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1. Turkey's new focus on Africa: causes and challenges

Author:
Ali Bilgic and Daniela Nascimento
Publication Date:
09-2014
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Norwegian Centre for Conflict Resolution
Abstract:
Although Turkey had no past colonial involvement with African countries, there has been an increasing revival of Turkey's relation with the continent since the end of the 1990s, which reached a peak after 2005. From then on, along with a focus on Central Asia, the Balkans and the Middle East, Turkish foreign policy started shifting its focus to Africa, and as a new donor country Turkey's political and economic relations with sub-Saharan African countries have intensified significantly. This policy brief analyses and discusses the main economic, political, and strategic motivations behind these shifts and priorities, as well as some of the perceptions and current challenges this change in policy faces.
Political Geography:
Africa, Central Asia, Turkey, Middle East, and Balkans

2. European Security Practices vis-à-vis the Mediterranean: Implications in Value Terms

Author:
Pinar Bilgin, Eduard Soler i Lecha, and Ali Bilgic
Publication Date:
08-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
This paper analyses the implications of European security practices vis-à-vis the Mediterranean in value terms as deduced from an analysis of 'facts on the ground' and local actors' perspectives (based on interviews conducted in Algeria, Egypt and Morocco). It is argued that European security practices have had adverse implications for various security referents in the South. While it is too soon to tell whether the so-called 'Arab Spring' has been delayed or brought on by such collaboration, our research shows how Euro-Mediterranean security collaboration has rendered more defenceless the already vulnerable individuals and societies in the South and how Southern Mediterranean states/regimes and societies have become further alienated from each other following such collabo-ration. The paper also highlights how the very practices adopted by European actors to secure the Union and its values may have rendered it less secure insofar as they have had consequences for the very meaning of what it means to be 'European'.
Topic:
Security and Popular Revolt
Political Geography:
Europe, Arabia, Algeria, Egypt, and Morocco