Insight Turkey / issues

Editor's Note | Fall 2018

Fri, 07 Dec 2018 16:30:42 GMT

This issue of Insight Turkey comes with a different format and brings to its readers two different topics that require special attention when we consider the latest regional and global affairs. The planned topic was Central Asia; however, the early presidential and parliamentarian elections in Turkey led us to cover a second topic in the issue. First, the current issue focuses on a forgotten but very important region of Central Asia. The second section of the journal comprises commentaries and articles on the latest elections in Turkey, how to understand them and what could be the future of the presidential system.

Uzbekistan as a Gateway for Turkey’s Return to Central Asia

Mon, 01 Oct 2018 15:25:00 GMT

After two decades of downhill diplomacy, Turkey and Uzbekistan have pledged to deepen bilateral ties in years to come. Given its geopolitical importance, Uzbekistan can help Turkey’s reintegration with the Turkic world. Thus, Ankara’s relationship with Tashkent constitutes one of the backbones of its long-anticipated opening up to Central Asia. In this vein, Turkey’s cooperation with Uzbekistan in the new era seems indispensable for the sake of its interests and influences in the region. A full-fledged Turkish-Uzbek partnership from now can be materialized through a decisive political will of both sides and gradual institutional changes in their foreign policies.

The June 24 Elections: On Political Change and the Future of Turkey

Mon, 01 Oct 2018 15:15:00 GMT

On June 24, 2018, two elections that determine Turkey’s future took place. By focusing on the political transformation that shaped the June 24 elections and produced its outcome, this commentary attempts to show the factors that led to the new system in Turkey, through historical and sociological processes. Furthermore, it attempts to discuss the future projection of Turkish politics in the light of the election results.

Turkey’s Comeback to Central Asia

Mon, 01 Oct 2018 15:30:00 GMT

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Turkey emerged as an influential player in the Muslim and ethnically Turkic republics of Central Asia. Despite an unrealistic initial policy approach aimed at creating a wide-spanning Turkic union, Turkey reoriented its foreign policy toward the region and since the mid-1990s has relied on a sophisticated combination of bilateral engagement, multilateral institutions, economic linkages, and soft power vis-à-vis Central Asia. The recent thaw in Turkish-Uzbekistan relations offers new opportunities for cooperation, while Central Asia as a whole is likely to gain importance in Turkish foreign policy against the backdrop of Turkey’s deteriorating relations with traditional Western allies.

The Silk Road between a Rock and a Hard Place: Russian and Chinese Competition for Central Asia’s Energy

Mon, 01 Oct 2018 15:20:00 GMT

China’s displacement of Russian economic influence in Central Asia is generating great interest in Western academic and policy circles, but this research has, as yet, yielded few analytical nuances. This article attempts to shed light on the under-researched question of what explains Central Asian governments’ failure to more effectively capitalize on the growing Central Asian rivalry between Russia, China, the United States, Turkey, Iran, South Korea, Japan, and other regional powers that, since the early 1990s, has been overwhelmingly directed towards strategic energy considerations and hydrocarbon interests.

The Nature of the Libyan Crisis and Forthcoming Election

Mon, 01 Oct 2018 15:10:00 GMT

Libya, which ended the 42-year rule of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, has been dragged into another crisis. This study addresses the situation, by taking local and regional dynamics into consideration and assesses the election and constitutional debates. It claims that the main dynamics of the Libyan crisis are the power struggles in the Arab World and efforts to solve the crisis have failed due to external interventions under the leadership of the United Arab Emirates. The research was based on reports in the local and international press, policy papers and interviews with Libyan actors.

Chinese Institutional Diplomacy toward Kazakhstan: The SCO and the New Silk Road Initiative

Mon, 01 Oct 2018 15:45:00 GMT

Today the established cooperation between China and Kazakhstan has reached the strategic partnership level. Also, the two neighboring countries are partners in the international large-scale projects as the SCO and the New Silk Road Initiative. This paper claims that these projects are mostly lead by China. Moreover, it is argued that the SCO is aimed to solve the security issues and the New Silk Road Initiative embodies the economic agenda of the bilateral relations. Kazakhstan’s role and position is significant due to different reasons, while the Kazakhstani public remains cautious about the Chinese activity in Kazakhstan. The two named mechanisms are eventually focused on economical and cultural leadership of China among the secured multilateral cooperation in the continent.

Applied Oriental Studies of Russia’s Own Islam: From Orthodox Missionaries to Militant Godless and Wahhabis

Mon, 01 Oct 2018 15:20:00 GMT

To date the research of Orientalism in Russia did not present the whole mosaic palette of its competing schools and disciplines. The influential missionary Orthodox Orientology remains understudied. Even less known is the contribution in the making of intolerant discourse on Islam by state atheist associations who seized its niche under the Soviet rule. This article attempts to integrate applied missionary and atheist schools of Oriental studies into the general debates on Orientalism in the 20th century Russia. The focus is on agents and networks of the Soviet propaganda, as well as on its changing language, topics and messages. A special attention is paid to continuities in the Orientalist imagination of Islam between pre-Soviet Orthodox missionaries, Soviet militant atheists, post-war philosophers and dissident Muslim preachers of the post-socialist Islamic appeal.

Reforming the Policymaking Process in Turkey’s New Presidential System

Mon, 01 Oct 2018 15:35:00 GMT

The system of government in Turkey shifted from a parliamentary to an intrinsic presidential system, in which the president solely employs the executive power granted from the constitution, after the elections held on June 24, 2018. Following the elections, the central government was reorganized in quite a short time. While the reorganization process will continue for a certain period, it seems that the main policymaking actors and their role in the new system have substantially emerged. This study provides a legal and institutional analysis of how the public policy process and the roles and responsibilities of policy actors changed as a result of the restructuring of Turkey’s central government under the new presidential system.

Kurdish Votes in the June 24, 2018 Elections: An Analysis of Electoral Results in Turkey’s Eastern Cities

Mon, 01 Oct 2018 15:30:00 GMT

This article analyzes the voting patterns in eastern Turkey for the June 24, 2018 elections and examines the cross-sectional and longitudinal variation in 24 eastern cities where Kurdish votes tend to matter significantly. Based on the regional and district level electoral data, the article has four major conclusions. Firstly, the AK Party and the HDP are still the two dominant parties in Turkey’s east. Secondly, HDP votes took a downward direction in the November 2015 elections in eastern Turkey after the peak results in the June 2015 elections, a trend which continued in the June 24 elections. Thirdly, the pre-electoral coalitions of other parties in the June 24 elections cost the HDP seats in the region. Finally, neither the Kurdish votes nor the eastern votes move in the form of a homogenous bloc but intra-Kurdish and intra-regional differences prevail.

UK Strategy in the Gulf and Middle East after American Retrenchment

Mon, 01 Oct 2018 15:25:34 GMT

This paper considers the impact of the possible relative decline of the U.S. and its engagement in the Middle East and the Gulf in particular. U.S. disengagement started under the Obama Administration and seems to be continuing under the Trump Administration. Applying theories of ‘rival hegemonic transition,’ possible post-American successors are identified. In particular, the UK’s intents, capabilities, and strategies as it returns to ‘east of Suez’ are examined, along with the geopolitical implications of such a return for the shifting balance of power in the Middle East.

Kazakhstan’s Multi-Vectorism and Sino-Russian Relations

Mon, 01 Oct 2018 15:55:00 GMT

Using the case of Sino-Russian competition over Central Asian energy and transportation networks, this study asks why Russia has refrained from confrontation with China, in spite of the competing interests of Moscow and Beijing in the region. Our contention is that Kazakhstan’s multi-vector foreign policy has mitigated Russia’s concerns regarding security, status, and power in Central Asia, in this way removing or attenuating issues that could exacerbate Sino-Russian tensions. The study examines the concrete strategies employed by the Kazakh government to withstand pressures to submit to the influence of dominant states and alleviate tensions in Sino-Russian relations while simultaneously promoting its own interests.

Kazakhstan’s Middle Power Response to Terrorism

Mon, 01 Oct 2018 15:50:00 GMT

Most studies define states as small, middle, or great in relation to the power of other states. However, how the capabilities of a particular category of state allow it to respond to challenges from armed non-state actors, has rarely been studied. This article focuses on the Republic of Kazakhstan to give empirical evidence of what patterned course of action middle states undertake to oppose terrorism. In addition, it explores the most prominent causes of Kazakhstan’s failure in the fight against armed non-state actors.

Change and Continuity in Turkey’s June 2018 Elections

Mon, 01 Oct 2018 15:40:00 GMT

In this paper, we first present a background to the watershed elections of 2018, describing the context preceding the elections. In order to explain the changes and continuities in the geographic patterns of the 2018 elections, we present ballot-box and district level data from 2018 and previous elections. We refer to long-term ideological/cultural differences as well as short-term evaluations about security and the economy in shaping the 2018 election results. Even in the face of various important developments, radical changes in the geographic voting patterns do not appear to have taken place. The incumbent AK Party and its leader, President Erdoğan, continued to have an electoral edge over competitors in regions that mostly overlap with those observed in earlier elections.

The Great War in the Middle East

Tue, 13 Nov 2018 17:24:00 GMT

Inspired by the centenary of World War I (WWI), a plethora of history books have been released recently. This article reviews four of the latest studies on the Middle Eastern theater of WWI. Accelerating the fall of the Ottoman Empire and paving the way for the state system

Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government

Tue, 13 Nov 2018 17:36:00 GMT

Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels delve into the meaning of the “folk theory of democracy” (p. 1) and whether it works effectively and efficiently in the United States on a practical level when it comes to elections reflecting Americans’ political preferences.

Understanding the Department of State

Tue, 13 Nov 2018 17:46:00 GMT

At the very beginning of the book, Understanding the Department of State, it is clearly stated that Don Philpott, the former editor of International Homeland Security Journal aims “to gather the information from as many sources as possible” to make his readers understand the Department of State (DoS), one of the most significant agencies of the United States

U.S. Assistance, Development, and Hierarchy in the Middle East: Aid for Allies

Tue, 13 Nov 2018 17:49:00 GMT

The effectiveness of foreign aid is heavily debated in international relations. Most often, critiques emphasize that aid driven by the geopolitical agenda of the donor country only strengthens the grip of the incumbent over the state. Anne Mariel Zimmerman does not contest this view; on the contrary, her work’s main theme revolves around the question, “what has U.S. assistance “bought” in the Middle East?”

US Foreign Policy in the Middle East: The Case for Continuity

Tue, 13 Nov 2018 17:52:00 GMT

In US Foreign Policy in the Middle East: The Case of Continuity, Bledar Prifti makes a case for the recurring pattern of offshore balancing as the preferred U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. In order to support this central argument, the author discusses the five American foreign policy doctrines: the Truman Doctrine, the Eisenhower Doctrine, the Nixon Doctrine, the Carter Doctrine, and the Reagan Doctrine

The Arab Spring Effect on Turkey’s Role, Decision-Making and Foreign Policy

Tue, 13 Nov 2018 17:56:00 GMT

Fadi Elhusseini, Senior Fellow at the Centre on Governance at the University of Ottawa, provides a much needed perspective for Turkish foreign policy’s transformation in the last decade, specifically in relation to the Arab Spring phenomenon.

The Arab Uprisings in Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia: Social, Political and Economic Transformations

Wed, 14 Nov 2018 17:31:00 GMT

One of the main debates that has surfaced in the post-Arab Uprisings era has centered on whether or not the demonstrations will lead to regime change or increased authoritarianism in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

The Caliphate at War: The Ideological, Organizational and Military Innovations of Islamic State

Wed, 14 Nov 2018 17:45:00 GMT

The main purpose of The Caliphate at War is to elucidate and explain the Islamic State in a comprehensive way.

The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Regionalism

Wed, 14 Nov 2018 17:50:00 GMT

The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Regionalism, edited by Tanja A. Börzel and Thomas Risse, starts with questioning the need for “another handbook” dedicated to comparative regionalism

East-West Migration in the European Union

Wed, 14 Nov 2018 17:57:00 GMT

Migration flows towards Europe, in other words, the migration crisis is a very delicate problem in Europe due to its important political, economic and social consequences for the future of the European countries.

The Visual Politics of Wars

Wed, 14 Nov 2018 18:03:00 GMT

In The Visual Politics of Wars, the contributors explore the concepts of journalism and mass media in a post-truth world and argue for the importance of examining media trends and understanding the large impact of media on public perception.