Papers by Burak Bilgehan Özpek
A revisionist tone that has created several crisis has become more pronounced in Turkish foreign ... more A revisionist tone that has created several crisis has become more pronounced in Turkish foreign policy. This trend has been particularly evident after 2010 when the AKP consolidated its power base, the military's tutelage over politics subsequently disappeared and the Arab Spring opened a new window of opportunity for Turkey in the Middle East. This has been surprising because de-militarization of political space was envisioned to produce more cooperative stances in the globalized post-Cold War world. This trend has occurred alongside what many would argue has been the AKP's authoritarian and Islamist agenda. Such an argument suggests that earlier the AKP had pragmatically used democratic values and integrationist policies to weaken the military, and then adopted Islamism in foreign policy and authoritarianism in domestic politics. This study aims to explore the common characteristics of the AKP in domestic and international realms while the extant paradigm tends to divide the AKP period into two categories, which are democratic/prowestern and authoritarian/Islamist. In order to suggest a common characteristic to identify the AKP's domestic and foreign policy in a holistic manner, this article applies the term 'populism' to describe a number of AKP policies and positions.
Middle East Critique, 2017
Throughout the history of the Turkish Republic, its military and political elites in Ankara have ... more Throughout the history of the Turkish Republic, its military and political elites in Ankara have regarded the Kurdish question as a security issue. Therefore, initiating the 'peace process' with the PKK and developing intimate relations with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) have been regarded as deviations from the Turkish state's traditional policy toward the Kurdish question. However, the optimism that the peace process generated gradually has disappeared as the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in the Kurdistan Regional Government have resorted to increasingly authoritarian policies. The declining democratization performance of the AKP and the KDP has deepened the internal divisions in both societies and bilateral relations between Turkey and the KRG have transformed into inter-governmental solidarity rather than institutional peace. Since the end of the 'peace process' following the June 7 national elections in 2015, the AKP has refused to deal with its country's Kurdish actors, which, it says, are linked to the PKK and its ideology. Meanwhile, the AKP's increasingly authoritarian policies have excluded non-AKP voters' views from the policy-making process. Therefore, the cooperation between Turkey and the KRG has excluded half of the Turks and the Kurds at best. Consequently, the traditional ethnicity-based confrontation between the Turks and Kurds has been replaced, on the one hand, by an alignment
The debates dealing with ISIS address the questions of how ISIS is conceptualized, what its aim i... more The debates dealing with ISIS address the questions of how ISIS is conceptualized, what its aim is, and how it has successfully retained a core sovereignty zone. This study attempts to answer these questions by proposing that ISIS is a de facto state and uses jihadism as a survival strategy. The term 'competitive jihadism' is used to argue that ISIS competes with its metropole states, Syria and Iraq, on the basis of jihadism. This is a deliberate strategy, which aims to attract Muslims inclined to radicalization as well as to recruit foreign fighters by showing the jihadist deficits of the metropole states. As the research shows, ISIS is successful at this game and has become a magnet for foreign fighters. Thus, it is able to increase its military capabilities and continue to survive.
The Justice and Development Party (AKP) government initiated a peace process with the Kurds in Ja... more The Justice and Development Party (AKP) government initiated a peace process with the Kurds in January 2013 to become the first government since 1984 to systematically negotiate with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) instead of using the military against them. Nevertheless, a bloody war restarted after AKP lost its majority in the parliament due to the Kurdish backed Peoples' Democratic Party's (HDP) success in the 7 June 2015 elections. In the coalition negotiation process, the AKP, which is under the strict control of Erdoğan, did not make a serious offer to any of the opposition parties, and Erdoğan did not mandate other parties to form a coalition government. Thus, holding a snap election remained the only option. Erdoğan's strategy to attract the nationalist voters worked, and the AKP regained the overall majority in the parliament by receiving the nationalist votes again. Nevertheless, this was a Pyrrhic victory for the AKP. In addition to the domestic polarization, the new AKP government has needed to deal with the Kurdish Question, which has turned into armed conflict since the 7 June elections, along with re-formulating its relations with the allies of the PKK in Northern Syria and in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region. Furthermore, increasing activism in the ISIS issue and the " jet crisis " experienced with Russia seems to have complicated Turkey's foreign policy and compelled the AKP to revise its approach towards the Kurdish Question.
In this study we investigate the state of freedom of press in Turkey since 2013, with reference t... more In this study we investigate the state of freedom of press in Turkey since 2013, with reference to legal conditions regulating Turkish press and media's dependency to the state. Bringing in the liberal theoretical perspective into the debate of press freedom, in addition to compiling data on various forms of intervention to media, this report brings about a new framework, in order to question why and how the pressure on a free press manifests itself as a threat to individual liberties. In doing this, we borrow from the literature on ‘defective democracies’ with a focus on their authoritarian practices leading to a problematic media-government relationship in the presence of free elections. At this point, in addition to the legal framework, the economic dependencies occurring among the state and non-state actors are brought into the scope of this analysis. The purpose of this endeavor is to reveal whether or not the free speech space is narrowed down by the government via the instrumentalization of this dependency.
De facto states are regarded as political authorities functioning within a certain territory with... more De facto states are regarded as political authorities functioning within a certain territory without international legal recognition. However, de facto states aim to gain the recognition of other states in order to be considered legitimate actors in the international system. There are two main contending approaches that attempt to explain the factors motivating third-party states' recognition behavior. The realist approach argues that national interest shapes the recognition strategy of third-party states while the liberal argument highlights the role of democracy in the recognition process. This article tests the validity of hypotheses derived from these two approaches through an examination of third-party states' levels of democracy and data regarding their recognition of de facto states since 1991.
The emergence of an energy security crisis between Russia and European countries has cast doubt o... more The emergence of an energy security crisis between Russia and European countries has cast doubt on the argument that commercial ties lead to peaceful political relations between states as the energy trade between Russia and Europe has been inclined to generate conflict rather than cooperation. Nevertheless, the crisis has showed that military security issues no longer dominate the agenda and that issues produce different degrees of cooperation and conflict between governments. Furthermore, governments cannot use military force in order to resolve issues in an era of interdependence. Therefore, the European Union (EU), which suffers from an asymmetric dependence on energy resources imported from or via Russia, has adopted a diversification policy. This policy not only affects energy security but also the EU's enlargement process. Accordingly, a diversification policy requires embracing alternative energy sources, such as Turkey's involvement in oil and gas pipeline projects bypassing Russia. Thus, Turkey's contribution to European energy security creates an interdependence, which could affect Turkey's relations with the EU.
Ahmet Davutoğlu became the Minister of Foreign Affairs in 2009, the second term of Justice and De... more Ahmet Davutoğlu became the Minister of Foreign Affairs in 2009, the second term of Justice and Development Party (JDP) government, and he is regarded as the architect of the JDP's foreign policy since 2002. During his term, Turkey has pursued an active and multi-dimensional foreign policy. The model of Davutoğlu in explaining the Turkey's multi-dimensional foreign policy is the bow and arrow analogy. Accordingly, he argues that Turkey, with its ideational and geographical advantages, is an archer, and the more it draws the back of the bow through the East, the farther the arrow flies West. However, the gap between theory and reality undermines the consistency of Davutoğlu's foreign policy formulation.
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Papers by Burak Bilgehan Özpek