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141. A Pilot Study of Quantifying Turkey’s Foreign Affairs: Data Generation, Challenges, and Preliminary Analysis

Author:
Musa Tüzüner and Gonca Biltekin
Publication Date:
07-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:
Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:
This paper provides a simple introduction to event data analysis, a quantitative data collection and analysis approach that has been used extensively for compiling broad datasets of foreign policy and other international behaviors. The authors define the steps undertaken in creating the Turkish Foreign Affairs Event Dataset (TFAED). This pilot study, which uses a single news source and covers a 23-year period (1990-2013) of foreign affairs in Turkey, was completed to evaluate the feasibility, time, cost, and possible problems that might be encountered with a full-scope study. The paper describes the obstacles encountered during the pilot study’s initial phases and discusses a sample of the preliminary findings. The paper concludes with potential uses of the dataset.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, International Affairs, Quantitative, and Event Data
Political Geography:
Turkey and Middle East

142. An Empirical Assessment of the Role of Emotions and Behavior in Conflict Using Automatically Generated Data

Author:
Steve Shellman and Sean O'Brien
Publication Date:
07-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:
Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:
Automated event data extraction techniques have revolutionized the study of conflict dynamics through the ability of these techniques to generate large volumes of timely data measuring dynamic interactions among actors around the world. In this paper, we describe our approach for adapting these techniques to extract data on sentiments and emotions, which are theorized to crucially contribute to escalating and de-escalating conflict. Political scientists view political conflict as resulting from a series of strategic interactions between groups and individuals. Psychologists highlight additional factors in political conflict, such as endorsements and condemnations, the public’s attitude toward its leaders, the impact of public attitudes on policy, and decisions to engage in armed conflict. This project combines these two approaches to examine hypotheses regarding the effects that different emotional impulses have on government and dissident decisions to escalate or de-escalate their use of hostility and violence. Across the two cases examined—the democratic Philippines and authoritative Egypt between 2001 and 2012—we found consistent evidence that intense societal fear of dissidents and societal disgust toward the government were associated with increases in dissident hostility. Conversely, societal anger toward dissidents was associated with a reduction in dissident hostility. However, we also found noticeable differences between the two regimes. We close the article with a summary of these similarities and differences, along with an assessment of their implications for future conflict studies.
Topic:
Emotions, Conflict, Behavior, and Natural Language Processing
Political Geography:
Philippines, Egypt, and Global Focus

143. Data Quality for Measuring Political Protest and Government Change

Author:
Charles Lewis Taylor
Publication Date:
07-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:
Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:
For analyzing protest and government change, data need to be both reliably measured and valid for the task at hand. Data fundamentalists insist that nothing less than total capture of every event that has taken place is sufficient for analysis. That scenario is, of course, an impossibility. Rather, methods to measure the statistical probability that a sample is appropriate for its targeted universe allow empirical analysis to proceed.
Topic:
Government, Politics, Protests, Data, and Event Indicators
Political Geography:
Global Focus

144. A Guide to Event Data: Past, Present, and Future

Author:
Philip A. Schrodt and James E. Yonamine
Publication Date:
07-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:
Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:
The goal of this paper is to provide a general overview of event data and its importance in the study of political conflict. In doing so, we illustrate how the level of methodological sophistication in the data collection, coding, and analyzing process has progressed from the earliest event-data projects in the 1970s to the most current ones today. Additionally, we highlight ongoing debates in the discipline as well as address key challenges that practitioners of event data will have to overcome to generate increasingly accurate and nuanced analyses in the future.
Topic:
International Relations, Forecast, Conflict, Quantitative, and Data
Political Geography:
Global Focus

145. Europe in Transition: Lessons to be Learned

Author:
Ludger Kühnhardt
Publication Date:
01-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:
Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:
In this age of instant global media coverage, it is easy to lose perspective as well as one’s view of the horizon. A week is a long time in politics, as the saying goes. A week of media coverage may be even longer, one might add. And after months of coverage, a single issue may have turned from fact to fiction or from fiction to fact. An event can become a process, a challenge can become a problem, a difficulty can become a crisis. Cause and effect may become blurred by the subtle power of media and the shorthand that is inevitably used to frame a phenomenon. Explanations can give way to labels, for better or worse. The European Union (EU) has been on this roller coaster for the last three years. When Lehmann Brothers of the United States (US) went bankrupt in 2008, the root causes of the crash were swiftly connected with that country’s mortgage crisis (subprime bubble). Too many too-cheap mortgages had made too many Americans the owner of a house that they could suddenly no longer finance. It seemed to be solely an American problem to have lived beyond one’s means; Europe was only challenged by finding a way to avoid the spillover effects from the US financial crisis. Three years later, however, the tides of fortune had changed. The sovereign debt crises of Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Italy turned into a crisis of the euro, if not of the European Union. Not only were causes and effects confused; context and implication had also become confusing.
Topic:
International Relations, Financial Crisis, European Union, and Transition
Political Geography:
Europe

146. Good Governance of the Security Sector in Turkey

Author:
Willem van Eekelen and Merijn Hartog
Publication Date:
01-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:
Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:
The Centre for European Security Studies (CESS or the Centre) in the Netherlands has conducted three consecutive capacity-building programmes on civil-military relations and good governance of the security sector in Turkey since 2004. This was done in close cooperation with local partners from Ankara and Istanbul and financially supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands. As the last programme, which commenced in 2010, draws to a close, the time has come to reflect on the outcomes of the work of CESS in Turkey.
Topic:
Security, Governance, Military Affairs, and European Union
Political Geography:
Europe, Turkey, Middle East, and Mediterranean

147. Mediation: The Best Way Forward in Conflict Prevention and Resolution

Author:
Ertuğrul Apakan
Publication Date:
01-2013
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, we have seen a growing interest in and support for mediation as a means of preventing conflicts and resolving disputes, not only at the United Nations (UN) headquarters, but also at regional and national levels. As the Permanent Representative of Turkey to the United Nations since 2009, I have witnessed the momentum built around the concept of mediation. Turkey, as the co-chair of the Group of Friends of Mediation, played a leading role in this process. Its membership in the UN Security Council in 2009-2010 also helped Turkey pursue and contribute to this matter within the Council. Today’s security environment demands the UN’s increased attention through different means and tools. Out of the 67 peacekeeping operations that have been deployed in UN history, 54 have been established since 1988. The Security Council currently has over 70 conflicts in its agenda. Two-thirds of these conflicts are related to Africa and the least developed countries. A bulk of UN expenditures is allocated to peacekeeping operations, and the increasing burdens and costs of peacekeeping in the midst of a global financial crisis have also contributed to the rediscovery of preventive diplomacy and mediation as significantly less-costly crisis management options.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Conflict Prevention, Security, United Nations, and Mediation
Political Geography:
Global Focus

148. Humanitarian Intervention as a ‘Responsibility to Protect’: An International Society Approach

Author:
Saban Kardas
Publication Date:
01-2013
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 proposes to explain the post-Cold War practice of humanitarian intervention by drawing on the English School’s international society approach. It argues that although the sovereignty versus human rights debate traditionally was framed in dichotomized terms, the post-Cold War practice of humanitarian intervention illustrated the possibility of a via media approach to these competing normative claims. Post-Cold War developments regarding the place of the conventional norms of sovereignty and non-intervention on the one hand and the growing space for the protection of human rights on the other, have eased worries about the prospect for order in the international system and created a suitable environment for including of humanitarian intervention without jeopardizing that order. To contextualize this development, the article will argue that Hedley Bull’s discussion of such key terms as the international society, the centrality of states, the importance of norms, and normative change helps explain intervention in today’s world. By building on that framework, the article draws attention to the enabling and constraining factors highlighted by the international society approach, and as such, concludes that the English school suggests both promise and caution regarding the prospects for humanitarian intervention in modern international relations.
Topic:
Sovereignty, Humanitarian Intervention, International Community, Responsibility to Protect (R2P), and Non-Intervention
Political Geography:
Global Focus

149. Norway and Turkey: Possibilities of Cooperation through the Eyes of Turkish Opinion-Makers

Author:
Daniel Heradstveit, Siri Neset, and G. Matthew Bonham
Publication Date:
01-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:
Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:
The authors conducted interviews with opinion-makers in Turkey in 2012 to explore the feasibility of cooperation between Turkey and Norway on issues of peacebuilding. Norway was viewed by respondents as a country with softpower capabilities and a focus on human rights, democratic values, and the rule of law. Some opinion-makers also emphasized that both countries have a similar position on Palestine, a pivotal issue in the Middle East. Obstacles to cooperation include the geographical distance between the two countries, the lack of common institutions, Norway’s lack of experience with different ethnicities and faiths, Norway’s failure to object to the 2005-2006 Danish cartoon scandal regarding Mohammed, Norwegian criticism of Turkey’s policies toward the Kurds, and its imprisonment of dissidents without due process of law. Despite these issues, respondents expressed enthusiasm about future cooperation, and view Norway as a far better potential collaborator than any other European country, in part because it, like Turkey, is outside the EU but a member of NATO. The issue of trade-offs between Norway’s use of soft power and its economic aspirations, namely oil investments in other countries, was also explored. The article concludes with a discussion of the possibility that increased cooperation between Turkey and Norway may give rise to “Turkophobia”, an extension of “Islamophobia”, a simplistic interpretative framework that rests on cultural misunderstanding and miscommunication.
Topic:
International Cooperation, Bilateral Relations, Democracy, Soft Power, and Peacebuilding
Political Geography:
Turkey and Norway

150. Comparing Individual Attitudes about EU Membership in Turkey and in Post-Communist Central and Eastern European Countries

Author:
Çiğdem Kentmen
Publication Date:
01-2013
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 examines whether theories previously developed to explain variations in individual attitudes toward European Union (EU) membership in post-communist Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) also explain attitudes in Turkey. In CEECs, attitudes reflect whether individuals feel they win or lose in economic and democratic transitions. Although Turkey did not experience a transition from communism to liberal democracy, its political and economic spheres have nevertheless changed to meet EU membership conditions. Using 2002.2 and 2003.2 Eurobarometers, I found that, while satisfaction with economic circumstances significantly increased pro-EU attitudes, satisfaction with the democratic system did not increase pro-EU attitudes in Turkey and many CEECs.
Topic:
Public Opinion, European Union, and Regional Integration
Political Geography:
Turkey, Eastern Europe, and Central Europe