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Begin New Search Topic International Relations Theory Author Eyüp Ersoy

1. The Rise and Fall of Homegrown Concepts in Global IR: The Anatomy of ‘Strategic Depth’ in Turkish IR

Author:
Ali Bakir and Eyüp Ersoy
Publication Date:
07-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:
Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:
Asymmetry of knowledge production in global international relations manifests itself in a variety of forms. Concept cultivation is a foundational form that conditions the epistemic hierarchies prevalent in scholarly encounters, exchanges, and productions. The core represents the seemingly natural ecology of concept cultivation, while the periphery appropriates the cultivated concepts, relinquishing any claim of authenticity and indigeneity in the process. Nonetheless, there have been cases of intellectual undertakings in the periphery to conceive, formulate, and articulate conceptual frames of knowledge production. This paper, first, discusses the fluctuating fortunes of homegrown concepts in the peripheral epistemic ecologies. Second, it introduces the concept of ‘strategic depth’ as articulated by the Turkish scholar Ahmet Davutoğlu and reviews its significance for the formulation and implementation of recent Turkish foreign policy. Third, it examines the causes of its recognition and acclaim in the local and global IR communities subsequent to its inception. The paper contends that there have been three fundamental sets of causes for the initial ascendancy of the concept. These are categorized as contemplative causes, implementative causes, and evaluative causes. Fourth, it traces the sources of its fall from scholarly grace. The paper further asserts that the three fundamental sets of causes were also operational in the eventual conceptual insolvency of strategic depth. The paper concludes by addressing remedial measures to vivify concept cultivation in the periphery and to conserve the cultivated concepts.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, International Relations Theory, and Strategic Depth
Political Geography:
Turkey, Middle East, and Global Focus

2. Conceptual Cultivation and Homegrown Theorizing: The Case of/for the Concept of Influence

Author:
Eyüp Ersoy
Publication Date:
07-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:
Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:
The absence of theoretical perspectives in International Relations originating in the worldviews and experiences of human geographies outside the West has elicited persistent calls in the discipline for homegrown theoretical frameworks based on indigenous practices and intellectual sensibilities. Responding to the veritable marginalization of non-Western viewpoints in the discipline belying the plurality of global experiences, a diverse range of studies on homegrown theorizing has ensued. Inasmuch as the initial step in any social theorizing is pertinent to concepts, studies of homegrown theorizing have necessarily engaged conceptual cultivation by drawing on local conceptual resources. Most of these studies, nonetheless, have evinced an analytical proclivity to forge an exclusive and immutable semantic affiliation between concepts and what they signify. Transmuting conceptual indigeneity into conceptional idiosyncrasy, this insular practice of homegrown theorizing can incur manifold degenerative shortcomings. On the other hand, in the lexicon of international relations, influence is a ubiquitous word which is yet to be rigorously conceptualized. By virtue of imparting indigenous properties, a systematic conceptual cultivation of influence is propounded in this study, which arguably transcends the prohibitive semantic inflexibility and associated shortcomings of conceptual exclusivity in homegrown theorizing.
Topic:
International Relations, International Relations Theory, Academia, and Power
Political Geography:
Global Focus