Insight Turkey / issues

Editor's Note | Spring 2013

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 16:02:00 GMT

On march 21, almost one million Kurds gathered in Diyarbakir to celebrate the Kurdish New Year, Newroz and listened to the message of Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned leader of the outlawed PKK. In the midst of the cheers and applauses, Ocalan declared that the era of armed struggle for the Kurds ended and the PKK would lay down its arms.

Turkey’s Kurdish Question and the Peace Process

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 13:14:00 GMT

Turkey currently is witnessing a series of events that are most likely to go down in history as truly important milestones. The country is attempting to tackle the age-old Kurdish question. Thus far, the peace process has given rise to more hope than ever. Yet, it has not been devoid of worries and concerns. Hope arises out of the fact that we are witnessing major progress that was unimaginable until a short time ago. However, the shadow of past experiences makes it difficult to overcome reservations.

The “Responsibility to Protect” Doctrine: Revived in Libya, Buried in Syria

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 12:00:00 GMT

Proponents of the “responsibility to protect” doctrine, commonly referred to as R2P, claim that it came of age with NATO’s successful military intervention to protect the civilian population in Libya. This commentary raises questions of whether NATO’s intervention under UN Security Council Resolution 1973 followed the original 2001 R2P report and other related UN documents, and contends that if R2P had come of age with NATO’s intervention in Libya, it has had a tragic death with the Security Council’s inability to initiate actions on Syria. The death of R2P in Syria has been rendered inevitable by NATO’s abuses in Libya, and the doctrine is doomed to a bleak future.

Turgut Özal Twenty Years After: The Man and the Politician

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 12:36:00 GMT

Whether Turgut Özal was a good politician remains up for debate. However, there is no question that he indeed was (and is) a significant historical persona. He guided his country into the twenty-first century. When Özal suddenly passed away in 1993, he had already led Turkey to the next century, even though the twenty-first century would technically begin only seven years later.

Turkey and the European Union: 2014 and Beyond

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 12:10:00 GMT

It seems likely that in 2013 Turkey and the EU will restart technical negotiations on one or more chapters. A real breakthrough, however, can only be expected in 2014, after the German elections and after the EU has regained the confidence that the current euro crisis can be overcome. Turkey for its part first needs to successfully conclude the fundamental reforms it has started on the Kurdish problem and in writing a new constitution. Revitalized accession negotiations after 2014 will be further complicated by the debate on a new EU architecture that should reflect the growing divergence between a further integrated euro zone and those member states that wish to keep their national currency. When and if the EU decides to reconfigure itself into an organization that operates with different speeds, Turkey will have a better chance of being accepted as a member.

New Peace Talks in Turkey: Opportunities and Challenges in Conflict Resolution

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 12:50:00 GMT

The restart of peace talks between the Government and the PKK has brought renewed optimism about the possibility to settle a nearly three-decade conflict, one of the oldest ongoing armed conflicts in the world and one with a major impact on neighbouring countries. These new efforts can be understood as part of the rapprochement process started in the mid 2000s. While it comes after a tremendous peak in violence, there seem to be very positive signs of the seriousness of this new stage. However, there are also doubts on its strength, structure, and direction.

Remembering Turgut Özal: Some Personal Recollections

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 12:20:00 GMT

An American ambassador recounts some of his dealings with Turgut Ozal, particularly on the first Iraq war, and provides his personal view of the man, his personality, and his legacy.

The AK Party and the Evolution of Turkish Political Islam’s Foreign Policy

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 13:30:00 GMT

Turkish foreign policy under the AK Party government has long drawn scrutiny from a wide range of analysts. The Syrian uprising has raised the intensity, variance, and rapid change of such analysis. Though the events in Syria have forced a recalibration of Turkish foreign policy, this change can be better understood with attention to the history of the AK Party’s foreign policy. That history is rooted in a tradition of both continuity and change vis-à-vis the AK Party’s political Islamist predecessors, the Refah and Fazilet parties. By understanding the values, motivations, failures, and lessons of the AK Party’s political forebears, we may better understand the last decade of the AK Party’s foreign policy—and its continuing evolution.

The Limits of Norm Promotion: The EU in Egypt and Israel/Palestine

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 13:00:00 GMT

Policy implications aside, assessing the EU’s involvement in the Mediterranean region necessitates a reconsideration of the impact and limits of the so-called ‘normative power’ upon which its approach has been based, implicitly or explicitly. This paper does so by examining the EU’s engagement with Egypt and the Israel-Palestine conflict; it sets out to challenge the notion that EU-style normative power alone is well-suited to promote democracy and regional cooperation, particularly in regions with diverging dynamics where the promotion of EU-associated norms may stumble upon European trade- and diplomacy-related interests. In this sense, it aims to enrich and inform the debates on ‘normative power Europe’ and Euro-Mediterranean relations.

Egypt’s Democratic Experiment: Challenges to a Positive Trajectory

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 13:10:00 GMT

As Egypt charts a path to democracy, it confronts the legacy of 60 years of dictatorship. President Morsi faces an ongoing power struggle with state institutions, including the judiciary, that are resistant to change. Furthermore, the opposition is unwilling to play by the rules of the democratic game and is primarily focused on undermining the government through street protests rather than the ballot box. If Morsi can navigate through these political challenges, Egypt can emerge from the present economic downturn and move towards a potentially dynamic political and economic trajectory.

Islam, Conservatism, and Democracy in Turkey: Comparing Turgut Özal and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 13:20:00 GMT

In the absence of a politically influential aristocracy and the entrepreneurial middle class, the political and economic transformations in Republican Turkey have been the handiwork of the political elites. Thus, late Dankwart A. Rustow talked of the cultural revolution of Atatürk, the democratic revolution of İsmet İnönü, and the economic revolution of Turgut Özal. The first two transformations were top-down revolutions and have not had a considerable impact on the social and economic stratification in the country. In contrast, with the Özal revolution a new entrepreneurial middle class began to flourish. Furthermore, during the current Recep Tayyip Erdoğan period, the peripheral social groups led by the entrepreneurial middle class have become influential players in Turkish polity.

Identity, Narrative and Frames: Assessing Turkey’s Kurdish Initiatives

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 13:50:00 GMT

In 2009 the Turkish government launched a novel initiative to tackle the Kurdish question. The initiative soon ran into deadlock, only to be untangled towards the end of 2012 when a new policy was announced. This comparative paper adopts Michael Barnett’s trinity of identity, narratives and frames to show how a cultural space within which a peaceful engagement with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) would be deemed legitimate and desirable was carved out. Comparisons between the two policies reveal that the framing of policy narratives can have a formative impact on their outcomes. The paper demonstrates how the governing quality of firmness fluctuated between different connotations and references, finally leading back to a deep-rooted tradition in Turkish governance.

Prospects for Resolution of the Kurdish Question: A Realist Perspective

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 17:22:00 GMT

The developments in early 2013 generated expectations that the almost three decades old armed conflict between the Turkish state and PKK would eventually come to an end. This article adopts a skeptical position and identifies two principal factors that make a peaceful settlement a distant possibility. First, the current military situation is a stalemate that is not ripe for peace. The costs of the conflict remain highly tolerable for both sides. Next, huge differences separate what the Turkish government is willing to deliver and what the Kurdish insurgency is willing to accept for disarmament. In particular, the PKK has no incentive to accept disarmament and demobilization given current geopolitical dynamics conducive to Kurdish self-rule.

Sharing Power: Turkey’s Democratization Challenge in the Age of the AKP Hegemony

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 13:40:00 GMT

After a major wave of democratization over the last decade, the stalemate in Turkey’s reform process and the rising concerns about ‘creeping authoritarianism’ under the ruling AKP government attracted the attention of many scholars. How could Turkey manage to achieve substantial progress in democratization over the last ten years and why has the current government lost its reformist spirit? This article seeks to answer these questions by developing a multi-dimensional, holistic approach that tries to integrate structures and actors, domestic and external forces, rather than single-mindedly focusing on certain aspects whilst downplaying other crucial elements.

That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 17:29:00 GMT

The subject of American decline and the new global order has been on the agenda of political scientists and international observers for more than two decades. Even before the end of the Cold War, in 1989 Paul Kennedy in his seminal book on The Rise and Fall of Great Powers pointed to “imperial overstretch” and the national debt caused by increasing military expenditures as the major causes of the US’s decline in the coming decade.1 The US victory in the Cold War and the fall of communism in the world somewhat postponed these concerns and Kennedy’s predictions were overshadowed by the moment of unipolarity in world politics, in which the United States enjoyed unchallengeable military and political dominance. However, starting from the late 1990s, concerns grew about the future of the United States’ dominance in world politics as the Chinese economy’s growth accelerated.

Incirlik Üssü: ABD’nin Üs Politikası ve Türkiye (Incirlik Military Base: Military Base Politics of the US and Turkey)

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 14:30:00 GMT

American military bases, long identified with US interests, have always been a controversial subject among scholars. A significant increase in the number of military bases possessed by the United States around the world following World War Two is striking to observe. Many different arguments have been developed to try to understand the dynamics and motives behind the establishment of such a great number of these bases, the most commonly held one is that these military bases serve the strategic and geopolitical interests of the United States. But don’t they also help expand the US’s sphere of ideological influence?

Iran-Turkey Relations, 1979-2011: Conceptualizing the Dynamics of Politics, Religion and Security in Middle-Power States

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 13:00:00 GMT

This book is the first comprehensive exploration of Iranian-Turkish relations since 1979. It attempts to clarify contemporary political historiography concerning two of the most important regions, first the Middle East, and second Central Asia and the Caucasus. The contribution of this study comes from the application of an ‘experimental-integrated model’ to develop a particular type of framework.

Toward an Islamic Movement: The Gülen Movement

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 14:25:00 GMT

Is it possible to fuse Islamic theology and political Islam with the discourses and practices of the Enlightenment? To what extent are Islam and democracy reconcilable in the current age of secularism? How does an Islamic social movement democratize and liberalize a predominantly Muslim country? How did a small piety-based movement in Turkey evolve into a transnational societal movement across the world, with the exception of the Islamic world? M. Hakan Yavuz deals with those questions through the examination of the Gülen Movement`s evolution in Turkey.

Spatial Conceptions of the Nation: Modernizing Geographies in Greece and Turkey

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 14:02:00 GMT

This volume edited by P. Nikiforos Diamandouros, Thalia Dragonas, and Çağlar Keyder is the third of a very interesting series, product of a trans-disciplinary dialogue among Greek and Turkish scholars on the intertwining histories of their respective nations. As the editors of the present volume put it, “the passage from the multiethnic Ottoman Empire to the contemporary nation-states and the nationalist discourses accompanying the process constituted the epicenter of both previous volumes and continues to dominate the present one.” The first volume edited by Faruk Birtek and Thalia Dragonas is entitled Citizenship and the nation-state in Greece and Turkey (London: Routledge, 2005), and the second, edited by Anna Frangoudaki and Çağlar Keyder is entitled Ways to Modernity in Greece and Turkey: encounters with Europe, 1850-1950 (London: I.B. Tauris, 2007).

Türkiye’de Militarist Devlet Söylemi (Militarist State Discourse in Turkey)

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 14:13:00 GMT

Ali Balcı’s Militarist State Discourse in Turkey is an adaption of the second chapter of his PhD thesis that surveyed the period between 1960 and 1983 in Turkey, which witnessed three military coups in row. Following Michel Foucault’s understanding of discourse, Balcı analyzes the militarist discourse between 1960 and 1983 that thoroughly dominated the state discourse. The main argument of the study is that the militarist discourse dominated all spheres in Turkey, from the state apparatus to society and the economy, in this period of history. Although the book can be read as part of the growing critical literature on civil-military relations in today’s Turkey, it differs from other studies by situating the dominant militaristic discourse within a specific period.

Knowledge in Later Islamic Philosophy: Mulla Sadra on Existence, Intellect, and Intuition

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 14:37:00 GMT

Kalin’s book is a result of a growing interest in the later developments in Islamic philosophy and it is a culmination of scholarship in this area. For a long time interest in Islamic philosophy has focused mainly on early periods, acknowledging Ibn Rushd as the last great Muslim philosopher. However, more and more studies have come out discovering later developments in Islamic philosophy, either by focusing on the later developments in the Shiite world or on the Ottoman scholars who worked out a kind of synthesis of falasifa, kalam and sufi positions. Among the body of literature devoted to exploring later developments in Islamic philosophy, studies on Mulla Sadra perhaps outnumbers studies focusing on any other philosopher.

Terror and Tolerance: A Review of Leaving Without Losing: The War on Terror After Iraq and Afghanistan

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 14:41:00 GMT

Americans are in the middle of an election season, and even though American democracy is imperfect, there is little doubt about the importance democracy has in American political culture, a unique culture because it is not based on race, culture, ethnic or religious status. American political culture or the American nation is based on three pillars that have been codified by historical documents and laws: popular sovereignty, the rule of law, and tolerance. Although America has a diverse population, the ideals of the American nation and the structure of the sovereign state are compatible.

After Yugoslavia: Identities and Politics Within the Successor States

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 15:38:00 GMT

Yugoslavia was established after World War I as the Serbian-Croatian-Slovenian Kingdom. Although the name of the newly-founded state bore the names of Croatians and Slovenians, the administration until World War II remained primarily under Serbian rule. Even the change of the country's name in 1929 to Yugoslavia (the Land of the Southern Slavs) did not mean that Serbian rule had ended. The country was invaded by the Axis powers in World War II. During those years, the pro-Axis Ustasa Croatian state was formed in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia.

A Mirror for Our Times: “The Rushdie Affair” and the Future of Multiculturalism

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 15:44:00 GMT

“The Rushdie Affair” that began in 1989 with the publication of Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses, the “Book Burning in Bradford” that came soon afterwards, and the now infamous fatwa declared by the late Ayatollah Khomeini still have important implications for discussions of religion, culture, identity, faith and the nature of diverse societies today as it did then.

Nationalism, Ethnicity, Citizenship: Multidisciplinary Perspectives

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 15:35:00 GMT

This book originated from the second annual conference held by the Centre for Research, Ethnicity and Multiculturalism at the University of Surrey. The preface informs readers that it is “based on a selection of the keynote addresses presented” at this event, which suggests that the conference must have involved many keynotes (nine are published here) and numerous other papers.