International Relations
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Book ChapterPublication Metadata only Turkey and Russia: Historical patterns and contemporary trendsin bilateral relations(Oxford University Press, 2020-07-09) Paker, Evren Balta; Çelikpala, M.; International Relations; BALTA, EvrenTurkish-Russian relations have had a tumultuous history characterized by periods of tensions and conflicts but also intense cooperation. This chapter uses a theoretically guided narrative of Turkish-Russian relations to trace how different factors have combined to yield particular foreign policies and changing patterns of bilateral relations. It argues that despite periods of intense cooperation between the two countries, bilateral relations lack institutionalization and an ability to develop a stable and common perspective on regional and global matters. Consequently, the fate of bilateral relations depends on short-term definitions of the national interest and forces the two countries into a fragile cooperation vulnerable to sudden domestic and geopolitical shifts.ArticlePublication Open Access The strategic use of narratives and governance of the COVID-19 pandemic in major autocratisers in Europe(Taylor & Francis, 2024) Soyaltin-Colella, D.; Sert, Deniz Şenol; International Relations; SERT, DenizBy the end of 2022, scholars had published heavily on authoritarian consolidation at the time of COVID-19 and explored how governments adopted measures weakening democratic checks and balances yet strengthened their regimes during the COVID crisis. Yet, we do not know much about how political leaders narrated the pandemic in their domestic and foreign policy choices in a way that reinforces their power. By focusing on the major autocratisers in Europe (Hungary, Poland, Turkey, and Serbia) whose democracy scores have fallen the most over the last 10 years, we reveal a set of influential narratives identified in the discourses of state leaders and government representatives which were constructed around the governance of the COVID-19 pandemic. These narratives were utilized by political leaders to legitimize their repressive policies geared towards controlling the society, and to contest the European Union (EU) in particular and the liberal democratic order in general.EditorialPublication Metadata only Letter from the editors(Wiley, 2024-02) Icduygu, A.; Sert, Deniz Şenol; Rath, J.; Ustubici, A.; International Relations; SERT, DenizN/AArticlePublication Open Access Breaking the stalemate in the study of the relationship of mutual military buildups, arms races, and militarized disputes: The Greece-Turkey/Ottoman Empire cases(Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research İhsan Doğramacı Peace Foundation, 2023-04) Nioutsikos, I.; Travlos, Konstantinos; Daskalopoulou, M.; International Relations; TRAVLOS, KonstantinosThe most recent surveys on the study of the connection between mutual military buildups, arms races, and military interstate disputes (MID) warn of research projects, especially in the case of the Greece-Turkey dyad, that have reached a stalemate. This is due to the difficulty of capturing motivations, which constitute the main variable that turns mutual military buildups into arms races. Using the Greece-Ottoman Empire and Greece-Turkey dyads as proof-of-concept cases, we advance a novel approach for analyzing the interrelation between mutual military buildups, arms races, and MIDs that can overcome that stalemate. We suggest a two-stage approach that focuses on the dyad as a unit of analysis. In the first stage, which we preset here, we use rivalry to divide dyad history into periods of differing subsistence military spending. We then locate periods of mutual military buildups in the different rivalry periods of a dyad history. We argue that this process provides a more nuanced and detailed grasp on the presence of mutual military buildups in a dyad. It also provides the foundation for the future second stage of analysis, where qualitative research can focus on the specific periods of mutual military buildups to unearth indicators of motivation.ReviewPublication Metadata only Hailing the state: Indian democracy between elections(Taylor & Francis, 2023-12) Ghosh, Samarjit; International Relations; GHOSH, SamarjıtN/ABook ChapterPublication Metadata only The strategic logic of digital disinformation: Offence, defence and deterrence in information warfare(Taylor & Francis, 2023-01-01) Ünver, Hamid Akın; Ertan, A. S.; International Relations; Arcos, R.; Chiru, I.; Ivan, C.; ÜNVER, Hamid AkınWhy do countries engage in disinformation campaigns even though they know that they will likely be debunked later on? We explore a core puzzle in information warfare in which countries that pursue disinformation to confuse and demobilise their adversaries usually suffer from reputational penalties after they are debunked, yet they nonetheless continue to pursue such tactics. In order to explain this dilemma, we employ a formal model and walk through anarchy, pre-emption and cost miscalculation explanations of disinformation and demonstrate that countries may rationally engage in disinformation campaigns if they have a different calculus about reputational costs, if they believe their adversaries will not be able to debunk their claims successfully, and if those adversaries will not be able to disseminate their debunked claims well enough to incur reputational costs on the initiator. Ultimately, we suggest that deterrence in information warfare is attainable if the “defender” can signal its debunking and “naming-shaming” capacity prior to the disinformation campaign and if it can mobilise the support of the international audience against the attacker. We conclude by arguing that a country’s fact-checking ecosystem and its pre-existing perception within the mainstream international digital media environment are the strongest defences against disinformation.ArticlePublication Metadata only Democratization, state capacity and developmental correlates of international artificial intelligence trade(Taylor & Francis, 2023) Ünver, Hamid Akın; Ertan, A. S.; International Relations; ÜNVER, Hamid AkınDoes acquiring artificial intelligence (AI) technologies from the US or China render countries more authoritarian or technologically less advantageous? In this article, we explore to what extent importing AI/high-tech from the US and/or China goes parallel with importers’ (a) democratization or autocratization, (b) state capacity, and (c) technological progress across a decade (2010–2020). Our work demonstrates that not only are Chinese AI/high-tech exports not congruous with importers’ democratic backsliding, but autocratization attributed to Chinese AI is also visible in importers of US AI. In addition, for most indicators, we do not observe any significant effect of acquiring AI from the US or China on importers’ state capacity or technological progress across the same period. Instead, we find that the story has a global inequality dimension as Chinese exports are clustered around countries with a lower GDP per capita, whereas US high-technology exports are clustered around relatively wealthier states with slightly weaker capacity over territorial control. Overall, the article empirically demonstrates the limitations of some of the prevalent policy discourses surrounding the global diffusion of AI and its contribution to democratization, state capacity, and technological development of importer nations.ArticlePublication Open Access The composition of descriptive representation(Cambridge University Press, 2023) Gerring, J.; Jerzak, C. T.; Öncel, Erzen; International Relations; YÜKLEYEN, Erzen ÖncelHow well do governments represent the societies they serve? A key aspect of this question concerns the extent to which leaders reflect the demographic features of the population they represent. To address this important issue in a systematic manner, we propose a unified approach for measuring descriptive representation. We apply this approach to newly collected data describing the ethnic, linguistic, religious, and gender identities of over fifty thousand leaders serving in 1,552 political bodies across 156 countries. Strikingly, no country represents social groups in rough proportion to their share of the population. To explain this shortfall, we focus on compositional factors - the size of political bodies as well as the number and relative size of social groups. We investigate these factors using a simple model based on random sampling and the original data described above. Our analyses demonstrate that roughly half of the variability in descriptive representation is attributable to compositional factors.ArticlePublication Metadata only A critical analysis of the neoliberal state-building in Bosnia and Herzegovina: The gap between aims and achievements(Corvinus University of Budapest, 2023) Özoflu, Melek Aylin; Besgul, B.Despite the long years of the political, economic, and military presence of the international community, with its remarkable amount of aid, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) still suffers from political instability, a lack of economic growth, and high rates of unemployment. The Dayton Peace Accords (DPA), which were signed in 1995 to end the violent war that involved ethnic cleansing and caused unforgettable humanitarian and economic loss, set up highly decentralized state institutions within a divided society. The DPA’s vision was based on the neoliberal agenda and strongly emphasized the belief that ethnic harmony and sustainable peace would be achieved only through a reconstruction program involving neoliberal policies. Against the backdrop of this vision, the absence of intergroup cohesion among distinct ethnic collective identities remains a puzzle in the neoliberal state-building agenda of the international community. By highlighting the limitations of state-building as applied to its implementation in BiH, this research aims to plausibly specify the root causes of why state-building initiatives remain ill-equipped to create a higher-level shared collective identity in BiH. To this end, it will critically discuss the (in)effectiveness of the Dayton recipe for BiH for building a functional and sovereign state along with the aforementioned higher-level shared collective identity.ArticlePublication Metadata only The populist framing of the Russia-Ukraine war by the Hungarian government: convergence or contestation in the EU(Taylor & Francis, 2023) Özoflu, Melek Aylin; Arató, K.This study examines how the Hungarian government frames the Russia-Ukraine War within the context of its relations with the European Union (EU) using discourse historical strand of critical discourse analysis (CDA). This study will also answer how the Hungarian government presents its own policy choices as if the will of the people in its dealings with the EU. The study will conduct an extensive qualitative frame analysis of political discourses produced by Hungarian government officials. Through this analysis, the current study contributes to the literature empirically and advances the debates revolving around crises leading to contestation between the EU and its member states. The performed analysis demonstrates that the war is communicated mainly through the ‘Hungarian (government) lenses’ of national security concerns and national economic interests, both constructed upon nationalist sentiments coupled with populist overtones, leading Hungary to contest the EU’s decisions and norms.ArticlePublication Metadata only Sources of ai innovation: More than a U.S.-China rivalry(Transatlantic Policy Quarterly, 2023) Ünver, Hamid Akın; Feldstein, S.; International Relations; ÜNVER, Hamid AkınMany experts frame the debates around AI technology as a great power rivalry between the U.S. and China. Indeed, by most measures, the United States and China lead the world in AI innovation. Yet focusing solely on the United States and China elides global AI adoption dynamics and yields an incomplete picture about how and why countries acquire certain emerging technologies. While the U.S. and China undoubtedly matter when it comes to fostering AI innovation, cultivating AI talent, generating technology exports to emerging markets, and advancing AI global standard-setting, a diverse range of countries also exert significant influence on AI acquisition and adoption trends.ArticlePublication Open Access Collective discussion: Movement and carceral spatiality in the pandemic(Oxford University Press, 2023-07-04) Shindo, R.; Altan-Olcay, Ö.; Paker, Evren Balta; Van Houtum, H.; Van Uden, A.; Rajaram, P. K.; Coward, M.; Pellander, S.; Huysmans, J.; International Relations; BALTA, EvrenVarious measures of mobility restrictions were introduced since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. This collective discussion examines them in relation to six different carceral techniques that govern movement: citizenship, nativism, colonialism, infrastructure, gender, and borders. We investigate how these spatializing techniques of carcerality have been modified and strengthened in the pandemic and their implications for how we conceptualize migration. Our conversation revolves around the relationality between movement and confinement to argue that they are not in opposition but work in tandem: Their meanings become interchangeable, and their relationship is reconfigured. In this collective discussion, we are interested in how to analyze movement/migration in ways that do not define the pandemic through temporal boundaries to mark its beginning and ending.ArticlePublication Metadata only Debating voter defection in Turkey(Taylor & Francis, 2023-10-20) Paker, Evren Balta; Demiralp, S.; Demiralp, S.; International Relations; BALTA, EvrenThis study examines patterns of voter defection from Turkey’s incumbent AKP amid major economic and democratic decline. As in other electoral autocracies, defectors constitute a small but politically significant group in Turkey, where the opposition’s ability to secure a transition from authoritarianism depends on reducing the incumbent’s vote share. Based on survey data gathered in November 2021 and February 2022, we find that while the high level of partizanship among AKP voters hinders defection, persistent economic and democratic decline still reduces incumbent support. We also found that defections are higher outside of the lowest income group. Our findings have important implications for opposition strategies in electoral autocracies. Directing public debate away from identity issues to economic and democratic problems increases the likelihood of defection. In addition, offering voters clear superior alternatives decreases the cost of uncertainty that comes with change and increases the likelihood of defection.EditorialPublication Metadata only Letter from the editors(Wiley, 2023-02-20) İçduygu, A.; Rath, J.; Sert, Deniz Şenol; Üstübici, A.; International Relations; SERT, DenizN/AArticlePublication Open Access (Non-)deport to discipline: The daily life of Afghans in Turkey(Oxford University Press, 2023-10-31) Karadağ, S.; Sert, Deniz Şenol; International Relations; SERT, DenizThis study contributes to discussions on the politics of (non-)deportability by focusing on the case of Afghans, the largest migrant community without a right to protection in Turkey, itself the country hosting the most refugees. This article examines how the politics of (non-)deportation is shaped and practiced for Afghans and the types of everyday strategies they employ to deal with deportability. We first argue that the politics of deportation in Turkey is predominantly shaped by the needs of the informal labour market, which accounts for one-third of the total labour force. Our findings suggest that forced labour and the hypermobility of Afghans is both tolerated and hidden by the state, while Afghans' fear of deportability operates as a disciplining apparatus. Second, we argue that, when spectacles of deportation are performed, three crucial factors help Afghans avoid deportation, namely their qawm-based (ethnic or kinship) background, the involvement of Afghan associations, and street-level negotiations with the authorities.ArticlePublication Metadata only Populist radical right beyond Europe: The case of Islamic nativism in Turkey(John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2023-06-16) Paker, Evren Balta; International Relations; BALTA, EvrenTurkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) is one of the longest ruling among contemporary populist radical right parties (PRR). For nearly two decades, the AKP has shown tremendous success in achieving electoral dominance and political control. This article argues that AKP’s success lies in its ability to reconfigure the issue salience in Turkish politics by bringing the secular-conservative cleavage into the center of political competition. However, as this article shows, while the government’s framing of conservative/religious values was initially populist, as the Party consolidated its power, populism became secondary to nativism. This nativist turn is characterized by an emphasis on the foreignness of “the elites” and is shaped by secularization of the public sphere and antiwesternism. Overall, AKP has not presented a fundamental opposition to the “establishment” but brought together many components of Turkey’s institutional and cultural structure and radicalized patterns already present in earlier eras.ArticlePublication Metadata only Spatial reason of the state: the role of space in protest repression in Turkey(Taylor & Francis, 2023) Arslanalp, M.; Erkmen, Tülay Deniz; International Relations; ERKMEN, Tülay DenizBetween 2007 and 2019 the Turkish regime used protest bans extensively in order to impede collective mobilization. In this paper, drawing on Michel Foucault’s discussion of raisond’état and an original dataset of protest bans, we examine these legal practices as part of the state’s repertoire of protest repression. We point to two limits against the indefinite extension of state regulation that Foucault identifies: an external limit posed by public law and regime of rights, and an internal limit that questions the effectiveness of ‘too much’ government. We argue that authorities use spatial control as a technology to negotiate these two limits. Specifically, authorities deploy the state’s prerogative of regulating public space as a ‘politically neutral’ legal technology to reconcile the banning of protests with the external limit posed by freedom of assembly. Spatial control also works as an effective form of government to negotiate the internal limits of raisond’état. We use illustrative examples to unpack the mechanisms of how spatial technologies neutralize protests to bolster an authoritarian regime. The study contributes to empirical research on protest repression as well as theoretical discussions on the rationalities of government by expanding the geographical scope of existing research to an autocratizing context.ArticlePublication Metadata only Rationalising pedagogy: what counts as skill across musical communities of practice in contemporary Istanbul(Taylor & Francis, 2022-06-22) Şenay, B.; Gür, Faik; International Relations; GÜR, FaikOver the last two decades, the skilled practice of learning the ney (Sufi reed flute) has gone through a massive revival in Turkey, as part of a broader interest in the revitalised ‘Sufi music’ genre and in Islamic arts learning. One key step in this process has been the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government’s incorporation of ney teaching into mass public education through its council-run adult education programme (İSMEK). While this development has been pivotal in broadening access to skill attainment in the metropolitan area of Istanbul in significant ways, it has also led to a rationalisation of pedagogical practices, bringing with it transformed understandings of musical skill. To show what this process of rationalisation involves, this article examines skill training encouraged at government-sponsored lesson sites in tandem with a second mode of learning the ney grounded in apprenticeship pedagogy. The divergences emerging from this comparison reveal two very different paths to becoming an expert ney player, demonstrating, in turn, how pedagogical particularities foster different communities of practice.EditorialPublication Metadata only Double displacement of refugees in the context of the 2023 Turkey-Syria earthquake(Wiley, 2023-08) Sevinin, E.; Danış, D.; Sert, Deniz Şenol; International Relations; SERT, DenizThis commentary is based on our observations during our fieldwork in the earthquake region in Turkey that took place in February 6, 2023 in 11 provinces where 49% of the entire Syrian population in Turkey live. In this commentary, we focus on the case of Syrians, who have been subject to what we call double displacement. Syrian refugees who were already displaced due to the war and faced with many problems in establishing a new life in Turkey once again lost their homes and livelihoods due to the earthquake, exposing them to increased risks and vulnerability.ArticlePublication Metadata only Populist attitudes and challenges towards liberal democracy: An empirical assessment of the Turkish case(Sage, 2023-11) Çarkoğlu, A.; Elçi, Ezgi; International Relations; ELÇİ, EzgiThe rise of populism presents a challenge to liberal democracy in various countries. This article questions how populist attitudes affect the democratic preferences of the electorate. Using representative survey data fielded from Turkey in 2019, we first tested the effect of populist attitudes on illiberal democratic attitudes. The results show the negative impact of populism on support for illiberal democratic attitudes. Next, we analyzed which dimension of populism correlates with illiberal democratic preferences. Our results pointed to the negative influence of the Manichean outlook on preferences concerning democracy. Contrary to expectations, as anti-elitist and people-centric attitudes increase, support for illiberal democracy decreases. Hence, the relative emphasis on different dimensions of populism is likely to shape the net balance of its influence on democracy. Electoral alliance preferences also shape democracy preferences. The ruling People’s Alliance voters are more supportive of illiberal democracy than the opposition blocs and parties.