Theme: One International Relations or Many? Multiple Worlds, Multiple Crises
Wednesday 18 – Saturday 21 September 2013
Warsaw, Poland
Organised by the ECPR Standing Group on International Relations and EISA in cooperation with the Institute of International Relations, University of Warsaw and the Polish Association for International Studies.
This panel shows general and/or case studies between International Relations and Islam.
Chair: Prof. Dr. Gül Ceylan Tok (Kocaeli University, Turkey)
Discussant: Prof. Dr. Can Zeyrek (University of Marburg, Germany)
Paper Presenters:
Turkey’s
Political Islam and the West
Galip Dalay is working for Political Research Department
of SETA Foundation and pursuing a PhD degree in International Relations at
Middle East Technical University, Ankara.
From the Welfare Party (WP) to the Justice and
Development Party (JDP), foreign policies of Islamic parties have attracted
disproportionate scrutiny. One of the focal points has been their approach to
the West and Western-oriented institutions.
This article, based on Jack S. Levy’s concept of learning in foreign
policy, is divided into periods to better show the evolution of foreign policy
perspectives: the Welfare Party period, the Virtue Party in transition, and the
first (2002 – 2006), second (2006 – 2010/11), and third (2011 - ) periods of
JDP rule. I argue that from WP rule until the JDP’s first period in power,
these parties’ approach to the West has been largely motivated by domestic
considerations for different reasons. The WP defined the West as its Islamist
identity’s “other” and sought to create an alternative framework; the JDP
regarded the West as an instrument to gain legitimacy, both domestically and
internationally. Yet, in its second term, the JDP attempted to balance its
Western focused foreign policy with alternative complementary frameworks to
achieve a more prominent international role. However, the JDP’s third term has
been shaped by the Arab Spring and characterised by uncertainty about Turkey’s
relations with the west. Hence, JDP rule has seen the emergence of a newly
outward-facing political Islam in Turkey.
Approaches
to Political Islam in Turkey: A Gramscian Challenge
Gorkem Altinors (University of Nottingham, UK)
This presentation will demonstrate how the rise of
political Islam in Turkey is understood by the mainstream academia and how
Gramscian terminology (especially the integral state) would help us to
illustrate power relations among neoliberal restructuring of the state within
the state and civil society relations. Basically, existing literature on
political Islam will be critically evaluated in this presentation. It would not
be quite convenient to compare Turkey with other Islamic states because its own
sui generis features such as its early and relatively high level of
industrialisation, and its early but profound class contradictions and
conflicts within it. Therefore this research will be primarily focussed on
Turkish case and discussions among political Islam have been limited within the
literature on Turkey in this research. The literature is separated into three
basic subtitles as follows: state-centric approaches, society-centric
approaches and institution-centric approaches. In the first one, there is an
abstract assumption of strong state tradition which conflicts with civil
society as if they are antagonistic entities. The second one accepts the strong
state tradition as given, but there is more emphasis on civil society within
identity-based issues. Finally, third one provides limited analysis of the fact
since it is kept only within institutional level. The presentation will draw a
Gramscian understanding of the state after the critical evaluation of
mainstream approaches. In this context, it will be questioned that how the
state and civil society relations should be considered in order to carry out a
class-based analysis and how the rise of political Islam in Turkey should be
comprehended within neoliberalism.
Islam
and Democracy: Arab Spring and the Turkish Experience
Gökhan Duman is currently a PhD student in historical
societies, land and heritage at the University of Rovira i Virgili in
Tarragona, Spain. He is also one of the project researchers in UNESCO Chair of
Intercultural Dialogue in the Mediterranean.
Uprisings in the Arab world make us question the concept
of “democracy”. From a Western perspective, the concept of democracy has a
significant importance on people’s govern. Since the Ottoman Empire period,
Arab countries always had rulers. Following the dissolution of the Ottoman
Empire, they could not put have democracy in place. Some of them might have
some sort of elections, but with missing crucial components such as the
presence of a viable opposition group. Western scholars have always questioned
the relationship between Islam and democracy. The ones belonging to the
Orientalist camp claimed that Islam and democracy cannot coexist, since Islam
and its legal system based on “Sharia”, is a method of governance itself, and
it does not give any room democracy. On the contrary, modern Turkey proved that
it is possible to have democracy and human rights in a Muslim society. The
Republic of Turkey stands as an example whereby a country with an overwhelming
(98%) Muslim majority and has a multi party political system with a functioning
democracy. In this context, the Turkish case was widely debated following the
Arab uprisings and the questions such as “Can Turkey be a role model to the
Arab countries?” “Does Turkey have a “Western” democracy?” etc. asked
frequently. Besides these questions,
there was an implicit assumption that the Arab countries need a role model in
their quest of democracy. Turkey’s relations with its neighbors make her an
ideal candidate for the debate of ‘role model’. Although Turkey might serve as
a model with her democratic credentials, the Turkish trajectory should be
studied closely to understand how she reached there. What are the fundamental
characteristics of the Turkish Revolution (1923 – 1938)? What is the legacy of
Ataturk? How did he create a country
from a scratch and more importantly how did he make democracy work in a country
with a Muslim population?
Political
Islam as Elite Ideology in Turkish Foreign Policy-Making?
Zenon Tziarras (University of Warwick, UK)
It has been widely debated whether the AKP and especially
its leaders are ideologically driven. In this context, much has been written
about how the writings of FM Davutoğlu, and the speeches of PM Erdoğan and
President Gül, prove Turkey’s Islamic orientation and its leaders’ distinct
perception of the West. Thus, although the AKP officially calls itself
‘conservative democrat’, many authors try either to prove the party’s
ideological Islamist roots, or support its democratic character. To the end of
contributing to this debate, this paper tries to answer two fundamental
questions: what is the ideology of the AKP elite? To what extent does the AKP
elite ideology influence Turkish foreign policy (TFP)? In answering the first
question we first clarify whether there is an ideology or not; then, we make a
distinction between the ideology of the AKP as a whole and the ideology of the
policy-makers and officials, as expressed publicly. To examine the impact of
ideology we empirically look at TFP towards Israel and Syria. The conclusion is
that the AKP elite does have an ideology, based on political Islam; yet, its
impact on foreign policy is limited as it is constrained by various material
interests.
Turkey’s
Recent Foreign Policy and Davutoğlu’s Role as an Islamic Intellectual
Prof. Dr. İştar Gözaydın is a professor of law and
politics at Doğuş University, Istanbul.
There is little doubt that Ahmet Davutoğlu, Turkey’s
current Minister of Foreign Affairs of pro-Islamic AKP (Adalet ve Kalkınma
Partisi), is the major driving force of Turkey’s ‘proactive and
multi-dimensional’ foreign policy, even though the foundations for his regional
foreign policy go back to 1980’s. Yet, it was Ahmet Davutoğlu who embedded this
Ottoman reference into a reconsideration of the role of the West and of Turkey
from a decidedly Islamic or intellectual-Islamist position. Prof. Dr. Ahmet
Davutoğlu, is also an academic of political science that has published several
boks, and articles. Especially his book Strategic Depth is a very influential
book in Turkey's foreign policy orientation. He is very influential in the
military, academic, and government triangle shaping Turkish foreign policy.
Professor Davutoğlu was granted a title of ambassador by the joint decision of
President then Ahmet Necdet Sezer and Prime Minister at that time Abdullah Gül
in 2003. As an ambassador Davutoğlu was one of the leading actors on behalf of
the Turkish government during the shuttle diplomacy for the settlement of 2008
Israel–Gaza conflict. In this paper I will scrutinize through his works how
Davutoğlu as a scholar perceives the fields of Islam and international
relations.
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