Search results
9 Dimitris Tsarouhas Turkey: identity politics and reticent Europeanisation Turkey constitutes a particularly challenging case with regard to Europeanisation studies as well as the importance of identity politics in its relations to the European Union (EU). While Turkey can certainly count itself among Europe’s neighbours, it is also much more than that. A candidate country with EU aspirations, an emerging economy comprising a mostly young and increasingly better educated population, Turkey’s cultural diversity and regional importance make it a particularly
Turkey’s Europeanisation saga, which began in 1959 and climaxed in 2005 with the opening of membership negotiations with the European Union (EU), presents a unique opportunity to understand how interstate actors negotiate their interests; what ‘common interests’ look like from their historically and culturally contingent perspectives; and what happens when actors work for their private, professional, public, personal or institutional interests, even when those interests may go against their mandate. Honing in on the role of diplomats and lobbyists during negotiations for Turkey’s contentious EU membership bid, this book presents intricate, backstage conflicts of power and interests and negotiations of compromises, which drove this candidate country both closer to and farther from the EU. The reader will find in the book the everyday actors and agents of Turkish Europeanisation and learn what their work entails, which interests they represent and how they do what they do. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in Brussels, the book argues that public, private and corporate actors, voicing economic, political and bureaucratic interests from all corners of Europe, sought access to markets and polities through the Turkish bid instead of pursuing their mandate of facilitating Turkey’s EU accession. Although limited progress was achieved in Turkey’s actual EU integration, diplomats and lobbyists from both sides of the negotiating table contradictorily affirmed their expertise as effective negotiators, seeking more status and power. This is the first book-length account of the EU–Turkey power-interest negotiations in situ, from the perspective of its long-term actors and agents.
Turkish facing east is about the importance of Turkey’s relations with its Eastern neighbours – Azerbaijan, Armenia and the Soviet Union - during the emergence of the modern Turkish nation-state from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire. The originality of Turkey facing east lies in part in its theoretically informed analysis of history exploring the causal links between the construction of a modern nation-state, secular identity and nationalised foreign policy during the transition from an Islamic Empire to a modern state. The role of the Islamic legacy, territorial unity and national identity construction are re-examined in order to understand the complexity of a long historical and sociological process. Hence, the principal strength of this book is that not only it combines historical and theoretical arguments in order to provide a better understanding of the foreign relations of a Muslim country from a critical and interdisciplinary perspective but also applies the new approach to the analysis of Turkish foreign policy towards the South Caucasus between 1918 and 1921. Turkey facing east stands out with its original interdisciplinary approach to the critical analysis of Turkish transition and foreign policy making that offers perspectives on the extant possibilities for the particular transitional states resulting from the Arab spring uprisings.
Introduction Turkey’s future relationship to the EU will have a significant impact on both the role Turkey plays in Europe’s future security architecture and on Europe’s security agenda. Yet, and notwithstanding the October 2005 decision by the EU to commence accession negotiations with Turkey, full Turkish membership is not a foregone conclusion, at least within the
2013 [1924]) Introduction “Are you a Turk?” is a phrase a person could hear in Russia if their interlocutor thought that they could not understand something. It is, of course, supposed to be an insult. Just like in Europe ( Bisaha 2006 ), Russian literary giants framed Turkey in a similar orientalist way ( Kasumov & Janly
Introduction In the aftermath of the Arab Uprisings of 2011, Turkey and Qatar were accused of supporting radical Islamist groups. In the words of former US National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster, ‘Turkey and Qatar are the New Sponsors of Radical Ideologies’. 1 Scholars documented the two allied countries’ foreign policy of recruiting international mercenary jihadists from Tunisia, Europe, and even the United States (US) to fight in Syria and Libya
Part III looks at nursing services which doctors directed successfully in two British civilian hospitals, one British naval hospital, and the Russian army. In the Ottoman army there appears to have been no effort to organize a nursing service. What little nursing was done was carried out by doctors and untrained orderlies. A recent book in both Turkish and English, Sa lik Ordusu/The Medical Forces , indicates that modern trained nursing in Turkey did not begin until the twentieth century. 1 Interestingly, the book begins with a brief
Turkey's involvement in the Gulf War in 1991 paved the way for the country's acceptance into the European Union. This book traces that process, and in the first part looks at Turkey's foreign policy in the 1990s, considering the ability of the country to withstand the repercussions of the fall of communism. It focuses on Turkey's achievement in halting and minimising the effects of the temporary devaluation in its strategic importance that resulted from the waning of the Cold War and the disintegration of the Soviet Union; the skilful way in which Turkey avoided becoming embroiled in the ethnic upheavals in Central Asia, the Balkans and the Middle East; and the development of a continued policy of closer integration into the European and western worlds. Internal politics are the focus of the second part of the book, addressing the curbing of the Kurdish revolt, the economic gains made and the strengthening of civil society. The book goes on to analyse the prospects for Turkey in the twenty-first century, in the light of the possible integration into Europe, which may leave the country's leadership free to deal effectively with domestic issues.
Talking Turkey Since NATO’s inception, there has been a tension in the alliance as to what is necessary to provide for the common defense and what is required to translate the implicitly shared values of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law into national policies. This tension was illustrated early on when, due to the strategic importance of the Azores for US military access to Europe, Portugal was admitted to the alliance despite its autocratic dictatorship, later overturned by the massive Carnation Revolution. At various times since 1949
The question of Turkey’s relationship to Europe’s security community is, in one sense, a seemingly superfluous one; the country has, after all, been a member of NATO for decades. Yet in a post-Cold War Europe where security community and European security governance are increasingly linked to the EU as much as the Alliance, the question has seemed more and more pertinent