Papers by Bahar Rumelili
European Journal of International Relations, 2017
International life is rife with social pressures on states. A myriad of norms set standards of be... more International life is rife with social pressures on states. A myriad of norms set standards of behavior for states, ranging from gender equality expectations to sovereign credit standards and norms of conduct in conflict. Norms are garnered to exert social pressure in transnational advocacy campaigns that "name and shame" underperformers and norm violators (e.g.
TÜRKİYE’NİN AVRUPA’YI YENİDEN İNŞASI: ÜYELİK VE VATANDAŞLIK
Bu makale, AB-Türkiye ilişkileri bünyesinde, Türkiye devlet ve vatandaşlarının pratiklerinin Avru... more Bu makale, AB-Türkiye ilişkileri bünyesinde, Türkiye devlet ve vatandaşlarının pratiklerinin Avrupa kimliğinin ve vatandaşlığının içeriğini ve sınırlarını nasıl şekillendirdiğini ortaya koymaktadır. AB-Türkiye ilişkileri üzerine olan literatür ağırlıklı olarak Türkiye’yi değişimin alıcı tarafında görerek, AB kaynaklı etkiler sonucunda Türk siyasetinin, toplumunun, ekonomisinin ve hukukunun dönüşüp dönüşmediğini incelemiştir. Pratik kuramı ve post-kolonyal yaklaşımlardan beslenen bu makale ise, Türkiye ile ilişkisinin Avrupa’yı iki temel açıdan etkilediğini savunmaktadır. İlk olarak Türkiye devletinin AB’ye üyelik yönündeki ısrarlı talepleri Avrupa kimliğinin ihtiva ettiği evrensellik ve tikelcilik arasındaki gerilimi su yüzüne çıkarmış ve çok-kültürlülük ve kendine özgülük iddialarına meydan okumuştur. İkinci olarak, Türk vatandaşları Avrupa devletlerine ve Avrupa Birliği’ne yönelik hak talepleri, kimlik söylemleri ve siyasi eylemleri yoluyla Avrupa vatandaşlığının dışlayıcılığına meydan okuyup, iç/dış ayrımlarının daha geçirgen olduğu daha kapsayıcı bir Avrupa’nın inşasına katkıda bulunmaktadırlar.
İnşacı teori uluslararası ilişkilere nasıl bir bakış açısı sunar? İnşacı teoride kullanılan t... more İnşacı teori uluslararası ilişkilere nasıl bir bakış açısı sunar? İnşacı teoride kullanılan temel kavramlar ve varsayımlar nelerdir? İnşacı teoriye yön vermiş olan eserler nelerdir? İnşacı teori ile diğer uluslararası ilişkiler teorileri arasındaki benzerlikler ve farklılıklar nelerdir? İnşacılık, çatışma analizi, uluslararası örgütler, uluslararası siyasi iktisat ve dış politika analizi alanlarına nasıl bir yaklaşım getirmiştir? İnşacı teori içinde hangi farklı yaklaşımları barındırır? İnşacı teori diğer sosyal ve insani bilimlerde hangi akımlardan etkilenmiştir? Bu makalenin yayınlanmış versiyonu için: Rumelili, B. 'İnşacılık/Konstrüktivizm' Evren Balta (der.) Küresel Siyasete Giriş: Kavramlar, Teoriler ve Süreçler, s. 151-173. İstanbul: İletişim.
Bölgesel düzeyde yürütülen inşacı araştırmalar, hem inşacı uluslararası ilişkiler kuramına, hem d... more Bölgesel düzeyde yürütülen inşacı araştırmalar, hem inşacı uluslararası ilişkiler kuramına, hem de bölgeselcilik çalışmalarına önemli katkılarda bulundu. Bu makale bu kazanımları değerlendirmeyi ve bu karşılıklı yarar ilişkisinin nasıl daha da ilerletilebileceğine dair öneriler sunmayı amaçlamaktadır. Bölgeselci inşacı araştırmalar, inşacı kuramda temel rol oynayan kolektif kimlik, sosyalleşme, güvenlik cemaati gibi kavramlarla ilgili ampirik olarak sınanabilir orta-düzey önermeler geliştirilmesini sağlamış ve aynı zamanda bölgeselcilik çalışmalarını ana akım uluslararası ilişkiler kuramlarına daha iyi entegre etmiştir. Karşılaştırmalı bölgeselci araştırmalar bu karşılıklı yarar ilişkisi daha da ileri götürerek, kolektif kimlik oluşumu ve sosyalleşme için farklı yolların tespit edilmesi, farklı tip kolektif kimliklerin bölgesel düzen ve politika yakınsaması üzerine etkilerinin incelenmesi ve farklı sosyalleşme süreçlerinin göreceli sürdürülebilirliğinin araştırılmasına fırsat tanıyabilir.
ÖZET
Bu makale Uluslararası İlişkiler Teorisi’nin yerel-görüşlülüğünü artan sayıdaki Doğu’yu kon... more ÖZET
Bu makale Uluslararası İlişkiler Teorisi’nin yerel-görüşlülüğünü artan sayıdaki Doğu’yu konu eden yayınlarla aşamadığını, çünkü bu çalışmaların da Doğu’nun özneselliğine yeterli vurguyu yapamayarak Batı-merkezciliği yeniden ürettiğini savunmaktadır. 2002–2007 yılları arasında önde gelen dört bilimsel dergide yayımlanan makaleleri niteliksel ve niceliksel olarak inceleyerek Doğu’yu konu eden çalışmalara eski dönemlere nazaran artık daha çok yer verildiğini, fakat bu çalışmaların büyük bir çoğunluğunun Doğu’yu Batı-merkezci kuramları zenginleştiren bir örnek olarak sunmaktan öteye gitmediğini tespit etmektedir. Batı’ya yönelik eleştirel yaklaşımlar bile, Batı’yı yine uluslararası ilişkilerin merkezine koymakta ve Batı ile Doğu ve yerel ile evrensel arasındaki karşılıklı bağımlılığı ve etkileşimi göz ardı etmektedir. Doğu kaynaklı kuramların oluşturulması, Doğu’nun özneselliğinin vurgulanmasında yeterli olmayacaktır; Batı-merkezci kuramların Doğu-Batı ilişkilerine dair varsayımlarını kuramsal ve ampirik olarak çürütecek önermeler geliştirmek gereklidir.
ABSTRACT:
I argue that International Relations Theory has not been able to transcend its parochialism because it continues to negate the agency of the East. By analyzing the articles published in four leading journals of the discipline between 2002-2007, I find that the number of studies that focus on the East have indeed increased, but most of these studies continue to situate the cases derived from the East in the context of West-centric theories. Even critical approaches continue to position the West as the main subject of international relations and dismiss the mutual constitution and interaction between the East and the West, and the local and global. I contend that the generation of non-Western IR theories is not going to pose an adequate challenge to West-centrism; what is necessary is the formulation of specific propositions on East-West relations that directly counter the established assumptions of West-centric theories.
identity, self/other relations, and liminality by Bahar Rumelili
Politics, 2017
Identity change is a core element of political conflict and transformation. Despite the analytic ... more Identity change is a core element of political conflict and transformation. Despite the analytic and methodological challenges that attend the study of identity (Brubaker and Cooper, 2002; Abdelal et al, 2009), explanations of the initiation, reproduction and transformation of conflict are thin without reference to processes of identity consolidation and change. 'Identity' usefully captures the combination of value, meaning, relationality and symbolic resonance that self-definition and belonging hold at international, state, group and individual levels. Identity change occurs in various ways: through the construction of new social categories and divisions, through actors reclassifying themselves, or being reclassified by others, through changes in the meaning and boundaries of existing identities, and through changes in the relations between existing identities. Most relevant in conflict processes are changes toward and away from dyadically opposed identities. These may include changes in the form of reinterpreting the meaning of identity to define or eliminate an opposition and redrawing the boundaries of belonging to include or exclude the other.
This article analyzes the identity dimension of EU-Turkey relations from the constructivist persp... more This article analyzes the identity dimension of EU-Turkey relations from the constructivist perspective in international relations theory. It contends that in EU-Turkey relations, European and Turkish identities are undergoing a continuous process of reconstruction and negotiation. In this process, Turkey’s representational practices assume importance in reshaping European identity.
What do constructivist theory and the experiences of international institutions tell us about wha... more What do constructivist theory and the experiences of international institutions tell us about what kinds of community to build and how to build communities in international relations? Recently, the constructivist scholarship in International Relations has invested a significant deal of theoretical and empirical attention in security communities and processes of inter-state communitybuilding. 1 The very fact that certain states have transcended the realist world of power politics to conduct their relations on the basis of mutual trust and 1 e.g. Emanuel Adler and Michael Barnett (eds) Security Communities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Bruce Cronin, "From Balance to Community: Transnational Identity and
The case of the EU points to the need to re-conceptualise the relationship between self and other... more The case of the EU points to the need to re-conceptualise the relationship between self and other in the IR literature. I argue that the literature forces us into an artificial choice between the liberal constructivist approach of disregarding the constitutive role of difference in identity formation and the critical constructivist approach of assuming a behavioural relationship between self and other, and therefore cannot account for the diversity in the EU's interactions with various states on its periphery. I identify three constitutive dimensions along which self/other relationships vary to produce or not produce relationships of Othering: nature of difference, social distance, and response of other. I analyse how the EU's interactions with Morocco, Turkey, and Central and Eastern European states are situated differently on these dimensions, and evaluate the question of whether the EU is a postmodern collectivity based on these analyses.
Liminality and Perpetuation of Conflicts: Turkish-Greek Relations in the Context of Community-Building by the EU
While the `security communities' literature has underscored the positive implications of collecti... more While the `security communities' literature has underscored the positive implications of collective identity for sustained peace and cooperation within the communities, it has overlooked the possible security implications of the discourses and practices of differentiation necessarily entailed in the construction of collective identity. Building on the case of Turkish-Greek relations, I argue that through these discourses and practices of differentiation, community-building can create and sustain discursive conditions conducive to conflict perpetuation, especially with and among states situated in liminal positions with respect to the community. Analyzing official and media discourse in Turkey and Greece between 1995 and 1999, I demonstrate, how by situating Turkey and Greece in different and also liminal/precarious positions with respect to `Europe', the community-building discourse of the EU reinforced and legitimized in the two states representations of their identities as different from and also as threatening to each other.
Cooperation and Conflict, 2012
The view of identities as always situated in a relationship with the Other underlies contemporary... more The view of identities as always situated in a relationship with the Other underlies contemporary constructivist social theory. Taking a step further, and combining constructivist approaches to identity with insights from post-colonial studies, this article argues that the Other, far from being a mere presence, often plays an active role in identity politics. By tracing the historically varying ways in which Turkey and Russia have engaged in European identity construction, it demonstrates that this is an interactive process of negotiation between the European Self and its external Others, in which agency of the Other is revealed. In particular, Russia and Turkey exercise agency by challenging, each in its own manner, the EU's power to define the normative meaning of Europe. While Turkey has contributed to a decentring of European identity by challenging the self-perception of Europe as a multicultural space, Russia's uncompromising stance tends to consolidate the EU-centred image of Europe as a political community based on liberal democratic values.
In the course of his ethnographic study of the Ndembu tribes, the renowned anthropologist Victor ... more In the course of his ethnographic study of the Ndembu tribes, the renowned anthropologist Victor Turner focused on the elaborate rituals that marked various phases of social transition, such as puberty and marriage. Also drawing on the work of Arnold van Gennep on rites of passage, Turner identified the entities going through social transitions as liminals, that ‘are neither here nor there; they are betwixt and between the positions assigned and arrayed by law, custom, convention, and ceremonial’. According to Turner, the defining attribute of liminal positions is their ambiguity and indeterminacy because they ‘elude or slip through the network of classifications that normally locate states and positions in cultural space’.
citizenship, civil society, Turkey, Europe by Bahar Rumelili
This chapter examines the EU’s impact on the development and Europeanization of civil society in ... more This chapter examines the EU’s impact on the development and Europeanization of civil society in Turkey. We argue that the EU has impacted civil society development in Turkey through its membership conditionality regime, funding policies and mechanisms, the networks fostered between Turkish and European civil society actors and by legitimizing civil society activity. Drawing on existing literature and semi-structured interviews, we conclude that while the EU impact has mostly been limited in scope to issue-based NGOs, the extent of this impact on policy has been significant
South European Society and Politics, 2017
This study explores whether and how participation in CSOs has transformed citizenship attitudes i... more This study explores whether and how participation in CSOs has transformed citizenship attitudes in different cities in Turkey and how civic participation and citizenship attitudes are affected by local politico-cultural dynamics. The analysis is based on interviews conducted with representatives of 36 civil society organizations (CSO) five cities in Turkey: Konya, Edirne, Diyarbakir, Trabzon and Izmir. Our comparative analysis of the five cities reveals that civic life is more active in cities marked by high levels of religiosity (Konya) and politicized by conflict (Diyarbakir). On the other hand, politicization of civic life through party dominance and clientelism, as in Edirne and Trabzon, undermines trust and discourages participation.
Throughout the history of the Turkish Republic, Turkey's Armenians have been subjected to a trade... more Throughout the history of the Turkish Republic, Turkey's Armenians have been subjected to a trade-off between the limited minority rights granted by the 1923 Lausanne Treaty and equal national citizenship. Traditionally a closed, depoliticized community, the citizenship practices of the Armenian minority have become increasingly differentiated in recent years. Building on a notion of citizenship as multi-layered and constituted through collective practice, this article investigates the implications of the political acts of Turkey's Armenian minority on sub-national and national citizenship in Turkey. We show that Turkey's Armenians are coupling rights demands, identification, normative references, and mobilization at the sub-national, national, and trans-national levels in innovative ways, and are thereby negotiating different layers of citizenship in Turkey in a way that strengthens equal national citizenship.
Jcms: Journal of Common Market Studies, 2011
Drawing on an original empirical study of the European-level political practices of Turkish citiz... more Drawing on an original empirical study of the European-level political practices of Turkish citizens/residents of Kurdish origin, this article advances the argument that political actors who lack the status of European citizenship can nonetheless engage in its ‘practice’. While practices of European citizenship by non-citizen/non-resident actors are enabled by the extended economic, legal, political and normative orders developed around the EU, they are simultaneously transforming the European polity by blurring the inside/outside and citizen/non-citizen distinctions.
The evolution of European citizenship reflects the limits and potential of European integration. ... more The evolution of European citizenship reflects the limits and potential of European integration. Building on the analytical distinction between citizenship as status and citizenship as practice, this paper analyzes how conscientious objectors in Turkey enact themselves as European citizens as they pursue the right of conscientious objection. The European-level political activism of Turkey’s conscientious objectors include litigation at the European Court of Human Rights and contacts established with European institutions, such as the European Commission and Parliament, and with like-minded European activists. Because this European-level political activism is also embedded in a discourse of Europeanness, it amounts to the practice of European citizenship in the absence of formal status. The paper invites a rethinking of European citizenship in ways that include such practices by non-EU citizen political actors and a reflection on their implications of their practices on European citizenship.
Greek-Turkish relations by Bahar Rumelili
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Papers by Bahar Rumelili
Bu makale Uluslararası İlişkiler Teorisi’nin yerel-görüşlülüğünü artan sayıdaki Doğu’yu konu eden yayınlarla aşamadığını, çünkü bu çalışmaların da Doğu’nun özneselliğine yeterli vurguyu yapamayarak Batı-merkezciliği yeniden ürettiğini savunmaktadır. 2002–2007 yılları arasında önde gelen dört bilimsel dergide yayımlanan makaleleri niteliksel ve niceliksel olarak inceleyerek Doğu’yu konu eden çalışmalara eski dönemlere nazaran artık daha çok yer verildiğini, fakat bu çalışmaların büyük bir çoğunluğunun Doğu’yu Batı-merkezci kuramları zenginleştiren bir örnek olarak sunmaktan öteye gitmediğini tespit etmektedir. Batı’ya yönelik eleştirel yaklaşımlar bile, Batı’yı yine uluslararası ilişkilerin merkezine koymakta ve Batı ile Doğu ve yerel ile evrensel arasındaki karşılıklı bağımlılığı ve etkileşimi göz ardı etmektedir. Doğu kaynaklı kuramların oluşturulması, Doğu’nun özneselliğinin vurgulanmasında yeterli olmayacaktır; Batı-merkezci kuramların Doğu-Batı ilişkilerine dair varsayımlarını kuramsal ve ampirik olarak çürütecek önermeler geliştirmek gereklidir.
ABSTRACT:
I argue that International Relations Theory has not been able to transcend its parochialism because it continues to negate the agency of the East. By analyzing the articles published in four leading journals of the discipline between 2002-2007, I find that the number of studies that focus on the East have indeed increased, but most of these studies continue to situate the cases derived from the East in the context of West-centric theories. Even critical approaches continue to position the West as the main subject of international relations and dismiss the mutual constitution and interaction between the East and the West, and the local and global. I contend that the generation of non-Western IR theories is not going to pose an adequate challenge to West-centrism; what is necessary is the formulation of specific propositions on East-West relations that directly counter the established assumptions of West-centric theories.
identity, self/other relations, and liminality by Bahar Rumelili
citizenship, civil society, Turkey, Europe by Bahar Rumelili
Greek-Turkish relations by Bahar Rumelili