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?     

Does plot size matter? Evidence from maize production in Babati District,Tanzania

Debates about optimal farm structure and size have a long history in agricultural economics. Agricultural and development economists argue for an inverse relationship between farm size and productivity, but debates around this remain inconclusive. This article provides a case from maize production in Babati District, Tanzania. The efficiency level of 122 sampled smallholder farmers was estimated and found to be 62.3%, suggesting 37.7% of inefficiencies. A U-shape relationship between plot size and efficiency scores was found. There was high efficiency at plots <2?ha, compared to 2?ha and 3?ha, followed by efficiency at plots >4?ha. Policies stimulating small- and large-scale farms in the country are imperative.     

The Political Economy of National Debt Burdens, 1970–2000

Why did developing country governments find themselves mired in high debt by the end of the twentieth century? This paper develops a theoretical framework to understand the relationship between political institutions, resource wealth, and debt burdens. Hypotheses generated are tested on a time-series cross-section data set of developing countries from 1970–2000. Three main findings are reported: oil wealth has a positive relationship with debt; this relationship is weakly conditional on the country's regime type; and the relationship is independent of general commodity price volatility. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of this research for our understanding of the ‘resource curse.’     

The Coevolution of Networks and Political Attitudes

How do attitudes and social affiliations coevolve? A long stream of research has focused on the relationship between attitudes and social affiliations. However, in most of this research the causal relationship between views and affiliations is difficult to discern definitively: Do people influence each other's views so that they converge over time or do they primarily affiliate (by choice or happenstance) with those of similar views? Here we use longitudinal attitudinal and whole network data collected at critical times (notably, at the inception of the system) to identify robustly the determinants of attitudes and affiliations. We find significant conformity tendencies: Individuals shift their political views toward the political views of their associates. This conformity is driven by social ties rather than task ties. We also find that political views are notably unimportant as a driver for the formation of relationships.     

A meta-analysis of income and democracy

The purpose of this article is to examine the relationship between per capita income and democracy. Namely, do increases in income per capita affect a regime’s level of democracy? The scholarly tradition has investigated this question over many years, and what we have learned about the actual association between these variables remains inconclusive. As opposed to producing yet another empirical analysis of this hypothesized relationship, this article sets forth to examine it via a new methodological approach. Applying the tools of meta-regression analysis to 33 individual empirical studies that investigate the relationship between income and democracy, this article finds that income has no statistically significant, quantitatively meaningful effect on democracy (understanding the latter as a graded concept). I also show that there is no theoretical or empirical reason to believe that this field of research is “haunted” by publication selection bias. Moreover, I identify a variety of systematic differences between these studies, that is, study heterogeneity, which explain why it is the case that after 60 years of research we still have not reached a consensus.     

Health programmes for the disadvantaged

The implementation of health programmes by external health professionals (‘givers?s) in disadvantaged communities (‘receivers?s) faces a variety of interactional barriers, some of which can be appreciated within the framework of the doctor-patient relationship. This article identifies the problems of cultural dissonance, unrealistic expectations, hostility, and non-cooperation that sometimes arise within the giver-receiver relationship, and outlines strategies to deal with them. The recognition and resolution of these issues are important to ensure the success of health programmes.     

Arab Spring constitution-making: polarization,exclusion, and constraints

What determines the balance that democratizing constitutions strike between majority empowerment and individual rights? Some constitutions deliberately handicap state power to forestall threats to liberty, while others try to empower the government to hold the country together. We answer this question in the context of post-Arab Spring constitution-making, hypothesizing a U-shaped relationship between polarization among politically significant factions and net majority-empowering provisions in constitutions of new democracies, a relationship mediated by breadth of inclusion in the constitutional drafting process. We test the hypothesis through a controlled case comparison of Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt, the three Arab-majority countries in which protestors successfully toppled authoritarian regimes.     

The Role of the Scholar-Practitioner in International Conflict Resolution

Can unofficial, academically based, third-party approaches contribute to the prevention and resolution of international and intercommunal conflicts? The article focuses on one such approach, interactive problem solving, which the author has applied primarily in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. After describing the central tool of the approach, the problem-solving workshop, the article goes on to address the role of interactive problem solving and related approaches to the larger process of conflict resolution. In this context, it discusses the relationship of the microprocess of problem-solving workshops to the macroprocess of international conflict resolution; the relationship between official and unofficial diplomacy; the relationship between practice and scholarship in conflict resolution; the role of the university in the process; and the possibilities for institutionalizing this model of conflict resolution.     

Natural Disasters and the Size of Nations

What is the relationship between natural disasters and country size? Is an increasing likelihood of environmental shocks linked to political integration or secessionism? We argue that natural disasters are associated with a decline in country size. This relationship arises because costs generated by disasters are higher for citizens located farther away from the political center of a country, and costs are amplified as disasters affect a larger area in a country, which in turn makes it less desirable for citizens in remote regions to remain part of a larger country. Our empirical results show that greater risks of environmental shocks are indeed associated with smaller countries, as well as smaller administrative units.     

Balancing against threats or bandwagoning with power? Europe and the transatlantic relationship after the Cold War

The United States has played an important role in European security since the early 20^th century. From the time of the end of the Cold War, this role has changed as a consequence of the lack of a common territorial threat and the overwhelming power of the United States relative to Europe. How have European states responded to the challenges of the American world order? Are they adapting their security policies to match the challenges of US security policy and the American world order? What are the implications of the European response for the transatlantic relationship? This article seeks to describe and explain European security behaviour in the American world through the prism of two realist theories: balance of power realism and balance of threat realism. Despite sharing a common starting point in realist assumptions, each theory allows us to tell a different story about Europe's position in the American world order as well as the opportunities and challenges it faces.     

Focal Points and Turning Points in Negotiation: A Comparative Analysis

In this article, we examine the roles of focal points and turning points in negotiation. Both concern impasses in negotiation, and negotiators can exploit them to move past impasses. Each term uses the word “point” differently, however. A focal point refers to a single salient coordinating concept shared by the parties. A turning point is a departure that takes place during the course of a negotiation, when the course seems to change. Precipitants precede turning points and consequences follow them. In this article, we focus on the relationship of these two negotiation concepts. We raise the following questions: Does the development of focal points precipitate departures, and, if so, how? Do departures lead to the development of focal points, and, if so, how? Are there circumstances in which focal points do not precipitate turning points and vice versa? Do negotiations that feature focal points create more or less durable agreements? Do negotiations that include turning points create more or less durable agreements? To help answer these questions, we have analyzed four cases. In the German Foundation Agreement negotiation, the development of focal points precipitated turning points. In the South African Interim Constitution negotiations, turning point departures precipitated the development of focal points. And in the negotiations to end the Burundi civil war and to reach the Nouméa Accord between France and New Caledonia, parties shared focal points that did not precipitate turning points. These case analyses provide insights into the role of focal points in producing effective and durable agreements. They also suggest opportunities for further research on the interaction between these concepts.     

Overcoming US-North Korean Enmity: Lessons from an Eclectic IR Approach

ABSTRACT

Periods of mutual enmity in US-North Korean relations are typically interrupted by more conciliatory gestures. How can the many twists and turns in this relationship be explained and hopefully overcome so that more long-lasting détente is accomplished? Drawing eclectically on realism and constructivism, we conclude that a nuclear deal should address not only North Korea’s interests in security and regime survival, but also its status concerns. Applying the same theories to the other part of the dyad – the US – we conclude that it may now have material interests in ameliorating the relationship, but that such a development requires US foreign policy discourse to cease depicting North Korea as “irrational” and “evil”.     

The Afterlives of Global Capital

ABSTRACT

Decay and decomposition have long been important to the histories of capitalist development but what are the particular forms that characterize the relationship between “waste” and value in post-2008 financialization? I argue that financialization is characterized by the organized conversion of distress into forms of financial value. To make this argument I lay particular emphasis on the rehabilitation of “toxic” assets through the practices of asset management in Ireland's National Asset Management Agency. I extend this argument by foregrounding political interventions staged around post-crisis housing, a critical strategy which seeks a certain point of confrontation between the abstract and the visceral. This strategy identifies the “afterlives of global capital” as sites that could incubate imaginative work designed to challenge finance in key ways. This provokes questions about financialized value: do we now locate value in forms of financial integrity or in decay, decomposition and detritus?     

The perception of the European Union in Southeast Asia

The article examines the external image of the EU among elites in five selected Southeast Asian countries: Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore and the Philippines. Southeast Asia offers an interesting area for examining perceptions. Firstly, this region is linked to Europe by a long-standing and prosperous trade relationship. Secondly, the Association of South East Asian Nations has embarked on a process of deepening integration, adopting certain elements of the EU in its design. How desirable is the EU experience as an example of how to deepen integration? And how are EU external policies such as trade, human rights and environment perceived by stakeholders in the region? The article analyses perceptions on the themes of integration and external polices, contrasting them with the scholarly understandings of the EU as a ‘benign’ actor, notably the notions of ‘normative’, ‘civilian’ and ‘soft’ power.     

Force or Friendship? Explaining Great Power Nonproliferation Policy

Why do great powers take such different approaches to the issue of nuclear proliferation? Why do states oppose nuclear proliferation more vigorously in some cases than in others? In short, what explains great power nonproliferation policy? To answer these questions, this article tests two competing theories of nonproliferation policy. The first, political relationship theory, suggests that states oppose nuclear proliferation to their enemies but are less concerned when friends acquire nuclear weapons. The second, power-projection theory, argues that states oppose the spread of nuclear weapons to states over which they have the ability to project military power because nuclear proliferation in those situations would constrain their military freedom of action. In contrast, states will be less likely to resist, and more likely to promote, nuclear proliferation to states against which they cannot use force. To test these hypotheses, this article uses evidence from great power nonproliferation policy from 1945 to 2000. While both theories find some support, the power-projection theory performs significantly better. The findings of this article have important implications for international relations theory and US nonproliferation policy.     

The sex of participatory democracy. An analysis of the theoretical approaches and experiences of participatory democracy from a feminist viewpoint

The generalist theory of participatory democracy and the non-essentialist feminist approach to forms of democratization have developed in parallel despite sharing an agreement to work towards more shared forms of managing power. The origin of this disunity lies, partly, in the first theoretical body's tendency to present citizen participation as a tool for democratizing the neutral and universal public space. As a result, both theoretical bodies have parallel points of view regarding the elements that structure women's participation. This article explores, through the qualitative analysis of two experiences of participatory democracy in which the feminist viewpoint has been unequally incorporated (Porto Alegre's participatory budgeting?Porto Alegre PB?and the 15M movement), the relationship between the parallel development of the general proposals of the two theoretical bodies and the elements that restrict the participation of women in the practice of participatory democracy.     

America’s Exceptionalist Tradition: From the Law of Nations to the International Criminal Court

How might we explain the reticence that the United States has towards the International Criminal Court, especially when one considers that the Rome Statute, the Court’s governing treaty, contains many of the legal protections afforded under the US legal system? This article will argue that the US’ relationship with the ICC is part of a longer pattern of US behaviour that can be best explained through the lens of exceptionalism. In making this argument, the article has two interrelated objectives: first, to provide an historical overview of how the US has behaved vis-à-vis treaty-based international legal institutions designed to moderate warfare; and second, to provide a critique of arguments that present the United States’ relationship with said legal institutions as nothing more than an expression of narrowly informed national interests.     

Refugees,Economic Capacity,and Host State Repression*

Does hosting refugees affect state repression? While there have been numerous studies that examine the link between refugees and the spread of civil and international conflict, an examination of the systematic links between refugees and repression is lacking. We contend that researchers are missing a crucial link, as the dissent-repression nexus is crucial to understanding the development of armed conflict. Drawing upon logics of the relationship between refugees and the spread of conflict as well as economic capacity, we argue that increased numbers of refugees lead to increased repression. We contend that willingness to increase repression when hosting refugees is in part conditional on a host state’s economic capacity. We argue that, on the whole, the greater the population of refugees in a host state, repression becomes more likely. That said, we argue that increased economic capacity will moderate this relationship. We find empirical support for both predictions.     

Sharīʻa,Islamism and Arab support for democracy

ABSTRACT

The Arab Spring and its aftermath reignited the debate over the relationship between Islamism and democracy. This analysis improves upon previous research by demonstrating the crucial contribution which a more precise understanding of the multiple meanings of the concept of Sharī?a can have on our assessment of the future of democracy in the Arab world. While support for the Sharī?a-conformity of laws has a positive impact on the preference for democracy, the insistence that Sharī?a represents the word of God as opposed to the human attempt to interpret it reduces support for democracy. These findings are of considerable significance for academics and policy-makers interested in the future of democracy in the Arab world as it suggests that generic expressions of support for Sharī?a are less relevant in explaining support for democracy than what Arab women and men consider to be its essence.     

Bridging Gaps in Cross-Cutting Media Exposure: The Role of Public Service Broadcasting

Previous studies show that individual political interest is an antecedent of news media exposure, particularly of exposure to differing views. Nevertheless, little is known about this effect from a comparative perspective: How do media institutions affect the relationship between political interest and exposure to cross-cutting viewpoints? One institutional feature that varies between countries is the ownership of broadcast media. This study investigates the extent to which the relative dominance of public service broadcasting alters the relationship between political interest and non-like-minded, or cross-cutting, news media exposure across 27 European Union countries. The analyses employ survey data from 27,079 individuals and media content from 48,983 news stories. The results confirm that the extent to which political interest contributes to cross-cutting exposure is contingent on the strength of public service broadcasting. The stronger the broadcaster, the smaller the gaps between the most and least politically engaged individuals.