Home is Where You Make it? Gender and Ahmet Davutoğlu’s Strategic Vision in the Middle East

The Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) policymakers have aimed to position Turkey as the leader of the Middle East by assessing its soft power since they came to power. Drawing on Strategic Depth of Ahmet Davuto?lu, Prime Minister of Turkey, this article attempts to offer a critical constructivist, postcolonial and feminist analysis of Turkey’s recent foreign policy discourse in the region by showing how the myth of leadership is constitutive, and is constituted by Davuto?lu’s discourses on women/femininities and men/masculinities. The leadership is imagined by localising Enlightenment notions of masculinity through a re-reading of local traditions, namely Ottoman history and Islam. In doing so, Strategic Depth aims to feminise Turkey’s imagery without necessarily putting it out of the masculinity continuum. As such, Turkey mimics the West but differs from it so as to perpetuate a good masculinity over the people of the Middle East. Implicit in such an imagery, the text distinguishes itself from the competing self-perceptions (and masculinities) in the country, namely the Kemalist one. I further argue that this imagery underlies the recent hypermasculinisation of politics within and beyond the country when political elites feel threatened in the face of political crises.     

A Return to ‘Civilisational Geopolitics’ in the Mediterranean? Changing Geopolitical Images of the European Union and Turkey in the Post-Cold War Era

The prevalence of the discourse of ideological geopolitics during the Cold War meant that both Turkey and the EU belonged to the West by virtue of their ideological orientation. In the absence of this prevalent geopolitical discourse, both the EU and Turkey have spent the 1990s trying to locate themselves geographically. Drawing on the literature on critical approaches to political geography and international relations, this article seeks to answer the question of whether the EU's post-Cold War security discourse on the Mediterranean in general and on relations with Turkey in particular point to a return to the earlier discourse of civilisational geopolitics. The article also presents a reading of Turkish policy makers’ attempts to resist EU's representation of Turkey in ‘non-Europe’ (as with the ‘Middle East’ or the ‘Mediterranean’) as boundary-producing practices which have served to underline the boundaries between the ‘West’ and the ‘non-West’.     

Geopolitical fantasies,national strategies and ordinary Russians in the post‐communist Era

New geopolitical writings that have developed in the post‐Soviet period are predicated on different ideological and historical perspectives and against the formal statements of Russia's place in the world from President Vladimir Putin and enshrined in the document ‘Concept of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation’. Four geopolitical schools can be identified, ranging from the fantastic notions of extreme Eurasianism to the reformers’ goal of tying Russia firmly to the West. Formal statements concentrate on Russia's regional prominence in Eurasia and on close integration into the world economic and political systems. However, ordinary Russians display little interest in these geopolitical writings or in the foreign policy actions of the Russian state, except in special cases where the Russian military are actively involved on Russian territory or the ‘near abroad’. In this regard, Russian public opinion has increasingly become like that of the Western democracies, generally disinterested in foreign policy and focused on their personal day‐to‐day lives.     

Brand Turkey: Liminal Identity and its Limits

Since the 2000s, Turkish policymakers and private sector interests have combined representations of Turkey as both Western and Eastern with a branding approach to identity in foreign policy, trade and investment promotion, and cultural sector activities. This article analyses how the commodification of its liminal identity as a dual identity allowed Turkey to invoke different aspects of its identity in the West and the East in ways that catered to both audiences and enabled the pursuit of different political and economic objectives. However, the article also notes how this branding strategy was limited by the national identity debates and dominant geopolitical discourses that continued to situate the West and East as mutually exclusive and binary opposite identity markers. Overall, the case of Turkey underscores the complex relationship between branding, identity, and discourse, which has thus far received scant attention in the literature.     

Geopolitics of the Cosmopolis

Through an analysis of a speech held by Finnish Minister of Defence Jyri Häkämies at CSIS in Washington in 2007, the article scrutinizes the new emergence of “geopolitics” in international politics. Although its novelty is debatable, in this new geopolitical discourse the main focus is not related to the spatial borders of a nation state but instead to securing territory beyond these borders. It seems that “common values”, basically undefined but allegedly including such ideas like democracy, are related to this new form of “geopolitics”. In contrast to traditional geopolitics and identity politics, the global or cosmopolitical “us” defending common values seems to be a changing coalition and other countries appear only as objects of its operations. Only Russia, waking from its decade-long hibernation, emerges as a potential challenge to “us”. Curiously enough, its awakening also brings geopolitics back. The analysis of the speech reveals that the “new situation” requires choosing friends and enemies that are not clearly defined in the classical geopolitical sense. Even in the traditional sense of protecting the borders etc., the geopolitical security of Finland is best protected through acting for the geopolitical security of the whole world, no matter where or when that might require our presence. But from where does, for instance, the legitimacy of the operations of “us” derive? In the speech of minister Häkämies, many of the classical themes of political theory reappear, though in a new form. It is guided by geopolitical concerns, but the geopolitics it entails is rather different from the traditional way of thinking about it. This also creates a need to rethink some central concerns of political theory.     

On the Geopolitical Discourses of the Russian Yabloko Association, 1993-2001

This article draws attention to the competitive and changing nature of the discursive field of Russian geopolitics. In particular, the article focuses on the geopolitical discourses of the Yabloko Association (from 2001 the Democratic Party of Russia, Yabloko). In the discursive study of geopolitics, which is well developed in the critical geopolitics literature, the study of the geopolitical discourses of political parties has so far been neglected. Five major discourses by Yabloko are identified (1993-2001), with their significance and prominence varying according to changes in the broader geopolitical context. Yabloko's position is located within the general constellation defined by the extreme poles of Westernism (Atlanticism) and Eurasianism. Yabloko represents a third way between these extreme poles and can be situated within the new category of 'pragmatic Russian geopolitics'. Yabloko presents an interesting example of a Russian opposition party whose foreign policy thinking seems capable of both changing with the broader geopolitical context and contributing to the official Russian policy.     

Geopolitics and international organizations: An empirical study on IMF facilities

There is growing awareness that the distribution of IMF facilities may not be influenced only by the economic needs of borrowers. This paper focuses on the fact that the IMF may favour geopolitically important countries in the distribution of IMF loans, differentiating between concessional and non-concessional facilities. To carry out the empirical analysis, we construct a new database that compiles a wide array of proxies for geopolitical importance for 107 IMF countries over 1990–2003, focusing on emerging and developing economies. We use a factor analysis to capture the common underlying characteristic of countries' geopolitical importance as well as a potential analysis since we also want to account for the geographical situation of the loan recipients. While controlling for economic and political determinants, our results show that geopolitical factors influence notably lending decisions when loans are non-concessional, whereas results are less robust and in opposite direction for concessional loans. This study provides empirical support to the view that geopolitical considerations are an important factor in shaping IMF lending decisions, potentially affecting the institution's effectiveness and credibility.     

Border Crossings between Georgia and Turkey: The Sarp Land Border Gate

The Sarp land border gate between Turkey and Georgia has become Turkey’s gateway to the East in recent years. With a large number of individuals crossing every day, it is also a labour gate, where irregular Georgian immigrants cross the border for work in Turkey. In general, border policies are constructed and reconstructed in a dynamic process in which economic, security, ethnopolitical, geopolitical and cultural paradigms interact. The aim of this paper is to observe the complementary and conflicting relationship and negotiation process between economic and security paradigms in particular, with a focus on the perceptions of the officers of the border administration and state bureaucracy at the local level. To this end, field research was carried out consisting of interviews with Turkish state officials responsible for immigration and border crossing in the Sarp gate region. The article sheds light on the interaction between various agencies, actors and stakeholders in border policymaking at the regional level. It also elaborates on the profiles both of incoming immigrants employed as irregular workers and of deportees. The results of the qualitative study show that the dominance of the economic paradigm that underlies the main framework of Georgia-Turkey relations overrides security concerns between the two countries, thus necessitating a more flexible implementation of laws. The field research illustrates that implementation of laws and regulations at the local level varies and while some groups of irregular immigrants are allowed to work, others are not and, what is more, are deported.     

Geopolitics Teaching and Worldviews: Making the Future Generation in Russia

What worldviews are passed on to students in Russian universities? This question can be approached by studying teaching in a discipline known as Geopolitics, which is offered as part of many degree programmes in Russian universities. The article makes use of observations of geopolitics lectures and geopolitics textbooks to study worldviews, understood as ontological, epistemological, and methodological assumptions about the geopolitical ‘reality’, the reality of geopolitics as a discipline, and how this discipline can and should be ‘discovered’ and studied. Based on the primary data, a story of the birth and development of geopolitics is constructed, and three discourses are identified. These discourses – geopolitics as a science, geopolitics as context-dependent, and geopolitics as state-centric – tell us about worldviews that espouse a positivist epistemology but vary in their degree of essentialism. Worldviews also inform us about Russia's geopolitical culture, which is, in this context, closer to the Westernisers' position than that of (Neo)Eurasianism.     

Pious populists at the gate

In this paper, I evaluate the economic track record of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey, using the synthetic control method (SCM). This methodology compares the post-AKP development trajectory of Turkey with that of a weighted combination of similar but untreated countries. The SCM is particularly useful in this setting as it allows construction of a synthetic control to Turkey that replicates the pre-AKP development dynamics. I find that Turkey under AKP grew no faster in terms of GDP per capita when compared with a synthetic counterpart from a wide pool of other countries. Restricting the pool of control units to only include Muslim countries shows Turkey growing slower than its Muslim counterparts. Moreover, analysis of post-crisis recovery periods shows Turkey growing no faster than comparable post-crisis cases across time. However, expanding the outcome set to health and education reveals large positive differences in both infant and maternal mortality as well as university enrolment, consistent with stated AKP policies to improve access to health and education sectors for the relatively poorer segments of the population. Nonetheless, increased access in these fields is not matched by improved labour market access, as both labour force participation as well as unemployment have deteriorated, and especially so for women. As for measures of institutions, I fail to find any durable positive differences in measures related to democracy or human rights early on during the post-intervention period, and in several instances there is evidence of significant declines over the long run. A particularly salient feature of the AKP's reign is reduced political power of the military, consistent with the military in Turkey receiving lower economic rents than its synthetic counterpart during AKP's reign.     

Changing aid regimes? U.S. foreign aid from the Cold War to the War on Terror

This paper explores how U.S. bilateral economic aid has changed over time, focusing on how the recent era-in which the War on Terror has played a prominent role in the Bush administration's aid policy-differs from previous eras. In particular, has the renewed geopolitical role of aid coincided with a reduction of aid to the poorest countries or less weight on need in U.S. aid allocation decisions? We start with an analysis of annual U.S. aid budgets from 1955 to 2006. Controlling for domestic political and economic conditions, we find that the War on Terror's effect on the aid budget is significantly larger than is immediately apparent. To explore how the emphasis on need may have changed over time, we use country-level panel data on aid allocations to 119 countries across the same time period. This shows that U.S. aid flows-for the poorest as well as other developing countries-increased with the War on Terror. However, after rising for 35 years, the emphasis placed on need has been falling steadily for core aid recipients during the War on Terror.     

The Making of New ‘Space’: Cases of Transatlantic Astropolitics

This article investigates geopolitical interactions between Europe and the United States (US) in large-scale outer space application programmes, which I term transatlantic astropolitics. Europe and the US have transcended tangible geographical constraints on terrestrial territories and extended geopolitics to outer space with advanced technologies, thereby making outer space a new ‘space’ for transatlantic interaction. Transatlantic astropolitics reveals an instrumental rationality that both sides pursue interests with respective cost-effective calculation rather than shared norms, common culture, or collective identities. This phenomenon indicates an inconsistency between the discourse of transatlantic security community and practices of European and US individual geopolitical interest satisfaction. This article provides a coupling between theories of international relations (IR) and political geography in outer space issue area, and thereby identifies the role geopolitical thoughts play in transatlantic astropolitics. This article concludes with the validity of neo-classical astropolitics in explaining outer space activities, and cost-efficient calculation as the cause of strategic variation in transatlantic astropolitics.     

“This Marvelous Symbol of Our Identity”: The Czech Republic in American Practical Geopolitics

This paper analyses the practical geopolitical representations of the Czech Republic in American presidential materials between 1989 and 2009. Using structured discourse analysis, it highlights the impact of identity construction on policymaking and draws on critical geopolitics to highlight conceptualisations and geopolitical representations connected with the Czech Republic over four American presidential administrations. The article demonstrates the power of practical geopolitics in constructing images and cementing certain preconceived notions about a given place. Five main representations are identified, presenting the Czech Republic as: interconnected with American identity, a symbol of democracy and freedom, a victim of tyranny, a loyal ally, and as interchangeable with other countries in Central Europe. The article concludes that such multifaceted conceptualisations not only define the United States’ relationship with the Czech Republic, but also have strategic value. These conceptualisations helped to justify certain American policies and to reinforce a particular interpretation of American identity.     

What made Economists so Politically Influential? Governance-related Ideas and Institutional Entrepreneurship in the Economic Liberalisation of Israel and beyond

Liberal economists are known to be one of the driving forces behind economic liberalisation in various countries, but how did they become so politically influential? Constructivists generally suggest that during economic crises liberal economists persuaded decision-makers to adopt pro-market policy ideas as solutions for economic turbulence. While this answer is true, it is also only partial because it disregards the role played by governance-related ideas and institutional entrepreneurship in the political actions of liberal economists. I argue that ideas regarding decision-making mechanisms provided liberal economists with the basis for creatively exploiting pre-liberalisation institutions, such as central banks and central budget offices, through which these economists enhanced their long-term political influence. An in-depth examination of a paradigmatic case of economic liberalisation driven by liberal economists – Israel's Stabilisation Plan – exemplifies that argument. The existence of like-minded economists and similar pre-liberalisation policy-making institutions in many other countries hints that the Israeli experience is not unique.     

Diaspora Geopolitics: Romanian-Americans and NATO Expansion

Recent years have witnessed increased interest in diasporas. In the current context of globalisation, diasporas have assumed greater prominence on the international stage. The link between diasporas and international politics, however, is relatively under-studied. The purpose of this study is to analyse the interconnections between diasporas and international politics from a geopolitical perspective. Specifically, I examine the linkages between the US-based Romanian diaspora and US foreign policy regarding Romania during the late 1990s when NATO expanded into Eastern Europe. The US-based Romanian diaspora attempted to influence the US political establishment to grant NATO membership to Romania during NATO’s 1997 expansion by reshaping the prevailing geopolitical discourse about Romania in order to move the borders of ‘sameness’ to include Romania as similar to rather than apart from ‘the West’.     

Geopolitical Discourse,Global Actors and the Spatial Construction of African Union

The development of a discursive formation since 1994 known as the 'African Renaissance' is linked to a new politico-territorial arrangement (African Union) and a continent-wide reconstruction plan (the New Partnership for African Development). A neo-realist analysis is used to explain the contingent relations between agency and discourse in constructing this alternative geopolitical space. This explanation leads to a practical consideration of the role of global actors in constructing a spatially integrated African Union. All documents pertaining to African Union and its reconstruction plan describe its achievement through the integration of six or seven regional economic communities. This is explained as a mammoth geopolitical task that requires both global and local partnerships and a comprehensive spatial strategy that appropriately addresses three scales of integration.     

Economic Power and the Firm in New Institutional Economics: Two Conflicting Problems

The objective of this study has been to undertake an analysis of the economic and institutional determining factors of fiscal pressure in a group of European countries with different levels of economic development, recent history, or level of cooperation and integration among them. We have used a panel of data from 40 countries and a time period of eleven years. Apart from the variables generally used, we have introduced additional ones such as governing party ideology, rate of economic freedom of Euro-area countries, together with another set of institutional variables. Results obtained show that the purely economic model improves when institutional and geopolitical variables are included and, in this way, it is possible to see which countries governed by the left, belonging to the Euro-area or having been members of the Soviet block, and with economic freedom, are more liable to increase fiscal pressure.     

Mapping the Dynamism of the United States' Geopolitical Code: The Geography of the State of the Union Speeches, 1988–2008

The changing geographical foci of the geopolitical code of the United States are examined by a content analysis of the presidential State of the Union Speeches between 1988 and 2008, the last year of President Reagan's term through the presidency of George W. Bush. The State of the Union speeches are interpreted as geopolitical discourse within a structural setting, using seven foreign-policy paradigms as an organising framework. The empirical findings illustrate an increase over time in the number of regions and countries mentioned in the speeches. Also, notable differences between administrations in terms of their advocacy of globalist or regionalist policies and emphasis upon allies or adversaries are found.     

Crisis of Capitalism and (De-)Politicisation of Monetary Policymaking: Reflections from Hungary and Turkey

This article explores the changes in monetary policymaking in Hungary and Turkey in the context of the post-2008 global financial crisis and restructuring. Both countries went through a thorough restructuring process in the pre-2008 context. While this process has introduced and consolidated depoliticised forms of governing to a certain degree in both countries, we suggest that the latest crisis has contributed to the emergence of a politicisation process. In the Hungarian case, these processes are reflected in both discursive attempts and the instalment of visible centralised control over the management of money. In Turkey, intensifying discursive attempts to politicize monetary policy have not led to an explicit change in the formally depoliticised character of central banking until recently but politicised other policy areas. In both countries, the process has accompanied the entrenchment of increasingly oppressive discourse and practices as part of the overall management of the crisis-ridden capitalist social relations. The paper aims to explore these similarities and differences within a critical political economy approach to state, governing strategies and (de)politicisation and to contribute to advancing research beyond the established case studies in the existing literature.