The Negotiated Desecuritization Of Turkey in Saudi Foreign Policy

Saudi-Turkey relations hit one of their lowest points due to the Arab uprisings and the regional shock of the Gulf crisis. The tension resulted from, and in turn exacerbated, a process of securitization of Saudi discourse, whereby officials labeled Turkey as a threat. But after three and a half years of the Gulf crisis, the Al-Ula accords allowed reconciliation among the regional states and opened the way for the construction of new understandings based on diplomacy, tolerance of differences on regional and domestic security, and respect of sovereignty. This spurred Saudi policy makers to de-securitize their discourse concerning Turkey—that is, to talk of it not as a threat, but as a potential partner. This process continues to develop gradually through cooperation on economics and investment, but it has required time to re-establish confidence among Saudi decision makers. This article analyzes the discourses of Saudi leaders and policy makers and shows how they affected Saudi Arabia's relations with Turkey, both negatively and positively.     

Hardening corporate accountability in commodity supply chains under the European Union Deforestation Regulation

The European Union (EU) has recently introduced the Deforestation Regulation to close regulatory gaps in the sustainability and legality of global forest and agricultural commodity supply chains. We analyze this regulatory policy change by drawing on accountability scholarship and institutionalist theories of regulation. Our results show that the Regulation aims to enhance corporate accountability mechanisms through mostly state-based hard regulation of commodity supply chains, reducing the role of market incentives and private regulation. This policy change is found to be the result of strategic policy-oriented learning from perceived accountability failures of existing soft market-based instruments, voluntary trade agreements, and experience with market-correcting EU timber legality trade rules in a politically favorable context. The institutionalization of new forest-risk commodity supply chain accountability norms in new EU trade rules would, by design, harden foreign corporate accountability for negative socio-environmental externalities. However, the de-facto hardening will depend on the final regulatory design, acceptance, compliance, implementation, enforcement improvements, and avoidance of leakage effects.