Search

Begin New Search Topic International Relations

951. A US Perspective on Turkey in the Middle East

Author:
David Barchard and Matthew Duss
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV)
Abstract:
In this article, Matthew Duss analyses the evolution of the US-Turkey relations since the Justice and Development Party (the AK Party) has come to the power in Turkish politics (in past 10 years) with regards to the perceptions of the American people and the American government. It is stated that the relationship has been developed better during the Obama Administration comparing with the Bush era. There are different opinions on the importance of Turkey in American National Policy. Among foreign policy analysts, however, the significance of Turkey’s foreign policy evolution is more clearly understood, though there is some disagreement over whether this evolution is a good or bad thing for U.S. interests. However, there is considerable agreement that the relationship will continue to be a very consequential one for the United States, and thus that U.S. policy should reflect this.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
Turkey, Middle East, and United States of America

952. The Perception of Turkey in the Middle East 2010

Author:
David Barchard, Gökçe Perçinoğlu, Jonathan Levack, Mensur Akgün, and Sabiha Senyücel Gündoğar
Publication Date:
02-2011
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV)
Abstract:
This study contains the results of the second survey conducted by KA Research Limited between August 25th and September 27th 2010 with my contribution and that of TESEV’s researchers. Again, the 2010 survey was conducted in the same seven Arab countries but, unlike 2009, it was also conducted in Iran. In total, 2,267 people were surveyed by telephone or face-to-face. These results show a statistically significant increase in positive opinion of Turkey. Although they are dealt with more thoroughly in the report, there are a few social and thus political findings that are different from the previous year.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, Regional Cooperation, and Public Opinion
Political Geography:
Turkey, Middle East, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, and Jordan

953. The Invention of International Relations Theory: Realism, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the 1954 Conference on Theory

Author:
Nicolas Guilhot
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Columbia University Press
Abstract:
The 1954 conference on theory, sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation, featured a who’s who of scholars and practitioners debating the foundations of international relations theory. Assembling his own team of experts, all of whom have struggled with this legacy, Nicolas Guilhot revisits a seminal event and its odd rejection of scientific rationalism. Far from being a spontaneous development, these essays argue, the emergence of a “realist” approach to international politics, later codified at the conference, was deliberately triggered by the Rockefeller Foundation. The organization was an early advocate of scholars who opposed the idea of a “science” of politics, pursuing, for the sake of disciplinary autonomy, a vision of politics as a prerational and existential dimension that could not be “solved” by scientific means. As a result, this nascent theory was more a rejection of behavioral social science than the birth of one of its specialized branches. The archived conversations reproduced here, along with unpublished papers by Hans Morgenthau, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Paul Nitze, speak to this defensive stance. International relations theory is critically linked to the context of postwar liberalism, and the contributors explore how these origins have played out in political thought and American foreign policy.
Topic:
International Relations, Political Theory, and History
Political Geography:
Global Focus
Publication Identifier:
9780231526449
Publication Identifier Type:
ISBN

954. Governance Without a State?: Policies and Politics in Areas of Limited Statehood

Author:
Thomas Risse
Publication Date:
10-2011
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Columbia University Press
Abstract:
Governance discourse centers on an “ideal type” of modern statehood that exhibits full internal and external sovereignty and a legitimate monopoly on the use of force. Yet modern statehood is an anomaly, both historically and within the contemporary international system, while the condition of “limited statehood,” wherein countries lack the capacity to implement central decisions and monopolize force, is the norm. Limited statehood, argue the authors in this provocative collection, is in fact a fundamental form of governance, immune to the forces of economic and political modernization. Challenging common assumptions about sovereign states and the evolution of modern statehood, particularly the dominant paradigms supported by international relations theorists, development agencies, and international organizations, this volume explores strategies for effective and legitimate governance within a framework of weak and ineffective state institutions. Approaching the problem from the perspectives of political science, history, and law, contributors explore the factors that contribute to successful governance under conditions of limited statehood. These include the involvement of nonstate actors and nonhierarchical modes of political influence. Empirical chapters analyze security governance by nonstate actors, the contribution of publicprivate partnerships to promote the United Nations Millennium Goals, the role of business in environmental governance, and the problems of Western state-building efforts, among other issues. Recognizing these forms of governance as legitimate, the contributors clarify the complexities of a system the developed world must negotiate in the coming century.
Topic:
International Relations, Political Theory, and History
Political Geography:
Global Focus
Publication Identifier:
9780231521871
Publication Identifier Type:
ISBN

955. American Force: Dangers, Delusions, and Dilemmas in National Security

Author:
Richard K. Betts
Publication Date:
12-2011
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Columbia University Press
Abstract:
While American national security policy has grown more interventionist since the Cold War, Washington has also hoped to shape the world on the cheap. Misled by the stunning success against Iraq in 1991, administrations of both parties have pursued ambitious aims with limited force, committing the country's military frequently yet often hesitantly, with inconsistent justification. These ventures have produced strategic confusion, unplanned entanglements, and indecisive results. This collection of essays by Richard K. Betts, a leading international politics scholar, investigates the use of American force since the end of the Cold War, suggesting guidelines for making it more selective and successful. Betts brings his extensive knowledge of twentieth century American diplomatic and military history to bear on the full range of theory and practice in national security, surveying the Cold War roots of recent initiatives and arguing that U.S. policy has always been more unilateral than liberal theorists claim. He exposes mistakes made by humanitarian interventions and peace operations; reviews the issues raised by terrorism and the use of modern nuclear, biological, and cyber weapons; evaluates the case for preventive war, which almost always proves wrong; weighs the lessons learned from campaigns in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam; assesses the rise of China and the resurgence of Russia; quells concerns about civil-military relations; exposes anomalies within recent defense budgets; and confronts the practical barriers to effective strategy. Betts ultimately argues for greater caution and restraint, while encouraging more decisive action when force is required, and he recommends a more dispassionate assessment of national security interests, even in the face of global instability and unfamiliar threats.
Topic:
International Relations, Political Theory, and Military Affairs
Political Geography:
United States and Global Focus
Publication Identifier:
9780231521888
Publication Identifier Type:
ISBN

956. NATO and Middle East and North Africa (MENA) security: Prospects for Burden Sharing

Author:
Sally Khalifa Isaac
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
NATO Defense College
Abstract:
This paper was researched and written before the upheaval in the Arab world. It highlights many aspects of the limitations in NATO's relations with its Arab partners. It argues that the current settings governing NATO-Arab relations feature no concrete cooperation schemes.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, and International Cooperation
Political Geography:
Africa, Middle East, and Arabia

957. Contested Leadership in International Relations: Power Politics in South America, South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa

Author:
Daniel Flemes and Thorsten Wojczewski
Publication Date:
02-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Given the importance of the assertion or prevention of regional leadership for the future global order, this paper examines the strategies and resources being used to assert regional leadership as well as the reactions of other states within and outside the respective regions. Secondary powers play a key role in the regional acceptance of a leadership claim. In this article we identify the factors motivating secondary powers to accept or contest this claim. Three regional dyads, marked by different degrees of “contested leadership,” are analyzed: Brazil vs. Venezuela, Indis vs. Pakistan, and South Africa vs. Nigeria. The research outcomes demonstrate that the strategies of regional powers and the reactions of secondary powers result from the distribution of material capabilities and their application, the regional powers' ability to project ideational resources, the respective national interests of regional and secondary powers, and the regional impact of external powers.
Topic:
International Relations, Globalization, and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Africa, South Asia, India, Brazil, South America, Venezuela, and Nigeria

958. Regionale Ordnungen in politischen Räumen. Ein Beitrag zur Theorie regionaler Ordnungen

Author:
Nadine Godehardt and Oliver W. Lembcke
Publication Date:
02-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Seit einiger Zeit stehen Regionen (wieder) auf der Agenda der Theoriediskussionen in den Internationalen Beziehungen. Es ist u.a. von einer „emerging regional architecture of world politics“ die Rede und von der Zukunft eines „multiregional system of international relations“ oder sogar einer „world of regions“. In dieser Perspektive geht es gegenwärtig nicht mehr allein um die Frage, welche Strukturvorgaben des internationalen Systems für eine neue Weltpolitik zu berücksichtigen sind. Vielmehr ist mit Blick auf die regionalen Ordnungen erforderlich zu fragen, wann und unter welchen Umständen die Strukturen und Akteurskonstellationen für regionale Kontexte überhaupt Bedeutung haben. Allerdings ist der politiktheoretische Status der Regionen in den Internationalen Beziehungen alles andere als klar. Mit diesem Beitrag werden zwei Ziele verfolgt: Einerseits wird die bisherige Diskussion mithilfe von drei Schlüsselkonzepten – Kooperation, Regionale Sicherheitskomplexe und Externalitäten – strukturiert; andererseits wird das konzeptionelle Verhältnis von Regionen, politischen Räumen und regionalen Ordnungen diskutiert. Dabei werden Kriterien – geografische Lage, politische Entscheidungen, Drittwirkungen dieser Entscheidungen – vorgestellt, die eine weiterführende Analyse verschiedener Typen regionaler Ordnungen ermöglichen.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, Regional Cooperation, and Political Theory

959. The Future of NATO

Author:
Whitney Shepardson
Publication Date:
02-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
If the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) did not exist today, the United States would not seek to create it. In 1949, it made sense in the face of a potential Soviet invasion to forge a bond in the North Atlantic area among the United States, Canada, and the west European states. Today, if the United States were starting from scratch in a world of transnational threats, the debate would be over whether to follow liberal and neoconservative calls for an alliance of democracies without regard to geography or to develop a great power concert envisioned by the realists to uphold the current order.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, NATO, International Cooperation, International Organization, and International Security
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, Canada, and Soviet Union

960. Major U.S.-Saudi Arms Deal to Bolster Riyadh against Iran

Author:
Michael Knights
Publication Date:
08-2010
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
When Congress returns from its summer recess after Labor Day, the Department of Defense will provide informal notification of the U.S. intention to sell up to $60 billion in military equipment to Saudi Arabia. The likely deal is part of a U.S. commitment predating the Obama administration to strengthen regional allies in the face of a growing threat from Iran. For the Saudis, the transaction represents a clear return to considering the United States as its principal arms supplier, a position the Americans risked losing to France as recently as 2006.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, and International Security
Political Geography:
United States, Iran, Middle East, Arab Countries, and Saudi Arabia