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10831. Decoding the Rise of Euroskepticism in Turkey

Author:
Mehmet Bardakçı
Publication Date:
10-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
Since 2004 there has been a dramatic drop in the support expressed by the Turkish public for the EU and the Turkish membership. Many factors were at work for this downward trend of Turkish people's perceptions of the EU including the Cyprus policy, the Armenian genocide claims, the EU's treatment of Turkey as a special case, vocal objections raised by the EU leaders as well as the public to Turkey's EU membership, the economic costs of the accession process, nationalist backlash as a result of the resumption of PKK terrorism, mutual rise in negative perceptions of the Muslim and Western world at large in the post-September 11 process. Therefore, amid growing anti-European sentiments in domestic politics it became increasingly difficult for the ruling AKP to sustain the EU reform agenda.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
Europe, Turkey, and Armenia

10832. Understanding the 'Absorption Capacity' of the European Union

Author:
Sercan Gidişoğlu
Publication Date:
10-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
This article offers an analysis of the large inventory of definitions proposed for 'the EU's capacity to absorb new members', by the EU institutions as well as scholars and Brussels-based public affairs companies. It also makes a comparison between 1993, when the term 'absorption capacity' (AC) is used for the first time in an official text, and the period from 2005 on, when this term reappeared frequently in European terminology and came to be defined with more precision. AC mainly refers to the capacity of the EU to absorb new members while functioning efficiently and maintaining the momentum of European integration. It has three main components: economic, political, and institutional absorption capacities. However, despite some consensus on its usage, the term remains ill-defined and misleading. To remedy this problem, the Commission recently replaced the term with the phrase 'integration capacity'. Nevertheless, further efforts should be made to clarify this concept, which is still being used in official texts without enough precision.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
Europe and Brussels

10833. Book Reviews

Publication Date:
10-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
Salwa Ismail, Political Life in Cairo's New Urban Quarters: Encountering the Everyday State University of Minnesota Press, 2006, 264 p, $22,50, ISBN 0-8166-4912-X by Joanna Odencrantz   M. Hakan Yavuz (ed.), The Emergence of a New Turkey: Democracy and the AK Party University of Utah Press, 2006, 368 pp., $25, ISBN 978-0-87480-863-6 by Barış Kesgin   Guenter Lewy, The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey: A Disputed Genocide The University of Utah Press, 2005, 370 p., $23, ISBN 978-0-87480-890-2 by Fatih Balcı and Arif Akgül   Jillian Schwedler, Faith in Moderation: Islamist Parties in Jordan and Yemen  Cambridge University Press, 2006, 276 p., $29.99, ISBN 0-521-85113-0 by Hüseyin Alptekin
Topic:
Islam
Political Geography:
Turkey and Armenia

10834. Terrorism in Europe: The local aspects of a global threat

Author:
Julian Richards
Publication Date:
01-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Athena Intelligence Journal
Institution:
Athena Intelligence
Abstract:
There is no doubt that Al Qaeda-inspired jihadist terrorism has capitalised on globalization in many ways. Using multimedia communications, the "single narrative" linking together perceived wrongs against Muslims across the world can be downloaded and sampled immediately, anywhere in the world. By portraying his message across the internet or 24/7 newsreels on satellite television, Usama Bin Laden and his cohorts have acted as an exciting inspiration for a generation of alienated Muslims youths in backrooms across the globe. In this way, the person that Australian counter-terrorist analyst David Kilcullen claimed would otherwise be a "crank in a cave" has managed to transform himself into something of a global icon.
Political Geography:
Europe and Australia

10835. The Jama'a At-Tabligh Al-Da'wa in Spain

Publication Date:
01-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Athena Intelligence Journal
Institution:
Athena Intelligence
Abstract:
La Yama'a at-Tabligh al-Da'wa (Congregaci6n para la Propagación del Islam), o sencillamente Yama'a Tabligh, fue fundada por Maulana Ilyas en la India en 1927, y deriva del movimiento revivalista deobandi. Se trata de un movimiento de reforma de la sociedad islámica, a la que se considera contaminada por los valores no-islámicos del secularismo, materialismo, etc. A1 igual que la mayoría de los movimientos de reforma musulmanes, justifican su postura alegando un regreso a los principios originales del Islam. En el caso del Tabligh se fijarán principalmente en la figura del Profeta Muhammad (ejemplo indiscutible a seguir) y los compañeros de éste (sahaba).
Political Geography:
India and Spain

10836. Future War: The War on Terror after Iraq

Author:
Adam Elkus
Publication Date:
01-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Athena Intelligence Journal
Institution:
Athena Intelligence
Abstract:
The Bush administration's attempts to portray the War in Iraq as the main front in the War on Terror have become self-fulfilling prophecy. Iraq--like 1980s Afghanistan--has drawn foreign fighters eager to bleed an overextended superpower and acquire valuable combat experience. Because of the global media's fixation on Iraq, it has become the defining symbol of America's violent encounter with Islam. Because of this, it is difficult to predict what form the War on Terror will take when America leaves Iraq.
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Iraq, and America

10837. External Signs of Jihadist Radicalization and Militancy

Author:
Javier Jordán and Fernando M. Mañas
Publication Date:
01-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Athena Intelligence Journal
Institution:
Athena Intelligence
Abstract:
Is it possible to know if we are before a jihadist judging solely by exterior appearances? It is, in fact, very difficult to respond to this question in a definitive way. Certain appearances (referring as much to style of dress as observable behavior) can indicate a symptom that an individual is experimenting (or has already completed) a process of jihadist radicalization. That is, a process through which the person incorporates jihadi values and joins active militancy in an individual manner (exceptional "lone wolf' cases) or in a group.

10838. Short Guide on the Jihadist Threat

Author:
Luis de la Corte Ibáñez
Publication Date:
04-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Athena Intelligence Journal
Institution:
Athena Intelligence
Abstract:
La actual amenaza yihadista está relacionada con la expansión, a lo largo del pasado siglo XX, de una corriente de pensamiento islámico sunní puritana, retrógrada y sectaria generalmente designada como islamismo salafista. Dicha corriente daría origen a una diversidad de agrupaciones y organizaciones islámicas identificadas con un mismo objetivo: transformar la vida social y política de los países musulmanes mediante la implantación de la ley islámica (sharia) como norma fundamental y la difusión y/o imposición de un modelo de organización social basado en el idealizado estilo de vida de la comunidad islámica primitiva establecida por Mahoma y sus primeros seguidores, los salaf o píos antepasados (de ahí el término salafismo). Aunque no todos los movimientos salafistas son violentos, de entre ellos surgirá en la segunda mitad del siglo XX una ramificación ideológica esencialmente agresiva, el salafismo yihadista, que retoma de algunas teologías medievales ciertas orientaciones ideológicas determinantes.

10839. El Jihadist Recruitment: Expert Proof of Intelligence

Author:
Luis Aparicio Díaz
Publication Date:
04-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Athena Intelligence Journal
Institution:
Athena Intelligence
Abstract:
El fenómeno terrorista es un mal cuya solución pasa, inevitablemente por la concienciación social y la contestación cívica, basada en los valores que cimientan el Estado democrático. Pero, obviamente, esta mención no pasaría de lo meramente anecdótico y programático, como un "brindis al sol" sin la mención expresa a las Fuerzas de Seguridad encargadas de la inteligencia, vigilancia y, sobre todo, del desmantelamiento de las organizaciones de tipo terroristas existentes en un momento y tiempo dados.
Topic:
Intelligence and Terrorism

10840. Assessing al-Qaeda's Chemical Threat

Author:
René Pita
Publication Date:
04-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Athena Intelligence Journal
Institution:
Athena Intelligence
Abstract:
After the 11 September 2001 (9/11) terrorist attacks in the United States, there is a high perception of risk of possible attacks with chemical weapons (CW), especially by groups affiliated or associated with the al-Qaeda terrorist network. Earlier, in 1994 and 1995, Aum Shinrikyo, a religious organization in Japan, used sarin, a nerve chemical warfare agent, in attacks in Matsumoto City and on the Tokyo subway, causing a large number of casualties. These terrorist attacks had a big impact on the chemical defence and intelligence communities but not on other circles, perhaps because a chemical attack by a religious organization in Japan seemed something far removed from the reality of the rest of the world. But this changed after 9/11 when the mailing of letters containing anthrax spores, accompanied by images of the attacks on the World Trade Center towers, increased the concern about weapons of mass destruction (WMD) attacks, including by CW.
Political Geography:
Japan and Tokyo