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281. The Transatlantic Relationship in the 21st Century: Challenges and Opportunities

Author:
Charles King Mallory
Publication Date:
01-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:
Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:
When one has the opportunity to visit the heart of Anatolia, it is often an eye-opener. While we may read about developments in Turkey, it is quite different to absorb with all of your senses the numerous signs of a flourishing, vibrant, growing, modernizing Democracy. As such, Turkey is more important to U.S. foreign and security policy than ever before. Turkey can act as a strategic bridge along multiple azimuths. Turkey can also become a greater stakeholder and can act as a stabilizer, persuader, facilitator, mediator, as well as an example, as the global community struggles to cope with the challenges and opportunities presented by the new, emerging post-Cold-War strategic landscape. In this article I will touch on three topics: First, I will offer a brief assessment of where Turkey’s bilateral relations with the European Union and the United States stand from a U.S. point of view; next, I will describe three major strategic challenges that I believe Turkey, the European Union and the United States face in the Greater Middle East; and finally, I will attempt to analyze where the opportunities for and challenges to cooperation between Turkey, the European Union and the United States lie, given where bilateral relations stand and the challenges facing them.
Topic:
International Relations, NATO, Bilateral Relations, European Union, and Transatlantic Relations
Political Geography:
Europe, Turkey, Middle East, and United States of America

282. International Security – One Paradigm Change after the Other

Author:
Willem F. van Eekelen
Publication Date:
01-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:
Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:
During the past two decades our basic notions of security underwent repeated changes. To account for these changes, this piece deals with the most important historical events that shaped our understanding of security as well as the new challenges ahead such as the systemic changes, regional security initiatives from the EU, changing roles of militaries in advanced democracies and recent austerity measures’ effects on the security sector.
Topic:
International Relations, International Security, European Union, Democracy, Regional Integration, and Austerity
Political Geography:
Europe

283. Possible Scenarios in Cyprus: Assuming There is No Solution

Author:
Mensur Akgün
Publication Date:
03-2012
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV)
Abstract:
Halted after the Greek Cypriot rejection of the Annan Plan (by 75.83%) at a referendum held on 24th April 2004, inter-communal negotiations restarted on a technical level on 18th April 2008 and on a political level on 25th July 2008. Since then, hundreds of negotiations have been held at different levels between the parties. Although the negotiations still continue – as of February 2012 it is said that a conference is to be held with the participation of the guarantor states – at the time this article was written, a bi-zonal and bi-communal solution seems farther away than ever before. The parties, especially the Greek Cypriots, continue with the negotiations just to avoid being seen as the one who left the table. n this article, Mensur Akgun analyses the position of Turkish government to possible scenario with outcome of no solution deriving from Turkey’s emphasis on to freeze relations with the EU as of 1st July 2012, when the Republic of Cyprus, which is represented only by the Greek Cypriots, will assume the EU Presidency.
Topic:
International Relations, Territorial Disputes, European Union, and Negotiation
Political Geography:
Europe, Turkey, Middle East, Cyprus, and Mediterranean

284. Hierarchy in World Politics

Author:
Patrick Thaddeus Jackson and George Lawson
Publication Date:
04-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of International Relations and Development
Institution:
Central and East European International Studies Association
Abstract:
With this Special Issue the editorial team fulfils a campaign promise, so to speak. In our original proposal to assume the editorship of the Journal of International Relations and Development, we proposed three special features: a Forum on IR in Eastern and Central Europe (published in issue 12:2), a Forum on post-Communist and post-Socialist transitions (published in issue 12:4), and a Special Issue on hierarchy in world politics. The four papers collected here represent the end result of a process of soliciting proposals for manuscripts, putting those manuscripts through the regular peer-review process, and selecting papers that would allow a multi-faceted exploration of a complex topic that has made its way back into IR after the long interregnum of theories and models that focused on presumptively equivalent states operating under conditions of anarchy. But this is more than simply 'bringing hierarchy back in'; the new focus on unequal relations of power in world politics is a good deal more sophisticated than the sometimes blunt assertions of dependency theory and early world-systems accounts. The papers that we have assembled for this Special Issue represent some, but by no means all, of the rich analytical diversity in contemporary accounts of hierarchy in world politics.
Topic:
International Relations
Political Geography:
Europe

285. Development of International Relations theory in China: progress through debates

Author:
Yaqing Qin
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Relations of the Asia-Pacific
Institution:
Japan Association of International Relations
Abstract:
The development of International Relations theory (IRT) in China has been framed by three debates since 1979. The first was about China's opening up to the outside world. It started with the question of whether the world was characterized by 'war and revolution' or 'peace and development' between orthodox and reformist scholars and continued to focus on China's interest between orthodox scholars and the newly rising Chinese realists. It resulted in a wide acceptance of the reformist argument that peace and development characterized our era and of the realist view that China was a normal nation-state and should have its own legitimate national interest. The second started in the early 1990s and centered on the better way of realizing China's national interest. It was between Chinese realists and liberals. While the former emphasized national power, the latter proposed the alternative approach of international institutions. The third debate was on China's peaceful rise. It evolved at the turn of the century, when all the three major American IRTs, realism, liberalism, and constructivism, had been introduced into China and therefore the debate was more a tripartite contention. Realists believed that it was impossible for any major power to rise peacefully, while liberals and constructivists both supported the peaceful-rise argument. Liberals stressed more the tangible benefits derived from international institutions and constructivists explored more China's identity in its increasing interaction with international society. Although it was Chinese constructivists who explicitly discussed the identity issue, all the three debates and all the debating sides have reflected this century puzzle since the Opium War – China's identity vis-à-vis international society. These debates have helped push forward the IRT development in China and at the same time established Western IRT as the dominant discourse. A new round of debate seems likely to occur and may center on the question of the world order. This time it may help the newly burgeoning but highly dynamic Chinese IRT to develop and contribute to the enrichment of IRT as knowledge of human life.
Topic:
International Relations and Development
Political Geography:
China, America, and Europe

286. Avrupa Birliği-Türkiye İlişkilerine Postyapısalcı Yaklaşım: Almanya Örneğinde Dış Politika ve Söylem Analizi

Author:
Senem Aydın Düzgit
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Institution:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Abstract:
In line with the poststructuralist approach that theorises identity as relationally constructed through discourse, the purpose of this article is to shed light on the different visions of Europe that are constructed in debates on Turkey’s accession to the EU among German politicians. The article focuses on the political party debates on Turkish accession in Germany, a key member state in EU integration and the debate on Turkish membership to the EU, and subjects them to critical discourse analysis. In doing that, it also brings forward the importance of the concept of discourse from a poststructuralist perspective.
Topic:
International Relations, Political Theory, and European Union
Political Geography:
Europe, Turkey, and Germany

287. The Steppe and Early European State Formation

Author:
Iver B. Neumann
Publication Date:
08-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Institution:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Abstract:
It is not a self-evident thing for a group of scholars to invite an outsider who has studied the home turf of that group to open one of their conferences. I am extremely pleased to be here, and I want to make the most of the opportunity by calling attention to an area of study that my previous work has been pointing me to, and that I believe we who study International Relations (IR) should make our own. I am talking about a relation between two places in time. The relation is the one between nomads and sedentaries. The places are the Eurasian steppe and the sedentary polities to its west. By the Eurasia steppe I mean that vast tract of land that stretched from the Mongolian-Turkic homelands around Karakorum, north of the agricultural lands of the Chinese, the Persians and the Byzantines, all the way to where the grasslands started to give way to forest, and where there lived Slavic and Finno-Ugric tribes. The time is what Europeans call the middle ages.
Topic:
International Relations
Political Geography:
China, Europe, and Eurasia

288. The Field of the Blackbirds and the Battle for Europe

Author:
Anna Di Lellio
Publication Date:
08-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The New School Graduate Program in International Affairs
Abstract:
Serbia, Kosovo, and Turkey, all European Union applicants, recognize that the possibility of European belonging as historical reality is a crucial attribute for acceptance. These countries have all built national stories rooted in the Medieval Ottoman conquest of the Western Balkans and distanced themselves from the “Orient” and from Islam. By doing so, they have engaged in a debate with a “thick,” rather than a “thin” conception of Europe; they have tried to measure up to Europe as a traditional community of values defined by its Christian character, rather than the dynamic cosmopolitan Europe of law and standards which is officially embodied by the Union. Paradoxically, the revival of these national memories not only anchors a particular configuration of national time and space for Serbs, Albanians, and Turks. It mirrors a concern with identity, very present at the core of Europe, which is often resolved through the affirmation of an allegedly authentic and coherent European Christian tradition.
Topic:
International Relations, Nationalism, Religion, and History
Political Geography:
Europe, Central Asia, Turkey, Kosovo, Serbia, and Balkans

289. The EU and the Libyan Crisis - In Quest of Coherence?

Author:
Nicole Koenig
Publication Date:
12-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The International Spectator
Institution:
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:
Throughout the 2000s, Libya's Col. Muammar Qadhafi signed friendship treaties and trade deals with major Western leaders and presented himself as an active partner in the fight against terrorism and illegal migration. While the dictator 'camped' in several European capitals, the European Union (EU) and Libya were negotiating a Framework Agreement aiming at ''the full reintegration of Libya in bilateral and multilateral international relations'' and a fruitful political dialogue on issues of common interest. The events in February 2011 heralded the end of this period of international 'Realpolitik'. On 27 June, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Qadhafi, accusing him of crimes against humanity (murder and persecution). In late August, the veteran tyrant reportedly fled Tripoli.
Topic:
International Relations
Political Geography:
Europe and Libya

290. Chinese Perspectives on International Power Shifts and Sino-EU Relations (2008–2011)

Author:
Nele Noesselt
Publication Date:
04-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
With the beginning of the post-Maoist era, the focus of Chinese foreign policy shifted from ideology and revolution to pragmatism and reform. Chinese scholars in the field of International Relations (IR) are now encouraged to develop abstract scientific analyses of China's international environment. This requires not only the handling of IR theories and methods of foreign policy analysis (FPA), but also a sound knowledge of the organizational structures and policy principles of other states.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
China and Europe