Political culture in Turkey: Connections among attitudes toward democracy,the military and Islam

Against the background of Turkey's continuing but unconsolidated democratic transition, this article examines the nature and determinants of attitudes toward democracy held by ordinary Turkish citizens. Using data from the World Values Survey conducted in Turkey in 1997, it seeks to contribute to a growing body of literature concerned with the relationship between political culture and democratization. Although this relationship has not been fully explicated, the authors share the view of those scholars who believe that the existence of democratic attitudes and values among a country's population is no less important than are democratic institutions and procedures for advancing and eventually consolidating a democratic transition. Accordingly, the study seeks to shed light on the following interrelated questions: To what extent does the Turkish population hold attitudes supportive of democracy? What are the most important determinants of popular support for democracy? What factors account for any observed variance in relevant political attitudes? What is the relationship between attitudes toward the military and attitudes toward democracy and governance? What is the relationship between personal religious attachments and attitudes toward democracy and governance?     

Revolution in the city: On the resources of urban guerrillas

Authors who address the topic of rural guerrilla warfare argue that the ability to engage in political violence is predicated upon support from the local population and the capabilities of guerrilla organizations. We examine the applicability of these arguments for modern urban guerrilla warfare. We find that the Provisional Irish Republican Army draws on individual, organizational and environmental resources, and that the impact of these resources on the IRA has changed over time. Of these resources, the most important appear to be a combination of individual and organizational resources. Organizing into a cell structure in 1977 made the IRA dependent on only the passive support of the Northern Irish Nationalist population, and a high level of political awareness among IRA guerrillas guarantees that the IRA maintains this passive support.     

The US Congress and the politics of Afghanistan: an analysis of the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees during George W Bush's second term

This article considers the role of United States Congress in the Afghanistan conflict—and notably that of the Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees—from 2005 to 2009. Both of these committees had some legal oversight of the Afghan War, especially with regard to funding. During the first half of this period the Republicans had a majority while in the second half the Democrats took control. This led to differences in approach and method, which are here examined. Certainly, congressional committees operate generally in the open, which gives them a unique influence in framing issues in the press and thus before the public. Furthermore, five key members of the Obama administration belonged to these committees, attended their hearings and had much of their opinion shaped by their activities. An in-depth analysis of them during Bush's second term can provide us with valuable insights into the Obama administration's later policy decisions.     

阿富汗政治和解进程的进展、问题与前景

阿富汗政治和解进程包括招安与和谈两方面。目前,招安进程已有一定成效,但仍面临各种问题。而和谈进程则步履维艰,前景不容乐观。和谈进程的问题主要是：各方立场严重对立,谈判诚意不足。整体来看,阿政治和解进程的突出问题主要是：招安与和谈一手硬一手软,严重不平衡;各方内部分歧严重;各方＂以攻势促谈判＂的策略导致安全局势进一步恶化。     

Elections in Afghanistan and the Role of China-India-Russia Trilateral Cooperation in Rebuilding Afghanistan

With the Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan declaring President Harmid Karzai as the winner in the presidential election, the eventful elections in Afghanistan finally came to an end. The dramatic ending of the Afghan presidential and provincial council elections, which were held on August 20, 2009 but had since mired in disputes and allegations and counter-allegations of frauds, however, is not the beginning of the end of the perilous situation in Afghanistan.     

Flipping the Switch: Combat,State Building,and Junior Officers in Iraq and Afghanistan

Contemporary us counterinsurgency doctrine in Iraq and Afghanistan requires junior leaders to engage in both combat and state-building activities. This study aims to explain the fundamental challenge in merging these. I argue that difficulty lies in separating insurgents from civilians, and translating doctrine from senior to junior officers. Junior officers consistently develop a similar ad hoc decision-making tool— role-switching—to simplify complex situations to a binary of “hostile or not.” They understand themselves to fill only two roles, the violent “on” role and the non-violent “off” role and develop several tools to minimize the difficulty of role-switching, help their subordinates switch, and signal switching to local populations. Ultimately, however, problems with role-switching—role stickiness, inappropriate switching, and role bias—can in some cases encourage indiscriminate and excessive violence, pointing to the fundamental failures of using military forces as a one-size-fits-all solution to state-building projects abroad.     

Transitional politics in Afghanistan and Iraq: inclusion,consultation, and public participation

This article explores three main themes in comparing the transitional processes in Afghanistan and Iraq: (i) the clarity of the transitional frameworks and the need to separate discussions on such frameworks from debates on new constitutional arrangements; (ii) the degree of representation in the transitional institutions and the availability of channels for political consultation in the transitional processes; and (iii) the participation of civil society and the public at large in the transition processes.     

Television and attitudes toward foreign countries: A report on a survey of Scandinavian children

Children of all ages are more likely to use electronic sources of information such as television and radio-than they are print sources-such as newspapers and magazines-according to a variety of studies. This study examines whether this tendency continues if the children are forced by their primary and secondary school teachers to use multiple news sources-of their own choice-to follow an election campaign. Based on responses from an extraordinarily large sample of 24,348 children, this study focuses on media use by participants in the Kids Voting USA civics education program. Study results demonstrate that even when seeking campaign information in 1994, a non-presidential election year when the emphasis was more on state and local races, children overwhelmingly preferred television and radio as sources of information. Newspaper usage trailed both electronic forms even when a child's family subscribed to a paper. The study found no significant difference between White and non-White children in their choices and uses of information sources. The large sample size also allowed for a detailed look at often neglected subgroups such as Native American children (n = 1,114) and Asian-American children (n = 768).     

Transnational Islamist Networks: Western Fighters in Afghanistan,Somalia and Syria

Abstract

Western Muslims have joined jihadi groups in Afghanistan/Pakistan, Somalia and Syria to defend Islam from its perceived enemies. Transnational Islamist networks have played a pivotal role in bringing them to conflict zones by fulfilling three functions: radicalisation through mosques, radical preachers, and the Internet; recruitment which can be conducted either physically or digitally; and identity formation that provides the radicalised recruits with a larger cause to fight for as members of an imagined global community. Transnational Islamist networks are multifunctional entities on the rise.     

Development and political legitimacy: the cases of Iraq and Afghanistan

Development's policies are based on a set of premises: state‐building, state of law, democratisation, accountability and privatisation. The idea is that the Western concept of democracy could be implemented through the development of a ‘civil society’ of the building from scratch of new institutions. Such a model works when there is political will from the local political authorities and the society to adopt such a model (as was the case in Poland and Hungary after the collapse of the Soviet Union). But in any case a policy of development should be based on political legitimacy. In Iraq, as well as Afghanistan, political legitimacy means abiding with nationalism, Islam and local political culture (often based on clan‐ism and networks). In Iraq, the US policy has deliberately ignored the issue of legitimacy. In Afghanistan, because the US intervention was not part of a great design, it relied more on local constraints and thus has been more effective, or at least, less disruptive. The issue is not opposing a Western model of democracy to a national authoritarian political culture, but to root democracy into the local political culture. If not the policy of strengthening civil society, through political and military pressure as well as NGO's, has a disruptive effect and may lead to a conservative, nationalist and religious backlash.     

阿卜杜·拉赫曼、伊斯兰教与阿富汗国家的形成

阿卜杜·拉赫曼是阿富汗近代史上最有远见卓识的领袖人物之一,在长达21年中,他不仅以军事手段削平了地方割据势力,建立起了一套比较完整的中央与地方管理体系,尤为重要的是,他试图以伊斯兰教构建政治合法性和国家认同,以超越因地域、民族、部落等因素造成的分裂。正是在阿卜杜·拉赫曼统治时期,阿富汗作为现代民族国家才渐具雏形。     

阿富汗大选和阿富汗重建问题

阿富汗大选经历一波三折之后终于尘埃落定。阿富汗大选引发的政治危机与当前的安全形势,凸显阿重建进程面临的巨大困难。卡尔扎伊虽连任总统,但其弱势更加明显,阿未来重建道路仍很漫长。阿富汗问题已经成为影响地区稳定的重要变数。