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101. Chinese Concepts and Relational International Politics FacebookLinkedInTwitterMendeleyEmail

Author:
Emilian Kavalski
Publication Date:
01-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:
Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:
The rise of China troubles the taken-for-granted epistemological and ontological constitution of International Relations (IR) theory. The Greek term ‘theoria’ implied travelling to foreign locales with the aim of gaining illumination that can then simultaneously inform and transform the ‘home’ of the traveler. Yet, instead of travelling, IR theory engages in silencing. This paper undertakes an interpretative journey of China’s IR concepts. In particular, it looks at the notion of guanxi – one of the two terms that goes into the Chinese phrase for International Relations (guoji guanxi). The contention is that ‘relationality’ renders a more accurate translation of guanxi in English. In the process, the paper uncovers the practices of ‘international relationality’ as an opportunity to redefine the ‘international’ as a co-dependent space where two or more actors (despite their divergences) can interface into a dialogical community.
Topic:
International Relations, Politics, and Academia
Political Geography:
China and Asia

102. Turkish Terrorism Studies: A Preliminary Assessment

Author:
Cenker Korhan Demir and Engin Avcı
Publication Date:
01-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:
Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:
This article aims to determine the academic disciplinary condition of Turkish terrorism studies in comparison to international ones. We first examine contemporary international terrorism studies and new trends, and then longitudinally assess Turkish terrorism studies via context and methodology. Last, we discuss how and through which perspectives the Turkish discipline could improve and thus contribute to the contemporary literature. We generated three datasets after examining theses, dissertations, and articles. Further, we conducted interviews with and administered questionnaires to terrorism experts to interpret the dataset findings. Regarding context, the most striking point of the Turkish research field is its multi-disciplinary character; because of this fact, Turkish terrorism studies tend to neglect the broader field’s terminology and theoretical accumulation. Regarding methodology, a significant problem in the terrorism studies in Turkey is that studies are mostly composed of literature reviews rather than empirical research, thus there is much opportunity for development.
Topic:
Terrorism, Academia, and Methods
Political Geography:
Turkey and Middle East

103. Widening the World of IR: A Typology of Homegrown Theorizing

Author:
Ersel Aydınlı and Gonca Biltekin
Publication Date:
01-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:
Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:
It is rare that a recognized voice from non-Western world makes an impression in International Relations theory. While a few studies have looked at the structural and institutional constraints that contribute to such lack of recognition, part of the problem stems from confusion around the definition of what theorizing out of the non-Western world actually is. Based on a review of studies that embody indigenous conceptualizations of international phenomena in the periphery, we first define such ‘homegrown’ theorizing as original theorizing in the periphery about the periphery. By elaborating on these conceptualizations’ specific methods in building theories, we then provide a typology of homegrown theories and assess each theory building method in terms of its potential for global acceptance and further development. We substantiate our arguments on global acceptance by drawing on a comparison of the citation counts of 18 homegrown theories. In doing so, we try to give voice to some of the most prominent scholarly and intellectual efforts stemming from the periphery, and provide a guide for Western scholars on how to engage with homegrown theorizing in a more intellectually stimulating manner. The article concludes by highlighting a number of critical factors in opening up space for different voices in the world of IR.
Topic:
International Relations, International Relations Theory, Academia, and Inclusion
Political Geography:
Global Focus

104. Homegrown Theorizing: Knowledge, Scholars, Theory

Author:
Deniz Kuru
Publication Date:
01-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:
Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:
In recent years, the discipline of International Relations (IR) has entered another of its turns: the homegrown turn. This new turn focuses on possible contributions to IR theorizing using non-Western knowledge and/or scholarship. This article deconstructs the idea of homegrown theorizing by focusing on its constitutive part, dealing separately with the aspects of knowledge, scholar, and theory, questioning thereby the differing meanings of homegrownness. Such an approach provides an initial framework that accomplishes two things: First, the paper discusses today’s core Western IR community and its disciplinary sociology in terms of the main factors engendering present critiques of its scholarship. Second, it then becomes possible to pay attention to peripheral non-Western IR’s position at a time of gradual post-Westernization, both world politically and within the discipline. Engaging with the pitfalls of Western IR and elaborating on the reasons not only explains the emergence of IR’s homegrown turn, but also provides the basis for understanding how scholars engaging in homegrown theorizing can learn from the (past) mistakes of core scholarship. Dealing with the impact of globalization, Eurocentrism, presentism, and parochialism as the main problem areas of (Western) IR, the article concludes by providing a list of lessons to be taken into account when engaging in homegrown theorizing within the periphery.
Topic:
International Relations, Globalization, Sociology, International Relations Theory, and Eurocentrism
Political Geography:
Global Focus

105. Global Peaceful Change and Accommodation of Rising Powers: A Scholarly Perspective

Author:
T.V. Paul
Publication Date:
07-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:
Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:
Can the accommodation of rising powers in the international system be accomplished peacefully? Prof. Paul, in his recent publication, argued that if the established and status quo powers hold grand strategies which allow for peaceful accommodation, this is feasible. He clarifies the differences between accommodation and appeasement and the value of soft balancing, relying on institutions, economic diplomacy, and limited ententes as mechanisms for restraining the aggressive behavior of major powers. Variations in current US policies toward Russia and China are discussed. Non-accommodation of major powers as well as minor powers has major internal and external consequences. He concludes by arguing that contemporary rising powers, such as China and India, have much greater prospects of rising peacefully than previous era great powers, partially due to the opportunities offered by the globalization process. However, these states must initiate economic and developmental programs for other states, without neocolonial overtones, in order to increase global development and their own status. The discipline of IR has a special duty to encourage students and policy makers to develop strategies of peaceful transformation, rather than war, as the main mechanism of change.
Topic:
Globalization, Grand Strategy, Emerging Powers, and International System
Political Geography:
Russia, China, South Asia, India, Asia, and United States of America

106. Explaining Miscalculation and Maladaptation in Turkish Foreign Policy towards the Middle East during the Arab Uprisings: A Neoclassical Realist Perspective

Author:
Nuri Yeşilyurt
Publication Date:
07-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:
Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:
This article seeks to test the relevance of neoclassical realism in explaining the foreign policy behavior of a regional power in an era of turbulent change in the regional system. Taking Turkey’s policy response to the Arab Uprisings as a case study, it tries to explain, from a neoclassical realist perspective, the causes of Ankara’s miscalculations while formulating an ambitious policy in 2011, as well as its failure to adapt to the new realities on the ground between 2013 and 2016. Overall, it argues that neoclassical realism provides a satisfying explanation for Turkey’s policy failure in this period, and that the problems of miscalculation and maladaptation in Turkish foreign policy were caused by distortive effects of certain unit-level factors. In this sense, while ideological tendencies of the ruling Justice and Development Party, as well as its consolidation of domestic power, shaped the content and styling of Ankara’s policy response after 2011, the extensive utilization of foreign policy for domestic purposes by the ruling party hindered Turkey’s adaptation to shifting balances in the regional power structure between 2013 and 2016.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Arab Spring, and Neoclassical Realism
Political Geography:
Turkey and Middle East

107. On the Borders of Cultural Relativism, Nativism, and International Society: A Promotion of Islamist Democracy in the Middle East after the Arab Uprisings

Author:
Metin Koca
Publication Date:
07-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:
Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:
This article focuses on post-Arab-uprising calls for democratization in the Middle East. Scrutinizing the then-Turkish government’s coupling of a cultural relativist norm-promotion discourse in the global arena with a nativist discourse in the Middle East, the paper examines how much our current conceptual tools can explain successes and failures in this process. The article focuses on two schools of thought that pay considerable attention to the role of culture in institution-building: the English School of International Relations (ES) and the nativist strand of post-colonialism. It touches upon two problems in the ES literature and offers two solutions: (1) It reinforces attention on Buzan’s conception of interhuman society compared to the ad hoc blending of different levels of abstraction in cultural analyses. (2) It aims to initiate a dialogue for a more precise distinction between various ideational and behavioral components of the concept of culture, since these components do not necessarily fit well together. Considering these two caveats, the article operationalizes culture in the given case to examine some limitations of the nativist ideological perception of cultural zones and its concurrent claims over true nativity. The paper seeks these limitations, first, by analyzing the extent of cultural commonalities between three sub-regional Islamist movements that shared a strong common identity, and second, by examining the dialogue between ideological mismatches in the constitution-making processes of Egypt and Tunisia.
Topic:
International Relations, Culture, Democracy, Arab Spring, Identity, and Relativism
Political Geography:
Turkey and Middle East

108. Transcending Hegemonic International Relations Theorization: Nothingness, Re-Worlding, and Balance of Relationship

Author:
Chih-yu Shih
Publication Date:
07-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:
Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:
The manuscript compares the World History Standpoint promoted by the Kyoto School of Philosophy with two other competitors – post-Western re- worlding and the Chinese balance of relationships - in their shared campaign for alternative international relations theory. The World History Standpoint explains how nations influenced by major power politics judge their conditions and rely on combining existing cultural resources to make sense of their place in world politics. It predicts that international systemic stability cannot be maintained over a set of congruent identities because history’s longevity allows for previous politically incorrect identities to return in due time with proper clues. It specifically predicts that nations caught between different identities will experience cycles in their international relations; nations with an expansive scope of international relations or declining from the hegemonic status will adopt balance of relationships; and less influential nations will practically reinterpret hegemonic order to meet their otherwise inexpressible motivations. Accordingly, Japan will be focused upon as an exemplary case for World History Standpoint; Taiwan for re-worlding; and China for balance of relationships. The paper touches upon theoretical implications of their conflicts.
Topic:
International Relations, Politics, Philosophy, and International System
Political Geography:
Japan, China, Taiwan, and Asia

109. The Hegemony of Governmentality: Towards a Research Agenda

Author:
Jonathan Joseph
Publication Date:
07-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:
Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:
This contribution sets out a research agenda that explores the promises of combining theories of hegemony and governmentality in the study of world politics. It is argued that certain forms of governmentality are ‘strategically selected’ and form part of hegemonic strategies while hegemonic strategies are enhanced by techniques of governmentality. It is also important to look at the underlying context that allows for micro practices to be ‘colonised’ by macro actors and which drives such actors to use such techniques. The theory of hegemony is seen as better at highlighting the context in which strategic action takes place, while governmentality is better at showing the workings of the technologies and techniques that are deployed by strategies of governing. Hegemony and governmentality therefore form part of the back and forth between macro and micro, structure and agency, institution and practice, highlighting different aspects of this constant interaction.
Topic:
Government, Hegemony, International Relations Theory, Michel Foucault, Critical Realism, and Antonio Gramsci
Political Geography:
Global Focus

110. American Elections and the Global (Dis)order

Author:
Ali Resul Usul
Publication Date:
01-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:
Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:
Donald Trump’s unexpected victory in the presidential elections came as a great shock to liberal internationalist circles in the US and abroad. Whether Trump will string the liberal order that the US has largely created is without a plain answer. It is clear, though, that there is already significant erosion in the basic architect of global order. Detritions to the fabric of global order can be observed with respect to four interrelated developments: the exacerbation of security challenges due to proliferation and diversification of the regional and global destabilizing actors, the reversal of democratic and liberal values in the West, rise of illiberal democracies and competitive authoritarianism elsewhere, and finally, a UN system mired with serious shortcomings in representation, capacity and legitimacy. The international society must address this erosion of global order and the first step in that regard is coming to terms with the fact that “the world is bigger than five” not only in terms of the re-alignment of major powers, but also of the distribution of power along state/non-state spectrum.
Topic:
United Nations, Hegemony, Reform, Populism, International Order, and Presidential Elections
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America