Migration,memory and mythification: relocation of Suleymani tribes on the northern Ottoman–Iranian frontier

This article indicates that Suleymani tribes, which were relocated from Diyarbekir region en masse to the newly conquered territories of northern Ottoman-Iranian frontiers after the mid-sixteenth-century, created a shift in the administrative and ethnic structure of the region. Although the roles of tribes were mostly seen as subordinate to the power of the Kurdish emirs, this study shows that the chiefs of Suleymani tribes, more specifically Besyan and Heyderan, became the rulers of the newly captured Safavid territories and they did not recognize the authority of their own Suleymani emirs. The writer focuses on this migration and discusses that the relocated Suleymani tribes preserved the collective memory of their migration during the nineteenth-century and their perception shaped the creation of a tribal myth, Mil-and-Zil, after the Ottoman central government disinherited the Kurdish emirs during the mid-nineteenth-century. Suleymani tribes' migration, collective memory and mythification of their own identities show that tribes were not passive subjects but they were in fact at the center of the developments of the Ottoman eastern frontier.     

The Rise and Return of the Indo-Pacific: Oceans,Seas and Civilisational Linkages

The Indo-Pacific, constructed either as a region, super-region or non-region, is currently a hotly contested map-making phenomenon. Various countries and cultures, washed by the waters of these amorphous oceanic boundaries and sea spaces, are currently seeking to establish exclusive territorial claims over these water spaces by invoking stories and narratives taken from pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial eras. These stories are often used in an attempt to legitimate “natural”, and more essentialist relationships between certain cultures and/or nation-states with their surrounding seas. These narratives both challenge the broader international system and its rule of law, and create internal narratives, strengthening domestic and national support for state-building programs in the region/s. But the Indo-Pacific is more than a contestation between nation-statist imaginations and aspirations. It also invokes stories which seek to develop and celebrate a shared “maritime regionalism” beyond the exclusive and usually dominant politics of nation-states. Finally, a third interpretive category is used: the construction of the Indo-Pacific as a globalised “non-space”.     

Human Rights,Public Budgets,and Epistemic Challenges

Ideally, governing institutions would be designed so that they would produce and implement with certainty ‘human rights-compatible budgets’, i.e. budgets that adequately reflect the obligations enshrined in human rights. However, there are various reasons why a government may ultimately fail to produce such budgets. This article focuses on under-examined challenges for budgeting for human rights: epistemically oriented challenges. More specifically, the article engages in ‘horizon scanning’, and it maps key underlying factors that can be conducive to epistemically oriented challenges to produce and implement human rights-compatible budgets. In addition, the article considers the road ahead from the perspective of institutional design.     

The Balkan Entente in Turkish–Yugoslav relations (1934–41): the Yugoslav perspective

By discussing the role of the Balkan Entente within Turkish–Yugoslav relations, this article endeavours to reflect the extent to which the Entente guaranteed security to Turkey and Yugoslavia. It deals with the 1934–41 period, which starts with the formation of the Balkan Entente and ends with the German invasion of Yugoslavia. The article is written mainly based on Yugoslav archival documents and aims to provide an alternative narrative that contests the conventional Turkish view. It also demonstrates that although the political leaders in Turkey and Yugoslavia became more optimistic about the future of the region after having signed the Balkan Entente, their perception of threat changed over time during the period of increasing instability in Europe.     

Assessing “Global Lithuania”: the strengths and weaknesses of Lithuanian diaspora engagement strategy

Diasporas participate in the home country’s development through remittances, philanthropy, knowledge transfer, investment, and political engagement. Based on the theoretical perspective of network governance, this paper argues that governments can enhance diaspora contributions by offering incentives to engage with the homeland. The paper then applies this perspective to assess the effectiveness of Lithuania’s diaspora engagement policy. Based on successful strategies adopted by other countries, the paper makes recommendations on how to strengthen the incentives for the diaspora to participate in Lithuania’s political, social, economic, and cultural life, and on how to create a better environment for the diaspora’s contributions.     

Encounters with Europe in an Era of Domestic and International Turmoil: Is Turkey a De-Europeanising Candidate Country?

Abstract

This article provides a novel conceptual framework to understand the impact of the European Union on Turkish politics and policies in the aftermath of the opening of accession negotiations in 2005. It argues that the post-2005 developments in Turkey not only attest to lesser and more limited Europeanisation, but also entail a process that is increasingly gaining momentum in the country and which is referred to as ‘de-Europeanisation’.     

Why do some international institutions contain strong dispute settlement provisions? New evidence from preferential trade agreements

To understand why some international institutions have stronger dispute settlement mechanisms (DSMs) than others, we investigate the dispute settlement provisions of nearly 600 preferential trade agreements (PTAs), which possess several desirable case-selection features and are evoked more than is realized. We broaden the study of dispute settlement design beyond “legalization” and instead reorient theorizing around a multi-faceted conceptualization of the strength of DSMs. We posit that strong DSMs are first and foremost a rational response to features of agreements that require stronger dispute settlement, such as depth and large memberships. Multivariate empirical tests using a new data set on PTA design confirm these expectations and reveal that depth – the amount of policy change specified in an agreement – is the most powerful and consistent predictor of DSM strength, providing empirical support to a long-posited but controversial conjecture. Yet power also plays a sizeable role, since agreements among asymmetric members are more likely to have strong DSMs due to their mutual appeal, as are those involving the United States. Important regional differences also emerge, as PTAs across the Americas are designed with strong dispute settlement, as are Asian PTAs, which contradicts the conventional wisdom about Asian values and legalization. Our findings demonstrate that rationalism explains much of international institutional design, yet it can be enhanced by also incorporating power-based and regional explanations.