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2. Theorizing The State and Its Autonomy in Western IR: A Comparative Analysis of Realist and Historical Sociological Approaches
- Author:
- Alper Kaliber
- Publication Date:
- 01-2022
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- AURUM Journal of Social Sciences
- Institution:
- Altinbas University
- Abstract:
- This article examines how the state, its core characteristics, domestic and international agential capacities are conceptualized by the realist paradigms of IR and Weberian Historical Sociology (WHS) as its critique. In doing this, the study seeks to address the pitfalls and deficiencies of the realist conception of the state and unravel limitations and strengths of WHS to remedy these Realist deficiencies to reach a more sophisticated theory of the state. It also calls for a serious engagement between WHS and post-positivist IR to theorise the historically and politically constructed nature of state identity and to transcend the internal/international divide characterising the Realist epistemology.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Realism, State, Autonomy, and Weberian Historical Sociology
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
3. From De-Europeanisation to Anti-Western Populism: Turkish Foreign Policy in Flux
- Author:
- Alper Kaliber and Esra Kaliber
- Publication Date:
- 12-2019
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The International Spectator
- Institution:
- Istituto Affari Internazionali
- Abstract:
- Recent Turkish foreign policy (TFP) under the successive AKP governments has seen different populist turns. A clear distinction can be made between the thin and thick populisms of TFP, based on the status of the West. The first decade of AKP rule, when foreign policy was thinly populist, was characterised by steady de-Europeanisation, increasing engagement with regional issues and a decentring of Turkey’s Western orientation. The turn toward thick populism has been characterised by anti-Westernist discourses in which the West is resituated as the ‘other’ of Turkish political identity.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Politics, Populism, and Anti-Westernism
- Political Geography:
- Turkey and Middle East
4. Reflecting on the Reflectivist Approach to Qualitative Interviewing
- Author:
- Alper Kaliber
- Publication Date:
- 07-2019
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
- Institution:
- Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
- Abstract:
- This study aims to reflect on qualitative interviewing with a particular emphasis on semi-structured interviewing (SSI), with the purpose of guiding students and young scholars of International Relations and Political Science who will use this method in their research. This study begs to differ from both radical postpositivist’s deep scepticism which makes any scientific inquiry almost impossible as well as from positivism’s unreflective, unproblematized, instrumental approach to interviewing. It proposes a reflectivist approach to qualitative interviewing that emphasizes the political nature of the interviewing process with various political, ethical and even social consequences. The reflectivist approach requires researchers to be self-critical at all times, in particular concerning their role and influence on the interview setting and the interviewee. This article proceeds as follows: It first addresses my own research on the nexus between civil society and the Kurdish question in Turkey, where SSI has been operationalized as the main research method. It then addresses the positivist and post-positivist debates on qualitative interviewing as well as the reflectivist approach that this study promotes. The article then engages in SSI in three distinct stages: pre-interview, interview and post-interview phases. Finally, the concluding part introduces some works utilising interviewing in Turkish IR and wraps up the theoretical/methodological arguments disseminated throughout the study at hand.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Political Science, Interview, and Qualitative Research
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
5. Kurds of Modern Turkey: Migration, Neoliberalism and Exclusion in Turkish Society
- Author:
- Alper Kaliber
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Rest: Journal of Politics and Development
- Institution:
- Centre for Strategic Research and Analysis (CESRAN)
- Abstract:
- Being a national security issue since the establishment of Turkish Republic in 1923, the Kurdish question has several and deep rooted connotations for politics and society in Turkey. Even if it was excessively securitized and long classified as a national taboo by the Turkish state, the Kurdish question has increasingly occupied a central status in Turkish politics since the 1980s. As a consequence of excessive securitization, academic or otherwise any work problematizing the official state line was subjected to silencing, marginalization or even ban. The intellectuals, academics, civil society activists demanding recognition of a separate Kurdish identity and cultural/collective rights of the Kurds were often blamed as being traitors and prosecuted and punished in some cases. In the 1980s and 1990s researching and publishing on the Kurdish question amounted to assuming grave risks or confronting fierce public reaction for researchers. Thus, there was an acute lack of academic research concerning the most important issue of Turkish politics.
- Topic:
- Security
- Political Geography:
- Turkey and Kurdistan
6. Rethinking Foreign Policy in Turkey as a Securitized Domain: The Case of Cyprus
- Author:
- Alper Kaliber
- Publication Date:
- 09-2005
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Institution:
- Uluslararasi Iliskiler
- Abstract:
- The implications of the Cyprus issue in contemporary Turkish domestic and foreign policues are far more complicated than in previous decades. Particularly with the beginning of the new millennium the heavily securitized and successfully bureaucratised Cyprus issue has turned out to be the main "discursive battlefield" of the polarisation among the ruling elites in Turkey. The present article aims at re-examining Turkey's security discourse on Cyprus with particular reference to its implications in the (re)configuration of political balances and power relations between the conservative state elite and the reformist political elite in Turkey. In this respect, it concludes that the security language premised on the constant assertion of such concepts as "national defence and security, national unity and integrity, geo-strategic importance and vital threats" has been operational in inscribing the legitimate boundaries of the political sphere.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy
- Political Geography:
- Turkey and Cyprus