THE FIRST WORLD WAR AND THE MIDDLE EAST

The First World War in the Middle East swept away five hundred years of Ottoman dominion. It ushered in new ideologies and radicalized old ones – from Arab nationalism and revolutionary socialism to impassioned forms of atavistic Islamism. It created heroic icons, like the enigmatic Lawrence or the modernizing Atatürk, and it completely re-drew the map of the region, forging a host of new nation states, For many, the self-serving intervention of these powers in the region between 1914 and 1919 is the major reason for the conflicts that have raged there on and off ever since. Yet many of the most common assertions about the First World War in the Middle East and its aftermath are devoid of context. This article argues that, far from being a mere sideshow to the war in Europe, the Middle Eastern conflict was in fact the centre of gravity in a war for imperial interests. Moreover, contrary to another persistent myth of the First World War in the Middle East, local leaders and their forces were not simply the puppets of the Great Powers. The way in which these local forces embraced, resisted, succumbed to, disrupted, or on occasion overturned the plans of the imperialist powers for their own interests in fact played an important role in shaping the immediate aftermath of the conflict – and in laying the foundations for the troubled Middle East.     

论土耳其的司法演进对于法律信仰研究的启示

土耳其是法制现代化比较成功的非西方国家,其成功的要素之一便是它妥善地处理了世俗法律和宗教信仰之间的问题。土耳其没有实现全民族对法律的信仰,但这并未妨碍法治文明和民主政治在其国土上的有效确立。这对当前我国法学界将"法律必须被信仰"作为普适性的结论,将建立法律信仰视为实现法治的必备要素的观点无疑是一大冲击。以土耳其为例证,对"法律信仰"命题的提出了质疑。希望通过中西文明以外的伊斯兰文明秩序中的成功经验能够给予我国当前的法律信仰问题的研究,特别是面对重大刑事案件时社会的法律信仰问题,带来一些多元的视角和不同的启示。     

Protest,memory, and the production of ‘civilized’ citizens: two cases from Turkey and Lebanon

This article studies the proliferation of discourses of rationality and responsibility among a particular elite social group in Lebanon and Turkey, as they remember student mobilization of their past. I offer these episodes of student mobilization as acts of citizenship that create and make use of rapturous moments in the histories of their countries and institutions. I extend these acts of citizenship to the contemporary context and study the ways in which they become part of discourses of citizenship in unexpected ways. I propose that these narratives draw upon a set of local practices that reflect meanings of citizenship, originating from Western discourses of liberalism, albeit following a different route. In the narratives, violence and irrationality become the defining features of politicized behavior, whereas being civilized epitomizes good manners and rationality. Such boundary-drawing exercises contribute to making conceivable exclusionary social orders based on the idea of a hierarchical distribution of reason and social utility.     

“东突”民族分裂主义与暴力恐怖主义滋生与蔓延的成因分析

"东突"民族分裂主义与暴力恐怖主义滋生与蔓延的成因极其复杂。"双泛"思潮在新疆的传播和蔓延为滋生"东突"民族分裂主义提供了思想理论基础和精神支柱;宗教极端主义思想的不断传入,与"东突"民族分裂势力合流,使其转变为以民族分裂为目的的暴力恐怖势力;宗教管理的失控致使非法宗教活动猖獗,成为"东突"民族分裂与暴力恐怖分子不断滋生的土壤和温床;国际恐怖势力的积极扶持,使"东突"民族分裂势力迅速完成了由单纯的民族分裂势力向以民族分裂为目的的暴力恐怖势力的嬗变,并有恃无恐地从事分裂与恐怖活动;南疆部分地区相对贫困与能源资源十分丰富之间形成的巨大反差被"东突"分子所利用成为新时期滋生民族分裂恐怖分子的潜在诱因;现实政策的失误与"东突"分子的频出及分裂与暴力恐怖活动高发之间有着无形的联系。     

Erdoğan’s presidential regime and strategic legalism: Turkish democracy in the twilight zone

ABSTRACT

President Erdo?an and the AKP government initiated a comprehensive restoration process immediately after the failed coup in mid-July 2016. In fact, the country has been experiencing a very comprehensive and violent regime transformation since this time. I assert that recent political developments paved the way for institutionalization of a ‘plebiscitary presidential regime’ that depends on a particular combination of supreme power of the leader, an extremely weak parliament, and elections of a plebiscitary character. In this context, the paper aims to shed light on the role of the new strategic legalism which allows rule of law to be replaced by a rule by law approach, the executive prerogative principle to be dominant, and the law to be used for demobilization, all playing a highly critical role in the suppression of democratic opposition.     

From ‘clients’ to ‘magnates’: the (not so) curious case of Islamic authoritarianism in Turkey

ABSTRACT

This paper sketches out the historical emergence and progress of political Islam in modern Turkey by emphasizing its statist and clientelistic aspects emanating from the authoritarian basis of Turkish political modernization. The paper contends that there has always been an authoritarian and autocratic tendency in modern Turkish politics that depends on a peculiar and modernist articulation of both Islamism and secularism, which eventually stand on the same ground. This very ground is formed upon a sacred understanding of the state that can be defined as an all-encompassing and absolute perfection of political power, which manifests itself differently in content for secular nationalists and Islamists, and yet produces the same authoritarian tendency. Both the secular nationalism and Islamism appear to be state oriented movements in the sense that they both have emanated from the state, and envisage to control the state in an absolute sense.     

Partisanship,media and the objective economy: Sources of individual-level economic assessments

Economic voting studies have repeatedly shown that voter's assessment of incumbent economic performance is important for the vote decision. However, there is little work explaining how individuals form their economic assessments. Utilizing individual-level data from Turkey, we find that variation in retrospective assessments can actually be predicted by individual income growth rates over the previous year, and the association is stronger for pocketbook assessments. Nonetheless, partisanship and media are important sources of bias, especially for sociotropic assessments. Controlled for partisanship, viewers of pro-government media are more likely to think that the national economy has done better than their own household over the last year, and also more likely to believe that the economy would fare worse if the incumbent is replaced. The findings testify both to the capacity of the individuals to anchor their assessments to personal experience, and to the media's ability to weaken this anchor.     

EVOLVING TOWARD NORMALCY AMID ANOMALY: NORTH KOREA’S MIDDLE EAST POLICY SINCE THE DEMISE OF KIM IL-SUNG

North Korea's engagement in the Middle East is a six-decade long narrative. Neither the DPRK nor its Middle Eastern partners have remained still over this time; each region has undergone significant changes. In particular, the leadership of the North Korea is now in the hands of the third generation. No matter how stagnant and monolithic the country may seem at first sight, each generation has had to deal with differing commitments and adapt to changing realities. As such, each generational change of leadership in Pyongyang has arguably had repercussions on the DPRK's relationship Middle Eastern partners, which may at times have been misattributed to a fundamental change of approach. This study attempts, therefore, to probe the twists and turns in the DPRK's interactions with the Middle East since the death of Kim Il-sung, beginning with an appraisal of each leaderships’ priorities in North Korea, and how they could potentially influence Pyongyang's overall orientation toward its different partners in the region.