Scholarly Publications - International Relations

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/11693/115500

Browse

Now showing 1 - 20 of 623

Open Access
Election proximity and the effectiveness of economic sanctions
(Sage Publications Ltd., 2024-05-27) Zarplı, Ömer; Peksen, Dursun
Do elections matter for sanction effectiveness? Scholars have long highlighted the importance of domestic political factors in target (i.e. sanctioned) states in explaining when economic sanctions work. This line of research, however, has primarily focused on political regime characteristics and interest groups that are relatively low time-variant during sanction episodes. Building on this literature, we explore the effect of temporal proximity to elections. While the impact of elections have been examined in the context of military conflicts, their possible effects on sanction effectiveness have not been subject to systematic scrutiny. We argue that target governments are more likely to comply with sender demands as elections loom near in order to avoid the likely political costs of sanctions. The effect of elections, however, is likely to vary across different election characteristics and political regime types. We assess the empirical merits of our claims using data on over 1,000 sanction cases between 1950 and 2020. The results from a battery of empirical tests, including those that account for potential selection bias, support our hypotheses. We find that elections have a positive effect on sanction success, and this effect is more prominent in less democratic states that hold competitive elections. This suggests that even if sanctions have a relatively low success rate against non-democratic polities, elections may provide a window of opportunity for senders to extract concessions from target states.
Open Access
Security, ethics, and animals: towards a sentientist securitydiscourse
(Routledge, 2024-10-23) Fougner, Tore
This article argues that it is high time for the (extra)ordinary violence andinsecurity that nonhuman animals are subjected to in today’s world to betaken seriously in studies on security. Through a sympathetic yet criticalengagement with how animals have appeared in recent posthumansecurity scholarship, the article insists on the need to differentiatebetween sentient beings on the one hand, and other beings as well asthings on the other; the need to acknowledge and seek ways of eliminat-ing the violence and insecurity internal to entangled human-animal rela-tions; the feasibility of treating individual animals as direct subjects ofsecurity; and the feasibility of adopting a strong animal rights positiongrounded in sentience to supplement the relational or entanglementethic dominant in posthuman security scholarship. The article proceedsby developing a tentative outline of a sentientist security discourse interms of referent objects, nature of threats, security agents and securitypractices, and concludes by discussing some scholarly implications andthe potential impact of securitising existential threats to animals.
Open Access
A call for feminist insights in cybersecurity: implementing United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace, and security in cyberspace
(Oxford University Press, 2024-03-21) Whetstone, Crystal; Luna, K.C.; Mhajne, Anwar; Henshaw, Alexis
This chapter is a call for the United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) and the WPS agenda to be applied within cyberspace. Given the extent of cyberspace, the chapter argues that applying UNSCR 1325 to the virtual sphere will facilitate attention and resources to better address women’s security from a holistic perspective. The chapter focuses on both conflict-affected countries where gender-based violence increases in war environments and fragile states where cybercrime increases due to the vulnerabilities of the population. Following a critical rereading of UNSCR 1325, the chapter outlines a theoretical framework that builds on the work of previous feminist international relations (IR) scholars who have called for the expansion of UNSCR 1325 in innovative ways. The chapter highlights five areas where UNSCR 1325 and the WPS agenda can move forward in scholarship, advocacy, and policymaking to better secure women, girls, and other minorities in cyberspace.
Open Access
A poliheuristic analysis of South Korea’s responses towards North Korea’s missile tests
(Routledge, 2024) Dengiz, Pelin
The North Korean missile program has gained undeniable momentum in the twenty first century, highly sensitive to dialogues within the region. One could argue South Korea is accustomed to these repetitive launches splashing into the Pacific Ocean, at times nearing two dozen in a year, but the republic has its sets of policy alternatives when responding to the neighbor’s aggression. To understand South Korea’s decision-making mechanism, I utilize the ‘Poliheuristic Theory’ developed by Mintz. A decision matrix consisting of three policy alternatives (passive by-standing, reaching out, joint drills) is applied to three crisis moments from 2013, 2017, 2022. Primary and secondary sources like defense ministry press releases and news reports are used for data collection. The North’s tests are closely observed by the South but usually not responded to provocations. When South Korea decides to respond, the tendency is to carry the issue to the international audience by citing U.N. Convention, Armistice Agreement, etc. The presence of the U.S. military in the peninsula plays a crucial role, as seen from the remarkably increased tests after the U.S. declared it would lessen military involvement. Several domestic and regional criteria (the Sunshine Policy, eventual unification possibility, U.S. military presence, asymmetrical capabilities, regional status quo) has possible influence over leaders’ responses.
Open Access
Playing to the audience: responses to violations of international order
(University of Chicago Press, 2024-01) Bas, Muhammet A.; Coe, Andrew J.; Gheorghe, Eliza
When international laws or norms are violated, an enforcer can punish the violator, offer concessions for its renewed compliance, or tolerate it. Punishment is often costlier than concessions or toleration but signals to other states that violation will be met with penalties rather than rewards or acceptance. By influencing other states’ expectations about what will happen if they get caught violating, the choice of response can thus encourage or discourage subsequent compliance. Anticipating this, an enforcer is more willing to punish when it faces a larger audience of potential near-term violators. Focusing on the nuclear nonproliferation norm, we show statistically that enforcer responses appear to have affected whether states subsequently pursued the bomb historically and that this effect is stronger than other hypothesized determinants of proliferation decisions. We also use primary sources to document that policy makers recognized and heeded this influence in a range of cases.
Open Access
Nuclear topsy turvy: the security-economics nexus in Turkish-American relations
(Routledge, 2024-10-16) Gheorghe, Eliza; Tokatlı, Fatih; İplikçi, Murat
This article discusses the shift in Turkey's nuclear alliance with the United States from client to junior partner. Ankara sought to bring the Turkish economy and military forces in line with those of its patron to signal its loyalty. But power asymmetries made it so that Washington became Ankara's lifeline. From the 1950s until the mid-1960s, American policymakers applied a top-down style of alliance management, making important decisions without consulting Ankara. But the mid-1960s marked a turning point in the nature of this relationship, as Turkey became better able to stand on its own feet. Rather than relying on unilateral measures, the Americans had to consult and coordinate with Ankara. Also, Turkey could reject key American proposals involving nuclear weapons, such as the creation of a Multilateral Force for NATO, and even create some ambiguity about its nuclear intentions to signal its loss of faith in the American security guarantee.
Open Access
Turkey: the second republic
(Routledge, 2025-01-03) Özdemir, Ömer Deniz
Open Access
How Iran perceives Turkey’s rise in the South Caucasus
(Foreign Policy Research Foundation, 2024-01) Golmohammadi, Vali; Markedonov, Sergey M.
As the geopolitical landscape of the South Caucasus continues to evolve, multiple divergent interests are bringing new dynamics into the Iran-Turkey relations. This article explores Iran’s changing perceptions concerning the South Caucasus in general and Turkey’s assertive geopolitical activism in the region, in particular. The authors argue that, given Turkey’s increasing influence in the South Caucasus and Iran’s decreasing footprint in the region, the current geopolitical and geo-economic trends are likely to bring more conflict into the Iran-Turkey regional rivalry. Tehran is apprehensive of several key insecurities stemming from Ankara’s growing activism in the South Caucasus. Apart from historical disagreements between Iran and Turkey over the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict, the East-West transit corridors and pan-Turkism in a bigger picture, Tehran perceives the underlying developments in the region as part of the West’s “geopolitical plot” of containing Iran, in which Turkey plays a strategic role. Consequently, the South Caucasus is increasingly becoming an additional source of regional confrontation between Iran and Turkey.
Open Access
Target state responses to externalsupport of rebel groups: revealingthe impact of support level andinterstate strategic interaction
(Sage Publications Ltd., 2024-09-27) Kınay Kılıç, Latife; Aydınlı, Ersel; Tokdemir, Efe
How do target states react to third-party sponsorship of rebel groups? In this article, we provide atypology of responses from target states based on their severity and comprehensiveness level. Weargue that the external support level and existing strategic interaction between targets and spon-sors are crucial to explain the variation in target responses toward state sponsors since they affectthe target states’ level of perceived threat. We test our theoretical claims using an original datasetfeaturing target responses between 1991 and 2010. Our ﬁndings show that strategic rivalry is themost crucial factor in increasing the severity and comprehensiveness of responses. Higher levels ofsupport for rebel groups increase only coercive responses and do not impact comprehensiveness,whereas formal alliances decrease the adoption of mixed responses. Our study contributes to theliterature on the external support of rebels and conﬂict management with implications for predict-ing target states’ responses to sponsorship.
Open Access
Unique offerings: Ideological competition and rebel governance
(Sage Publications Ltd., 2025-01-23) Akçınaroğlu, S.; Berkowitz, J.; Leon, C.E.M.; Ogutcu-Fu, S.H.; Sedashov, E.; Tokdemir, Efe
This study examines the factors influencing non-state armed actors’ (NSAAs) ability and willingness to implement rebel governance, with a focus on the group’s ideological distinction from adversaries and the government. We argue that a unique ideology acts as an effective branding tool, enhancing governance success as constituents recognize and align with it. This ideology allows NSAAs to offer a distinct social contract to their followers with minimal risk, fostering strong relationships with their constituents, and hence benefits from such governance. We propose that rebel governance increases when NSAAs are ideologically distinct from other armed factions and the state. We validate our hypotheses using the Rebel Quasi-State Institutions dataset, an original dataset on armed groups’ ideologies, and the Database for Political Institutions for government ideology. This study is the first to explore the link between an armed group’s distinct ideology and its governance capacity in multi-party settings, and offers a novel contribution to the burgeoning literature on group ideology and rebel governance.
Open Access
Enforcement of international human rights law: a comparative exploration of alternative public opinion channels
(SAGE Publications, 2024-12-13) Bayram, A. Burcu; Keels, Eric; Tokdemir, Efe
The existing scholarship implies different mechanisms for the enforcement of international human rights law through the domestic public opinion channel. In this research, we investigate the comparative influence of these alternative mechanisms in a cross-country setting. Using data from original survey experiments from the United States, Germany, and Turkey, we show that public concerns over human rights violations in foreign countries are highly politicised by strategic political relationships. Our results provide a fuller account of the specific micro-mechanisms through which the domestic public opinion channel most effectively constrains government action in enforcing international human rights law. Our findings suggest that naming and shaming by informing the public about the international human rights law violations in foreign states may not provide a consistent and reliable check, as the public defines punishment strategically based on political alliances and interests over legal context.
Embargo
Role theory in practice: US-Turkey relations in their worst decade
(Oxford University Press, 2024-02-01) Özdamar, Özgür
Academic and policy debates on alliances are yet to incorporate insights from foreign policy analysis (FPA) literature. Generally, bilateral relations between allies are either analyzed with insights from traditional IR theories (such as realism) or with policy-oriented work that does not engage any scholarly literature (focusing on only the day-To-day issues of international politics). I argue that FPA theories that make linkages between scholarly work and policy-oriented questions in an evidence-based and analytical fashion are capable of accounting for the most significant policy questions of modern international politics. This article analyzes US-Turkey relations in, arguably, their worst decade, with a role theoretic outlook. I claim that despite being close political and military allies since the 1940s, US-Turkey bilateral relations are witnessing their worst decade since the Arab uprisings in the MENA, due mostly to ideational factors that shape foreign policy. The conflictual relations originate from a change in US and Turkish foreign policy-makers' role conceptualizations vis-À-vis their countries' roles in the MENA region after the Arab uprisings and the role conflict this has caused with one another. Misaligned interests during the Arab uprisings, especially after 2014 in the Syrian civil war, have exacerbated the bilateral ties further. Drawing insights from elite interviews conducted in Turkey (2014-2016), Washington DC, and Ankara (2018-2020), I explain the sources of conflict in US-Turkey relations with a role theory perspective and offer policy prescriptions in conclusion.
Open Access
Exposing linguistic imperialism: why global IR has to be multilingual
(Cambridge University Press, 2024-01-04) Aydınlı, Ersel; Aydınlı, Julie
A key feature of the long-observed ‘core’ hegemony in International Relations (IR) is a linguistic one, yet it remains the least explored and confronted, with even today’s ‘Global IR’ discussion unquestioningly taking place in English. However, the non-English IR world is demographically and intellectually immense, and global IR cannot afford to ignore it. This study argues that English dominance in IR knowledge production and dissemination is a pillar of a dependent relationship between an English-speaking core and a non-English periphery. It further argues that this linguistic unilateralism, through assimilation, is structurally homogenising, and impedes the periphery’s original contribution potential in an imperialistic manner. This study examines 135 journals from 39 countries in the linguistic periphery to assess the degree and nature of English dominance in them. It explores the relationship between publication language and ranking and analyses citations to understand whether language matters for being cited in the core. We conclude with recommendations for institutions, individuals, and knowledge outlets, including a call for greater multilingualism, which – though a possible risk for parochialism and provincialism – is necessary for periphery concept development and incorporation into a broadened ‘core’, and a necessary stage to curbing the imperialistic impact of linguistic unilateralism and encouraging a genuine globalisation of IR.
Open Access
How to entrap your protector: reassessing entrapment in light of the Crimean War crisis
(Cambridge University Press, 2024-11-27) Onea, Tudor Andrei
Recent scholarship often dismisses entrapment, arguing that there are hardly any identifiable cases; and that powerful states (protectors) can sidestep it by narrowing the treaty conditions under which they have to intervene to defend their weaker allies (protégés). Consequently, alliances and partnerships are nearly always considered risk-free assets. However, this paper argues that several types of entrapment are present. The paper is foremost concerned with classic entrapment, a type referring to a purposeful effort by the protégé to drag the protector into a conflict serving primarily the protégé’s interests. The protégé entraps the protector by placing itself deliberately in danger of defeat and by manipulating the protector’s domestic audience costs. Classic entrapment is likely to succeed under two conditions: (a) when the protégé’s allegiance confers the protector an advantage in a competition against other powerful states; and (b) in informal arrangements, in which there is no clear cut-off point to the protector’s commitment. The paper provides an illustration in the Ottoman Empire’s entrapment of Britain in the crisis preceding the Crimean War. The conclusion considers classic entrapment’s feasibility in present world politics, particularly in the context of Taiwan.
Embargo
‘Let the black sea unite Us’: the 1967 Soviet-Turkish industrial agreement and Ankara’s cold war rapprochement with Moscow
(Routledge, 2024-11) İşçi, Onur; Hirst, Samuel J.; Bayraktar, Orhun
This article explores a turning point in Soviet-Turkish relations during the Cold War: the 1967 interstate agreement that enabled construction of the backbone of Turkey’s post-war state-owned industry, including the petroleum refinery in Aliağa, the steel plant in İskenderun, and the aluminium plant in Seydişehir. It shows that Turkish leaders were not unusual in their balancing of Western and Soviet aid, nor in their attempt to use state intervention to overcome underdevelopment. During the 1950s and 1960s, Jawaharlal Nehru and Gamal Abdel Nasser employed similar tactics for similar ends. What was indeed unusual, was that Turkey was the only NATO member to receive such significant Soviet industrial aid. To explore the Soviet approach and the Turkish response, the article uses recently declassified records from the Russian State Archive of Contemporary History (RGANI) and the Turkish state archives (BCA).
Open Access
RIPE 2023 diversity statement
(Routledge, 2024-01-31) Bair, Jennifer; Elias, Juanita; Hozićc, Aida A.; Johnston, Alison; Köstem, Seçkin; Moschella, Manuela; Wang, Hongying; Young, Kevin L.
Open Access
Realism’s timeless wisdom and its relevance for the global south
(Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research, 2024-01-24) Beckmann, N. A.; Erpul, Onur
Since the numerous calls for developing a truly global and plural IR discipline,a growing spate of IR studies have sought to contextualize and critique theEuro-centeredness of the field. One of the most significant problems scholarshave pointed out is the hegemonic status of Anglo-American IR theories, whichseemingly assert an ontological preeminence and universality at the expense oflocal knowledge and homegrown theories. While the present article shares manyof global IR’s concerns, it nevertheless proposes that in our quest to teach IRand develop homegrown theories, we should not lose sight of the importanceof traditional contributions to the field. Our argument is based on a series ofreflections about the relevance of realist scholarship for the developing world.Through an analysis of the major criticisms of classical IR theories, we seek toshow that classical and, to a lesser extent, structural and neoclassical realismcontain several and diverse arguments that speak directly to audiences inthe global South. Classical realism, in particular, shares some interestingcommonalities with postcolonial theory, which could pave the way for a moresystematic engagement between the two approaches. Therefore, we argue thata global IR founded primarily on critiquing classical theories would be animpoverished IR, and “the thousand small steps” to a globalized discipline oughtnot neglect the valuable insights and reflections of traditional theory.
Open Access
Introducing the response to sponsorship dataset: Determinants of responses by target states to state sponsors of rebel groups
(DergiPark Akademik, 2024-12-27) Kılıç, Latife Kınay
Empirical studies on the sponsorship of rebel groups have focused on understanding why and how supporter states help rebels, whether this engagement benefits the rebels, and the effects of sponsorship on the conflict outcomes. By comparison, the responses of target states to sponsorship behavior have been neglected despite the possibility of interstate crises, disputes, and conflict due to the sponsorship. This study introduces a new dataset, the Response Sponsorship Dataset (RSD), which measures target states’ responses toward state sponsors of rebel groups intending to terminate the sponsorship. The data includes information on the responses of 58 target states to 102 supporter states concerning the support of 150 rebel groups between 1991 and 2010, comprising 3719 observations. The RSD identifies diplomatic, economic, militarized, domestic, covert responses and inaction as target state responses as well as classifying them as coercive or non-coercive based on target states’ foreign policy engagements with sponsors. The RSD provides new opportunities for researchers and policymakers to analyze target responses with regards to conflict management and foreign policy as well as promising future research on support termination.
Open Access
RIPE 2024 diversity statement
(Routledge, 2025-01-05) Elias, Juanita; Hozić, Aida A.; Johnston, Alison; Köstem, Seçkin; Moschella, Manuela; Ponte, Stefano; Wang, Hongying; Young, Kevin L.
Open Access
Turkey's rushed liberalization: wartime neutrality and the devaluation of 1946
(Routledge, 2024-03-18) Hirst, Samuel J.; İşçi, Onur
This article reinterprets the Recep Peker cabinet’s 1946 decisions to devalue thelira and deregulate foreign trade, which are often described as US-encouragedand liberalizing. The authors argue that alignment with the US did not dictatepolicy. They begin with World War II and show that, by 1944, Turkey had alreadybeen drawn into an Anglo-American international order. The authors thensuggest that devaluation should be understood as a response: as a Europe-oriented policy with speciﬁc, short-term goals. They conclude that 1946 wasless a radical liberalizing pivot than an attempt to address the diﬃcult legacyof wartime neutrality.