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Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14288/6
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Publication Open Access Turkey and the Arab revolutions: boundaries of regional power influence in a turbulent Middle East(Taylor _ Francis, 2014) Department of International Relations; Öniş, Ziya; Faculty Member; Department of International Relations; College of Administrative Sciences and Economics; 7715The recent Turkish involvement in the Middle East constitutes an important test case for establishing the boundaries of regional power influence in a changing global context. The AKP government in Turkey has become a major supporter of political change and democratization in the era of the Arab revolutions. Accumulating empirical evidence suggests, however, that the highly assertive and pro-active foreign policy of the AKP government in recent years has not been effective in terms of facilitating reform or regime change in Syria or helping to influence the direction of political change in Egypt towards a durable pluralistic order. Indeed, the policy might have been counter-productive in terms of undermining Turkey's image of a benign regional power, by drawing it to sectarian conflicts and over-engagement in the domestic politics of key Arab states. Turkey has the potential to play an important role model in the highly uncertain world of the Arab revolutions. Its ability to perform this role, however, requires an improvement in its own democratic credentials, rather than being excessively involved in the domestic politics of individual states.Publication Open Access Contentious welfare: the Kurdish conflict and social policy as counterinsurgency in Turkey(Wiley, 2020) Department of Sociology; Yörük, Erdem; Yoltar, Çağrı; Faculty Member; Researcher; Department of Sociology; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 28982; N/AThe period since the 1990s has witnessed the expanding political influence of the Kurdish movement across the country as well as a transformation in the welfare system, manifesting itself mainly in the emergence of extensive social assistance programs. While Turkish social assistance policy has been formally neutral regarding who is entitled to state aid, Kurds have been de facto singled out by these new welfare programs, as is shown by existing quantitative work. Based on a discourse analysis of legislation, parliamentary proceedings, and news media, this article examines the ways in which Turkish governments and policymakers consider the Kurdish question in designing welfare policies. We illustrate that Kurdish mobilization has become a central theme that informed the transformation of Turkish welfare system over the past three decades.Publication Open Access Turkey-US relations in an age of regional and global turmoil: challenges and prospects introduction(Routledge, 2013) Department of International Relations; Öniş, Ziya; Yılmaz, Şuhnaz Özbağcı; Faculty Member; Department of International Relations; College of Administrative Sciences and Economics; 7715; 46805Publication Open Access Global shifts and the limits of the EU's transformative power in the European periphery: comparative perspectives from Hungary and Turkey(Cambridge University Press (CUP), 2019) Kutlay, Mustafa; N/A; Öniş, Ziya; Faculty Member; College of Administrative Sciences and Economics; 7715This article highlights the weakening of the EU's transformative capacity in the broader European periphery in a rapidly shifting global order, with reference to Hungary and Turkey. Although Hungary is an 'insider' and Turkey a relative 'outsider', their recent experiences display strikingly similar patterns, raising important concerns about the EU's leverage. Under the influence of strong nationalist-populist leaders backed by powerful majorities, both countries have been moving in an increasingly illiberal direction, away from well-established EU norms. The article proposes an analytical framework based on a combination of push and pull factors that are driven by changing global political economy dynamics, which explains the EU's declining appeal in its periphery, not only in reference to the internal dynamics of European integration and its multiple crises, but also the appeal of illiberal versions of strategic capitalism employed by rising powers, which serve as reference points for the elites of several states in diverse geographic settings.Publication Open Access The triumph of conservative globalism: the political economy of the AKP era(Taylor _ Francis, 2012) Department of International Relations; Öniş, Ziya; Faculty Member; Department of International Relations; College of Administrative Sciences and Economics; 7715The Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi (AKP), following its third successive electoral victory appears to be far more entrenched than its earlier center-right counterparts in Turkish politics. This article highlights the key political economy fundamentals that have rendered the AKP experience unique within the Turkish context. Accordingly, strong economic performance in context of ""regulatory neo-liberalism"" helped by a favorable global liquidity environment in the early parts of the decade was a key contributor to the party's continued electoral success. The party also made effective use of a variety of formal and informal redistributive mechanisms, which is referred as ""controlled neo-populism"" in this article, to enlarge its electoral coalition. Furthermore, the fact that Turkey did not suffer a typical old-style economic crisis in the context of the global turmoil of 2008-2009 was important for the AKP's electoral fortunes. Concomitantly, the AKP government was quite effective in managing the global financial crisis politically and it took advantage of its assertive ""new"" foreign policy approach. Finally, this study argues that the AKP also benefited from the fragmented opposition.Publication Open Access The politics of social assistance in South Africa: how protests and electoral politics shape the Child Support Grant(Wiley, 2021) Gençer, Alper Şükrü; Department of Sociology; Yörük, Erdem; Faculty Member; Department of Sociology; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 28982Since the 1990s, South Africa, like many other countries from the Global South, has provided extensive social assistance for the poor. The literature on these policies, however, is largely dominated by structuralist accounts, and it largely overlooks political factors. We conducted quantitative analyses regarding the South African flagship Child Support Grant (CSG) program and investigated how contentious and electoral political dynamics jointly shape the provision of this program. Based on a logistic regression analysis, we measured the effect of protest participation, voting preference, and their interaction on the likelihood of CSG receipt. Our analysis showed that CSG receipt is much higher among "uncontentious supporters" of ANC and "contentious nonsupporters," as well as those who join violent protests. This lends support for our argument that CSG is being used as a tool for electoral politics and containment of unrest, providing fresh evidence for political mediation theories of social policy.Publication Open Access Neo-Weberian historical sociology, the English School and differentiated integration in the EU(Taylor _ Francis, 2020) Department of International Relations; Ruacan, İpek Zeynep; Department of International Relations; College of Administrative Sciences and Economics; 238425This article explores the contributions of Neo-Weberian historical sociology of the state and the English School of International Relations theory to our understanding of differentiated integration in the European Union. In doing so, it turns to the English School concept of ‘radial empires’ to establish differentiation as a structural feature of all centralized entities in international society such as the European Union. It then turns to the concepts of ‘sociospatial networks of power’ and ‘despotic vs. infrastructural’ forms of state power from the Neo-Weberian literature to discuss why empires function radially. Subsequently, it links vertical differentiation to the interplay between sociospatial networks of power and horizontal differentiation to the interplay between despotic and infrastructural forms of state power in the member states of the European Union. Crucial insights for understanding differentiation can be gained from engagement with these concepts not least for understanding Brexit which links with the United Kingdom’s particularly high infrastructural power.