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Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14288/3
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Publication Metadata only Migration aspirations in relation to border closures, employment opportunities and risk-taking attitudes: lessons from an online survey experiment(Routledge Journals; Taylor and Francis, 2024) Elçi, Ezgi; Department of International Relations; Önay, Ayşen Ezgi Üstübici; Department of International Relations; College of Administrative Sciences and Economics; Graduate School of Social Sciences and HumanitiesThis article investigates the effect of structural and individual factors on migration aspirations in a secondary migration context. Through an online survey experiment conducted with Syrian migrants (N = 551) living in Turkey, we unpack factors explaining aspirations to stay and move onward from the current country of residence. The findings indicate that open borders alone do not compel migrants to move onward. Instead, employment opportunities in their current residence play a crucial role in shaping aspirations to stay put. Moreover, individuals inclined to take risks are more likely to migrate, even when strict border controls are in place. By highlighting the question of what motivates migrants to stay as well as to move onward, this research emphasizes individual differences in forming migration aspirations and contributes to migration aspirations literature in the secondary migration context.Publication Metadata only Avoiding fallout from terrorist attacks: the role of local politics and governments(SAGE Publications Ltd, 2024) Kemahlıoğlu, Özge; Kural, Ece; Department of International Relations; Bayer, Reşat; Erol, Emine Arı; Department of International Relations; College of Administrative Sciences and EconomicsEven though violent attacks resulting in civilian fatalities can be seen as constituting failure on the part of the incumbent party to provide security to citizens, governments are not always punished electorally. Rather, at times, they appear to gain votes following terrorist attacks. Here we argue that political parties that can take advantage of their local presence to frame and communicate their narrative in response to terrorism, can better manage to avoid blame and even to emerge victorious in times of violent conflict. The AKP in Turkey is one such important example. Our statistical analyses of municipality-level aggregate election results show that the party not only maintained national incumbency, but even strengthened its predominance in the political system in the face of growing security threats. In municipalities where AKP controlled the local government and hence municipal resources, the party did not lose votes following terrorist attacks. This finding remains even when we consider past voting, regional variations, competitive districts, and ethnicity. Our argument that incumbents can avoid punishment through their capacity to reach out to voters at the local level is also supported by individual-level survey data and the comparison with neighboring municipalities. As such, we highlight how local government control can be consequential for national politics, including periods when security dominates the national agenda.Publication Metadata only Not so innocent clerics, monarchs, and the ethnoreligious cleansing of Western Europe(MIT Press Journals, 2024) Department of International Relations; Aktürk, Şener; Department of International Relations; College of Administrative Sciences and EconomicsSizeable Jewish and Muslim communities lived across large swathes of medieval Western Europe. But all the Muslim communities and almost all the Jewish communities in polities that correspond to present-day England, France, Hungary, Italy, Portugal, and Spain were eradicated between 1064 and 1526. Most studies of ethnoreligious violence in Europe focus on communal, regional, and national political dynamics to explain its outbreak and variation. Recent scholarship shows how the Catholic Church in medieval Europe contributed to the long-term political development and the “rise of the West.” But the Church was also responsible for eradicating non-Christian minorities. Three factors explain ethnoreligious cleansing of non-Christians in medieval Western Europe: (1) the papacy as a supranational religious authority with increasing powers; (2) the dehumanization of non-Christians and their classification as monarchical property; and (3) fierce geopolitical competition among Catholic Western European monarchs that made them particularly vulnerable to papal-clerical demands to eradicate non-Christians. The extant scholarship maintains that ethnoreligious cleansing is a modern phenomenon that is often committed by nationalist actors for secular purposes. In contrast, a novel explanation highlights the central role that the supranational hierocratic actors played in ethnoreligious cleansing. These findings also contribute to understanding recent and current ethnic cleansing in places like Cambodia, Iraq, Myanmar, the Soviet Union, and Syria.Publication Metadata only Democracy and vulnerability: an exploitation theory of democracies by terrorists(Sage, 2014) Department of International Relations; Akça, Belgin San; Faculty Member; Department of International Relations; College of Administrative Sciences and Economics; 107754The research on the influence of democracy on terrorism renders support for two causal mechanisms. One is that democracy reduces terrorism because it creates an environment in which dissenters can pursue their interests through peaceful means. The other argument states that democracy encourages terrorism due to the intrinsic liberties and freedoms that provide an opportunity for terrorists to easily organize, recruit, and mount operations. This article contributes to this second line of thought by framing support for rebel groups as one of the contexts in which democracy's influence on terrorism is examined. I identify a theoretical mechanism about how democratic states unknowingly facilitate terrorism by letting terrorists freely stay within their borders, raise funds, smuggle arms, and operate offices. The empirical findings provide support for the hypothesis that democracies are vulnerable and can easily be exploited by terrorists since they have an environment conducive to terrorist activities.Publication Metadata only Expertise at the intersection of technicality and ambiguity: international governance of gender and development(Routledge Journals, Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2022) Department of International Relations; Olcay, Özlem Altan; Faculty Member; Department of International Relations; College of Administrative Sciences and Economics; 104197This paper studies processes of expert authorisation in international institutions of governance. Based on interviews with gender experts, it focuses on discourses of women's empowerment to reveal two strategies that experts deploy: the production of technical frames and indicators for capturing empowerment while also generating ambiguity about its meaning. I argue that technicalisation and mystification are expert strategies used to navigate organisational priorities and diverse political convictions. I propose that we need to analyse expert knowledge production not just as the cause of depoliticisation of policy problems, but also as part of other institutional processes within which expertise has to be authorised. The ongoing nature of such contestations and negotiations bears on who is acknowledged as an expert and the extent of their authority. The problem is not always expert authority but rather its dependence on political processes devised by actors who retain power by remaining behind the scenes.