CIAO DATE: 04/2015
Volume: 13, Issue: 1-2
Spring-Summer 2014
EU Governance: Struggle Between Cooperation and Competition (PDF)
Nevra Esentürk
EU governance is characterized as a multi-level system in which various actors are involved in the policy-making procedure at multiple levels in a non-hierarchical way.During the course of the European integration process, EU governance has been brought forward as a response to the citizens’ quest for a legitimacy through enhanced democratization in the decision-making mechanisms and as a tool that would increase the leverage and competitiveness of the EU to have an efficient way of functioning for the enlargement of the Union. In that respect, the legitimacy and the representative power of the EU and its institutions are put under scrutiny, as powerful and at the same time efficient decision-making mechanisms are necessary for the EU. However, although significant changes are enshrined in the Lisbon Treaty regarding the decision-making procedure and policy outcomes, it has been limited with struggle between cooperation and competition at vertical and horizontal levels under the shadow of supranational hierarchy that has created mistrust on the EU institutions and decision-making structures from the perspective of citizens. The article addresses this issue on the grounds of the reasons and the circumstances in which EU governance emerged, the principles and characteristics it is based on, the means and ways it utilizes, and the effects on the decisionmaking process of the EU.
Looking Within and Without: The Path to Tread by Muslims (PDF)
Shamsul Khan, Mahjabeen Ahmad
There is no doubt that relation between the Muslim world and the West is often dominated by simmering distrust and antagonistic feelings although they may not always boil over. Tensions and recriminations abound and so do arguments and justifications. The need to find common grounds do not get translated into intentions or sincere efforts to move forward as the past casts a long shadow over the present. Typecasting a billion-plus fellow human beings or their faith as objects of dread or hatred as is being done by the West through fomenting Islamophobia needs to be prevented. Muslims must be able to reassert their true identity and earn their rightful place in a world dominated by Western power and influence. This may begin to happen if Muslims denounce and repudiate all the wrong that is being done in the name of their great religion, speak for themselves, develop religious and community leaders who are well equipped to impart the right knowledge and effectively address contemporary issues that confront Muslim societies and countries, and revive the spirit and unity of the ummah. Only then can they effectively fight not just the menace of Islamophobia, but also the injustices and discrimination in their own countries and those that are perpetrated by the West. The West must also turn their gaze inward and admit their role in creating this ‘Great Divide’; they need to realize that their overbearing attitude toward Muslims and relentless depiction of the latter as their common folk devil will inevitably have undesirable, serious, and long-term consequences.
Sustainable Democracy and the Paradox of the Arab Spring: The Egypt Experience (PDF)
Etemike Laz
The Arab spring began with an uprising in Tunisia and subsequently spread to Egypt, Bahrain, Morocco, Libya, Yemen and Syria. The protest has been referred to as the Arab spring and for others the Arab democratic revolution. Despite the substantial variants of the revolt it explains a component of a great collective shift from long tenure and authoritarian rule. The aftermath of the transition from authoritarianism to democracy should have been the establishment of independent democratic structures. This is the only way that a sustainable democracy can be guaranteed. This is where such factors as religion (Islam), monarchies, military and fundamentalism, come to be a crucial factor in analysing and assessing the success or failure of the Arab democratic revolution. This paper is of the opinion that a sustainable democracy within the Arab world cannot be guaranteed, in view of the above contesting variables for political/state power and influence. Each of these variables is not only anti democratic but present a contradiction in democracy. Egypt experience is instructive. What is thus needed is a frame work to manage and structure these diversities toward providing sustainable democratic political institutions that are in consonance with democratic tenets without radically changing the norms, values and nuances of the Arab society
Rethinking the Conflict- Proneness of Oil-Rentiers State in Historical Context (PDF)
Muhammed Kürsad Ozekin, Zeynep Arıöz
With the rise of intra-state conflicts in the Middle East, particularly in the last two decades, the causality relationship between oil wealth and political stability has become a matter of debate in the literature. However, despite the proliferating research interest, the impact of oil revenues on regime stability and civil conflicts still remains contested in both theoretical and empirical terms. Bearing this limitation in mind, this article aims to present a fairly general but analytically broadened framework to explain the relationship between the decline of the oil-rentier states, and the rise of intra-state conflicts experienced in the Middle East in the past two decades. Putting matter into the historical context of the state formation and the colonial legacy in the Middle East this study presents a slightly different reading of the causality relation between oil revenue and the conflict-proneness of rentier states. Thus this article, to a certain extent, moves beyond the conventional explanations of the rentier state theory and argues that oil revenue cannot be taken as an explanatory variable of conflicts per se.
Religion as a Factor in Israeli-Turkish Relations: A Constructivist Overlook (PDF)
Tugçe Ersoy Oztürk
The influence of religion in the foreign policy has recently begun to be discussed among the scholars of international relations field. That the role of religion as an attribute of individuals and communities and in its institutional connections with the state cannot be ignored has started to be widely accepted. This study argues that besides the material reasons stemming from realpolitik, there are also behind the scene, certain “cultural codes” that have played an important role on the actions and discourses of Turkey’s leaders on the foreign policies and especially on the deterioration of Israeli - Turkish relations. This study seeks to find the effects, if there are, of religion in the Israeli - Turkish relations by exemplifying Turkey in its relations with Israel to see whether the recent rupture is a result of the religious orientation of AKP government.
An Empirical Look to the Arab Spring: Causes and Consequences (PDF)
Muhammed Kürsad Oztürk, Hasan Hüseyin Akkas
This article pursues two main objectives. First, mainly drawing on empirical evidences rather than journalistic impressions and reports on the Arap Spring, it aims to provide an in-depth analysis of the sets of socio-economic and socio-political factors that have been deeply rooted in the region for more than half a century and which have driven (and continue to drive) a wave of uprisings across the region commonly labelled as the ‘Arab Spring’. Thus, this study expects to present a slightly different reading of the Arap Spring by placing the issue into the socio-economic and socio-political context of the recent past. Secondly, by considering a range of factors such as the responses of the regimes, the role of security forces, the ethnic and sectarian makeup of the societies and the politico-institutional feature of states, it explains how the unfolding of events has differed from country to country and why some uprisings have succeeded in toppling regimes and others have not.
Turkeys Development Assistance to Fragile States: From Sporadic Actions to System Building Practices (PDF)
Deniz Gole
This article aims at presenting policy recommendations for Turkish decision makers with a view to address Turkey’s needs to ensure effective and timely development assistance to fragile states. The analysis begins with a quick look at the controversial relation between aid, growth and poverty in order to provide a basis for understanding aid effectiveness as well as some of the ongoing debates and limitations in the development assistance field. It then gives an insight on the current state of Turkey’s development assistance to fragile states and briefly explains major characteristics of Turkey’s aid policies and practices in fragile state contexts. The study focuses on describing the necessity for shifting Turkey’s development assistance paradigm and is concluded with recommending a new paradigm along with its operational framework in three pillars namely; Institutionalizing Peace, Building the Functional State and Risk Distribution.