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1241. Turkey-Ukraine Relations: High Potential, Low Voltage

Author:
Habibe Özdal and Viktoriia Demydova
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
International Strategic Research Organization (USAK)
Abstract:
With its strategic location of the existing power lines and economic potential, Ukraine, as one of the most important countries of Eastern Europe, is one of the pilot countries with which Turkey aims to develop its relations in an 'exemplary manner'. Besides, since Ankara and Kiev, share common values and priorities within the framework of preserving stability in the region, the Black Sea neighborhood adds another dimension to bilateral relations.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
Europe, Turkey, Ukraine, and India

1242. Turkey and Taiwan: The Relationship Seeking Its Ground

Author:
Selçuk Çolakoglu and Arzu Güler
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
International Strategic Research Organization (USAK)
Abstract:
In the pre-1971 period, "One China" for Turkey was the Republic of China in Taiwan and the two countries were in cooperation against communist expansion. However, in 1971, though being reluctant for the expulsion of Taiwan from the United Nations, Turkey recognized People's Republic of China as the sole legal representative of China and pursued the "One China" policy in that respect. Thus, in the post-1971 period, Turkey's relations with Taiwan have continued only in terms of economy, trade and culture without recognizing it as an independent political unit. Beginning from early 1990s, Turkey began to take initiatives to increase its trade cooperation with Taiwan.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Economics, International Trade and Finance, Bilateral Relations, and Culture
Political Geography:
China, Turkey, Taiwan, Asia, and United Nations

1243. Young Minds Rethinking the Mediterranean

Author:
Nihan Akıncılar, Anna Alexieva, Jennifer Brindisi, Evinç Doğan, Amanda E. Rogers, and Beatrice Schimmang
Publication Date:
12-2011
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Global Political Trends Center
Abstract:
In this paper, Europeanization of minority rights in Turkey will be explained in detail and in the conclusion part, it will be compared and contrasted with the Europeanization of minority rights in Greece. In this comparison, it is difficult to compare and contrast the mechanisms of Europeanization in Turkey and Greece because these mechanisms are suitable for the member states of the European Union (EU). For the candidate countries, the question of “how it is Europeanized” can be only answered with conditionality. Therefore, instead of trying to adapt Turkey in the case of minority rights to the mechanisms of Europeanization for the member states, in this study, it will be dealt with how the EU matters in affecting the minority rights protection in candidate and member states. Therefore, what this study implies when it is expected to explain Europeanization of mi`nority rights in Turkey is not to handle this case through the Europeanization theories, but how the EU affects the candidate countries through conditionality.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Conflict Prevention, Foreign Policy, Political Violence, Human Rights, War, and Political Theory
Political Geography:
Europe, Turkey, and Greece

1244. Worse, not Better ? Reinvigorating Early Warning for Conflict Prevention in the Post Lisbon European Union

Author:
John Brante, Chiara De Franco, Christoph Meyer, and Florian Otto
Publication Date:
06-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
EGMONT - The Royal Institute for International Relations
Abstract:
The number and lethality of conflicts has been declining significantly since the end of the Cold War, but five new armed conflicts still break out each year. While costly peace-making, stabilisation and reconstruction efforts have helped to end conflicts, no comparative efforts have gone into preventing them from occurring in the first place. The international community appears stuck in the never-ending travails of managing crises, finding it difficult to act early to prevent new conflicts from escalating. Encouraging signs that this is changing include the United Nations (UN) promotion of the preventive arm of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and the United States' efforts to improve its capacity to prevent conflicts and mass atrocities emerging from the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review. Similarly, since the launch of the Gothenburg programme in 2001, the European Union (EU) has embraced the case for conflict prevention in policy documents as well as in the Lisbon Treaty itself, making it a hallmark of its approach to international security and conflict in contrast to conventional foreign policy. Yet, it has fallen significantly short in translating these aspirations into institutional practice and success on the ground. It suffers from the 'missing middle' syndrome between long-term structural prevention through instruments such as conditionality for EU accession and development policy, and short-term responses to erupting crisis through military and civilian missions.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, Diplomacy, Peace Studies, War, Armed Struggle, and Peacekeeping
Political Geography:
Europe and United Nations

1245. A new Geography of European power?

Author:
James Rogers
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
EGMONT - The Royal Institute for International Relations
Abstract:
The naval historian and geostrategist, Alfred Thayer Mahan, understood the utility of military power perhaps better than anyone before or since. In an article called The Place of Force in International Relations – penned two years before his death in 1914 – he claimed: 'Force is never more operative then when it is known to exist but is not brandished' (1912). If Mahan's point was valid then, it is perhaps even more pertinent now. The rise of new powers around the world has contributed to the emergence of an increasingly unpredictable and multipolar international system. Making the use of force progressively more dangerous and politically challenging, this phenomenon is merging with a new phase in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. At the same time, many European governments are increasingly reluctant – perhaps even unable – to intervene militarily in foreign lands. The operations in Afghanistan and Iraq have shown that when armed force is used actively in support of foreign policy, it can go awry; far from re-affirming strength and determination on the part of its beholder, it can actually reveal weakness and a lack of resolve. Half-hearted military operations – of the kind frequently undertaken by democratic European states – tend not to go particularly well, especially when there is little by way of a political strategy or the financial resources needed to support them. A political community's accumulation of a military reputation, which can take decades, if not centuries, can then be rapidly squandered through a series of unsuccessful combat operations, which dent its confidence and give encouragement to its opponents or enemies.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Political Violence, Arms Control and Proliferation, War, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and Armed Struggle
Political Geography:
Europe

1246. Dealing with Davis: Inconsistencies in the US-Pakistan Relationship

Author:
Huma Yusuf
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
The nine-week standoff between the United States and Pakistan over the fate of Raymond Davis, an American arrested in Pakistan after shooting two men at a traffic stop, ended on March 16 with his sudden release from jail. Davis was freed under Islamic law, which allows a murderer to receive pardon from the family of his victims on payment of compensation, or “blood money” Religious parties protested the decision, stating that the law had been applied incorrectly to satisfy US demands for Davis' release. Still, media and analysts inside and outside Pakistan have termed the development a “win” for the country.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
Pakistan and United States

1247. China's Confucius Institutes: Crossing the River by Feeling the Stones

Author:
Maria Wey-Shen Siow
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
Many observers view China's overseas Confucius Institutes as the most visible symbols of China's growing soft power, and a tool for the country to expand its international influence and advance its public diplomacy agenda. The institutes were first established in 2004, with the first institute opening in Seoul. The primary goal of these institutions is to promote Mandarin Chinese language learning. Other functions include promoting Chinese culture and developing positive opinions of China within a global setting. Modeled along the lines of Germany's Goethe-Institut and France's Alliance Française, there are currently 320 Confucius Institutes in 96 countries with over 230,000 registered students. Apart from language classes, the institutes organize a wide variety of cultural activities ranging from music, calligraphy, cooking, and traditional Chinese medicine to hosting talks on China's economy, history, culture and society. China aims to open one thousand Confucius Institutes by 2020.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, and Power Politics
Political Geography:
China, Asia, and France

1248. Decision-Making in Security and Defence Policy. Towards Supranational Intergovernmentalism?

Author:
Jolyon Howorth
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Kolleg-Forschergruppe (KFG)
Abstract:
For scholars and practitioners of European politics alike, the distinction between supranationalism and intergovernmentalism has always been fundamental. This distinction has underpinned the various schools of European integration theory, just as it has remained crucial for European governments keen to demonstrate that the member states remain in charge of key policy areas. Nowhere is this considered to be more central than in the area of foreign and security policy, which has consciously been set within the rigid intergovernmental framework of Pillar Two of the Maastricht Treaty and, under the Lisbon Treaty, remains subject to the unanimity rule. And yet, scholarship on the major decision-making agencies of the foreign and security policy of the EU suggests that the distinction is not only blurred but increasingly meaningless. This paper demonstrates that, in virtually every case, decisions are shaped and even taken by small groups of relatively well-socialized officials in the key committees acting in a mode which is as close to supranational as it is to intergovernmental. The political control of foreign and security policy, which is considered sacrosanct by member state governments, is only rarely exercised by politicians at the level of the European Council or Council of Ministers.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, Regional Cooperation, and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
Europe

1249. Rising Power… To Do What? Evaluating China's Power in Southeast Asia

Author:
Evelyn Goh
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Abstract:
Drawing on China's relations with its relatively weak neighbours in Southeast Asia where we ought to find evidence of China getting other states to do what they otherwise would not have done, this paper asks how and how effectively China has converted its growing resources into influence over other states, their strategic choices and the outcomes of events. First, it adopts the framework of structural and relational power, further disaggregating the latter into persuasion, inducement and coercion as modes of exercising power. Second, it accounts for the reception to power by offering an analytical framework based on variations in the alignment of the extant preferences of the subjects and wielders of power, which determine the degree to which alterations are necessary as part of an exercise of power. The analysis identifies key cases particularly demonstrating three categories of Chinese power: its power as 'multiplier' when extent preferences are aligned; its power to persuade when pre-existing preferences are debated; and its power to prevail in instances of conflicting preferences. It finds that the first two categories of power have been most prevalent, while there have been very few instances where Southeast Asian states have done what they would otherwise not have done as a result of Chinese behaviour. These findings suggest that even though China's power resources have increased significantly, the way in which it has managed to convert these resources into control over outcomes is uneven.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and Power Politics
Political Geography:
China and Southeast Asia

1250. Strained Alliances: Iran's troubled relations to Afghanistan and Pakistan

Author:
Janne Bjerre Christensen
Publication Date:
04-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
This report offers a critical examination of Iran's influence in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Two points are made: that Iran's top priority is its own regime's survival and its regional policies are directed by its national security concerns. Secondly, that Iran's engagements in Afghanistan are clearly guided by the presence of the US. Iran's predominant interest is in stabilizing Afghanistan, but as long as Afghanistan is neither safe nor stable, Iran will play a double game and engage with its regional neighbours according to the US–Iran equation. Deterrence, counter-containment and competition are the keywords in these complex relations. The report outlines Iran's reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan, its political platform and 'soft power', and the bonds of mutual dependency in terms of water rights, refugees and drug trafficking. It examines Iran's alleged military interventions and the reasons for playing this double game. Lastly, the report discusses Iran's tense relationship with Pakistan with regard to both Afghanistan and the troubled region of Baluchistan.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, Development, Power Politics, and Foreign Aid
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Afghanistan, United States, and Iran