach. Hence, despite the satisfying heft of the current literature, there still is a gap regarding the Soviet legacy behind Russia’s foreign policy orientations. In other words, although most of the components and goals of Moscow’s foreign policy have been previously covered, the role of Soviet history/the Soviet mindset remains vague. To this end, this review article thoroughly analyzes the four selected books and engages with their contributions in terms of defining the role of the Soviet legacy in Russian foreign policy formulations.
Open Access
Turkey and the ‘Maghrebization’ of the European economic community: the 1978 suspension of the association agreement
(Routledge, 2021-02-09) Ozansoy, Arda; Ozansoy, Arda
Many scholars blame Turkish politicians for the country's suspension of its Association Agreement with the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1978. Some have argued that rising Turkish anti-Westernism caused the agreement to fail; others maintain that Prime Minister Ecevit's protectionist government derailed it. Such perspectives overlook the role played by concrete economic issues. The ‘Maghrebization’ of the Association, agricultural affairs, and the situation of Turkish workers in Europe decreased the economic desirability of the Association for Turkey. EEC correspondence, which has not yet been used by other scholars, demonstrates that the EEC was cognizant of the worsening terms of the Association but decided not to revise the conditions despite repeated protests from Turkey. This article argues that the 1978 suspension of the EEC-Turkey Association Agreement was not the result of the initiative of a purportedly anti-Western or erratic Ecevit government. Instead, the article highlights the declining economic benefits of the Association for Turkey.
Open Access
Combatting violence against women in Turkey: structural obstacles
(Routledge, 2021-10-22) Şahin, Selver B.; Şahin, Selver B.
This paper uses the ‘social conflict' theory to analyse the challenges to combatting violence against women in Turkey. It argues that these obstacles that are grounded in unequal social power relations are structured in the political landscape where decisions over who gets what are made. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP)'s ‘male biased' political decisions such as withdrawing Turkey from the Council of Europe's Convention on Preventing and Combatting Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (Istanbul Convention) reflect the current conditions of the balance of societal interests in the political order. Turkish women’s struggle for equality requires a shift in existing conditions of power in favour of pro-gender equality forces that would enable the representation of their preferences and interests in the political landscape, which is always tilted towards certain groups and their interests.