Search

Begin New Search Topic European Union Political Geography Asia

41. Protecting the West’s Interests in Turkey

Author:
Ross Wilson
Publication Date:
03-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Ambassador's Review
Institution:
Council of American Ambassadors
Abstract:
Turkey has recently come to look like a beat-up boy. At home, it seems to have regained the authoritarianism of its past. Abroad, its behavior looks rough edged and militaristic. It gets blamed for not doing enough, or the right things, on Syria, the problem of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and Europe’s migrant crisis. Some have concluded that this country, its regional policies in tatters and under the assault of an autocratic president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, can no longer be regarded as an ally. Much of the criticism is on target, some less so. Real issues exist in Turkey and in the relationships that the United States and European countries have with it. At a tough time for the region, concerted and effective strategies to protect the interests the United States and its allies have in and with this key European and Middle Eastern country are more important than ever.
Topic:
Diplomacy, International Cooperation, Authoritarianism, and European Union
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, Turkey, Middle East, and Asia

42. Primary or Secondary? Regionalism’s Multiple Roles in Brazil’s International Emergence

Author:
Stephen Clarkson
Publication Date:
01-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Kolleg-Forschergruppe (KFG)
Abstract:
Of all the countries identified as rising powers on the world stage, Brazil appears to have drawn considerable economic and political strength from its engagement with various forms of regionalism during the expansionist years when Lula was president. Whether by helping create a local, intra-regional entity (Mercosul) or, later, proposing a continental one (UNASUL), Brasilia appeared to have the capacity to further its own economic and political interests by generating cooperative interactions with its smaller neighbors. Subsequently it took a leading role in inter-regional negotiations between Mercosul and the European Union in the global North and between Mercosul and ASEAN in the global South. More recently still, it spread its wings by associating trans-regionally with powers that are similarly dominant within their own regions – IBSA (India, Brazil, and South Africa) and BRICS (Russia, India, China, and South Africa) which shared with it a desire to play greater roles in the major institutions of global governance. While these new associations have their inner raisons d’être, belonging to them also bolsters Brazil’s weight in such traditional multilateral organizations as the United Nations and the WTO which were previously dominated by the US-Europe-Japan triad. This working paper assesses the relative importance of these different regionalisms in Brazil’s emergence on the global stage by counterposing them with such standard explanations of a state’s global significance as its military might, economic strength, and its soft-power influence overseas. We identify how various regionalisms interact with traditional bilateral and multilateral relations in helping or hindering Brazil in its global ascent. We conclude to our surprise that regionalism has only played a minimally positive role economically. Even politically, it has on occasion become more hindrance than help in boosting Brazil into its current orbit – as its announced intention to negotiate separately with the EU suggests.
Topic:
Military Strategy, European Union, Regionalism, and BRICS
Political Geography:
Europe, Asia, Brazil, South America, and North America

43. Europe Today and What's Next

Author:
Hannes Androsch
Publication Date:
12-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination, Princeton University
Abstract:
In many places it is forgotten that Europe, especially the EU, is a veritable success story, as this continent has never before experienced a period such as the past seven decades of democracy, peace and prosperity. Faced with the current challenges, especially the refugee crisis, there has been an increasing tendency among European governments to take unilateral action. This approach cannot be successful, however, as European governments attempt to implement policy prescriptions of the past to solve problems of the present. In fact, we need not less but more Europe—but also a reformed Europe: a European Union with one voice for external policy (common foreign, security and defense policy and asylum and migration policy) and the capacity to overcome its internal turmoil (common economic, budget, and tax policies, and a minimum of a transfer union). We also need a European Union that makes the benefits of globalization available to all people. The European Union is currently experiencing one of its worst crises in its history. Old fault lines that have run through the continent for centuries, once considered overcome, have become prominent once again; new challenges have arisen, especially in the wake of globalization, climate change and new technological developments (the Digital Revolution). The world has seemingly become ungovernable. The proclaimed 1989 “end of history” (Fukuyama) is certainly over, and history has a firm grip on Europe. This, at least since the outbreak of the financial and economic crisis in 2007/08, no longer deniable fact is reflected in the still unresolved crisis in Greece (“Grexit”), the associated Euro Crisis, the British referendum on exit from the EU (“Brexit”), and in the renaissance of geopolitics. The annexation of Crimea by Russia undertaken in violation of international law, the war in eastern Ukraine, as well as state disintegration in Libya, Yemen, Iraq and Syria have made it clear that, from the Caucasus to the Balkans and from Pakistan/Afghanistan via the Middle East to North Africa, extends a “Ring of Fire,”—a term used by former Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Kuan Yew to describe the geopolitical challenges of Europe more than twenty years ago. These long concealed —or ignored—distortions are now breaking out again in the form of “wars of succession,” leaving behind territories plagued by unrest, civil wars, and failed states, and resulting in terrorism and refugee waves now reaching the center of Europe. The resulting “crisis mode,” within which the European Union has been operating for several years now, reached its climax with the result of the referendum conducted in June, determining Britain’s exit from the European Union (Brexit). Aside from the medium and long-term economic implications for the country, Brexit was an earthquake with unforeseeable consequences especially on the political level. Scotland is once again discussing its potential separation from the United Kingdom, the fragile peace funded by the EU in Northern Ireland is threatened by collapse, and in a considerable number of other EU countries—mainly France and the Netherlands—populist and nationalist parties are interpreting Brexit as a signal to seek their salvation in national initiatives.
Topic:
Security, Global Recession, European Union, Refugee Crisis, Brexit, and Humanitarian Crisis
Political Geography:
Russia, China, United Kingdom, Europe, Turkey, Middle East, Asia, and Syria

44. Policy Change for the Displaced Kurds in Turkey: Europeanization and Conditionality

Author:
Onder Canveren
Publication Date:
10-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Turkish Journal of Middle Eastern Studies
Institution:
Turkish Journal of Middle Eastern Studies
Abstract:
International and regional organizations can act as persuasive actors with re- gard to minority rights in a given country by raising awareness, putting the issue on agenda, and endorsing a new platform in a country which may lead to a policy change. Despite the general observation that Turkey’s Europeanizati- on process has had limited impact on the minority issues in Turkey, there are numerous examples that the European Union (EU) has played a constructive role in improving of rights and fundamental freedoms for the Kurdish populace living in Turkey. The Law on Compensation for Damage Arising from Terror passed in 2004 is a case worth addressing in order to ascertain both the symbo- lic and discursive policy change. The aim of this article is to explain how the EU used democratic tools to promote change in Turkey’s political structure for the displaced Kurds. The Europeanization of Turkey, based on specific con- ditionality, is taken as primarily responsible for granted for the shift and the policy change. In this policy-oriented case study, hypotheses from Rationalist and Constructivist Approaches in Europeanization literature are investigated to explain the causes and constitutive relations of the policy shift from repudiate to compensation.
Topic:
Migration, Regional Cooperation, Minorities, and European Union
Political Geography:
Europe, Turkey, and Asia

45. Turkey at the Heart of the Storm

Author:
E. Fuat Keyman
Publication Date:
05-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for American Progress - CAP
Abstract:
More than two decades ago, Zbigniew Brzezinski alerted the world to a “global turmoil” steadily eroding the West’s ability to respond to major global challenges. Since then, the West has been gripped by multiple crises of globalization, manifested in myriad security, economic, humanitarian, and environmental challenges. The most recent additions to this litany include the dire refugee problem and the brutality of the Islamic State, or IS. Both the refugee crisis and IS have emerged from failed states, particularly Syria and Iraq, and are exacerbated by geopolitical power games, a lack of hegemonic leadership in the region, sectarianism, and the absence of inclusive and rules-based institutions of good governance. Yet while the crises interact and have similar root causes, they are driven by different actors with different intentions. While the European Union has focused on addressing the symptoms of the refugee crisis, the war against IS is driven by the United States, Russia, Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf states, which are less affected by the refugee crisis. Only Turkey has a place at the heart of both crises. It is affected by the security and economic fallout of the current regional instability and will be a pivotal actor in any effective responses to the two crises. Western leaders—most crucially in Washington, D.C., and Ankara—should not think of Turkey as a buffer state used simply to manage the spillover from Syria and Iraq but rather as a proactive partner in any effort to address the root causes of these crises. But Turkey faces its own domestic and foreign challenges, which undermine its ability to respond to the turmoil. The Turkish government should take four steps to help improve its response
Topic:
Fragile/Failed State, European Union, Refugee Crisis, ISIS, and Humanitarian Crisis
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Europe, Iran, Turkey, Middle East, Asia, and Saudi Arabia

46. Emerging Threats and New Trends in Turkish Foreign Policy

Author:
Galip Dalay
Publication Date:
06-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for American Progress - CAP
Abstract:
Turkey’s foreign policy during most of the republican era was informed by the security imperatives of the Cold War and the crises that ensued from the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. These influences were coupled with the country’s republican elites crafting Turkey’s identity along the lines of strict secularism, militant nationalism, and a western orientation. As a status quo power, Turkey looked at its neighborhood through the lens of security, becoming highly sensitive to threats of all varieties and seeing itself in a hostile environment—if not surrounded by outright enemies. Upon coming to power in 2002, successive Justice and Development Party, or AKP, governments tried to change this understanding and minimize areas of friction with Turkey’s neighbors. During the early years, they adopted a utilitarian approach, attempting to develop mutual interests and opportunities and to create a degree of interdependency, particularly through economic exchange. This was expressed through then-Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu’s “zero problems with the neighbors” principle, which provided the intellectual architecture for much of Turkey’s foreign policy. The AKP sought to build an “economy first” approach, which it would later hope to leverage for political purposes. From the beginning of the AKP’s second term in 2007 to the early days of the Arab uprisings in late 2010 and into 2011, the party gradually expanded its ambitions and policy toward the Middle East through attempts to achieve regional integration and, later, to build an order centered on Turkey. All of these attempts sought to build on economic relations toward economic integration and political cooperation and were very much in line with the neofunctionalist approach to regional integration theories.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, NATO, Diplomacy, Military Affairs, European Union, and Arab Spring
Political Geography:
Europe, Turkey, and Asia

47. The transnational extension of a symbolic fight: how State knowledge on borders cross the State borders? | L’extension transnationale du domaine de la lutte symbolique : comment les savoirs d’État sur les frontières passent-ils les frontières de l’État ?

Author:
Médéric Martin-Mazé
Publication Date:
06-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Cultures & Conflits
Institution:
Cultures & Conflits
Abstract:
Why does the EU promote the OSCE concept of border security in Kyrgyzstan while the OSCE export the EU Integrated Border Management in Tajikistan? To elucidate this paradox, this article lays bare the transnational symbolic struggle between two professional guilds: Finnish and Austro-Hungarian border guard contest for the monopoly over the legitimate definition of means of circulation in Europe, and beyond. In European headquarters, the Fins successfully occupy the forestage of the EU, thereby relegating their Austro-Hungarians competitors to the backstage of the OSCE. On the Central Asian fields, however, the former provide the assistance of the OSCE to Tajikistan, whereas the later deliver the aid of the EU to Kyrgyzstan. This chassé-croisé helps understand why the Tajik strategy of border reform incorporates key elements of the Schengen 4 tiers model, while the Kyrgyz strategy implicitly refers to the cooperative approach put forth by the OSCE.
Topic:
Security, European Union, and Borders
Political Geography:
Central Asia and Asia

48. The Transfer of Power in Central Asia and Threats to Regional Stability Russian Politics in Times of Change: Internal and External Factors of Transformation Russia’s View of Its Relations with Georgia after the 2012 Elections: Implications for Regional Stability The “Color Revolutions” and “Arab Spring” in Russian Official Discourse Russia and the Arab Spring The Ukrainian Crisis and its Effect on the Project to Establish a Eurasian Economic Union

Author:
Marina Lapenko
Publication Date:
12-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Connections
Institution:
Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes
Abstract:
A continuing transformation of the post-Soviet space is presently underway as it sheds the last elements of its common Soviet past. New geopolitical and spatial configurations and integration associations are being created, with a new set of players and develop-ment priorities appropriate to today’s international situation and the new challenges. The ideological dogma of “fraternal allied republics” is being replaced by the prag-matism of national interests and a desire to take a rightful place in the system of world economic ties. The topic of integration and choosing an integration vector is a central theme in the foreign policy of each new independent state. The project to establish the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) is one of the most im-portant Russian integration initiatives since the breakup of the Soviet Union. The objec-tives and tasks of a new integration group, as well as the makeup of the integration core and potential participants, have now been determined.
Topic:
Nationalism, Regional Cooperation, European Union, and Economic Cooperation
Political Geography:
Europe, Eurasia, Eastern Europe, and Asia