Male MPs,electoral vulnerability and the substantive representation of women's interests

What are the political conditions affecting male MPs’ willingness to represent women's interests in parliament? This paper explores the role of electoral vulnerability in this regard and analyzes whether male MPs’ re-election prospects affect their likelihood of paying attention to women's concerns. Theoretically, we expect that male MPs are not blamed if they do not represent women's interests but can gain additional credit for doing so. Thus, male MPs should be more likely to speak on behalf of women if their electoral vulnerability is high and if they need to win additional votes to be re-elected. Empirically, the paper analyzes the representation of women's issues in the British House of Commons, by using Early Day Motions tabled preceding the General Elections in 2001, 2005, 2010 and 2015. The results show that male MPs are more likely to represent women's interests when their re-election is at risk.     

Turkish nationalism at its beginning: Analysis of Türk Yurdu, 1913–1918

Turkish nationalism became an element of the Ottoman political scene in the late nineteenth century. Although its roots can be traced back to the Hamidian period (1876–1909), Turkish nationalism emerged as one of the most important political ideologies during the Constitutional Regime. Wars that the Ottoman State participated in from 1911 to the end of the empire in 1918 resulted in population and land losses. Especially, following the Balkan Wars, most of the lands that were populated by non-Muslim and non-Turkish subjects were lost. Within this context, Turkish nationalism came to be seen as the most dominant ideological tool intended to save the Empire. This article argues that Turkish nationalism emerged as a reactive ideology that addressed Ottomanism and Islamism, which were the two other dominant state ideologies during the late Ottoman State, due to the changing political context. In this article, Türk Yurdu, a well-known and influential periodical, is used as the primary source of reference to demonstrate the basic features of Turkish nationalism in its infancy.     

Rising Powers in a Changing Global Order: the political economy of Turkey in the age of brics

The rise of bric s presents a major challenge to the existing global order. A second category of emerging powers, which may be labelled near- bric s, have also displayed increasing pro-activism in recent years in terms of influencing the regional balance of power politics, in addition to their growing presence in international organisations and global affairs. It is in this context that we aim to examine Turkey as a striking example of a ‘near- bric ’ power, a country that has adopted an increasingly assertive and independent style of foreign policy with aspirations to establish itself as a major regional actor. Using the Turkish experience as a reference point, this paper aims to understand the extent to which near- bric countries possess the economic capacity, sustainable growth performance and soft-power capabilities needed to establish themselves as significant regional and global actors. The recent Turkish experience clearly highlights both the potential and the limits of regional power activism on the part of emerging powers from the ‘global South’.     

Turkey’s Judiciary and the Drift Toward Competitive Authoritarianism

Turkey has always been considered an “illiberal democracy”, or in Freedom House’s terms, a “partly-free” country. In recent years, however, there has been a downward trend toward “competitive authoritarianism”. Such regimes are competitive in that opposition parties use democratic institutions to contest seriously for power, but they are not democratic because the playing field is heavily skewed in favour of incumbents. One of the methods employed by competitive authoritarian leaders is the use of informal mechanisms of repression. This, in turn, requires a dependent and cooperative judiciary. Thus, in Turkey the year 2014 can be described as a period when the governing AKP (Justice and Development Party) made a sustained and systematic effort to establish its control over the judiciary by means of a series of laws of dubious constitutionality.     

Energy and Security in Long-Term Defence Planning: Scenario Analysis for the Swedish Armed Forces

Abstract

The competition for energy resources, as well as the closely related climate change problems, imply a number of global security consequences. A methodology to include energy aspects in long-term defence planning, based on broad civilian scenario approaches, is proposed. The study has been carried out by the Swedish Defence Research Agency, as commissioned by the Swedish Armed Forces, resulting in a number of future mission scenarios highlighting e.g. new challanges and tasks, as well as the need for new capabilities and equipment.     

Globalization,Democratization and the Far Right: Turkey's Nationalist Action Party in Critical Perspective

Ultra-nationalist political parties of the far right have been an endemic feature of European politics in recent years. This article investigates the rise of the Nationalist Action Party (the MHP) in Turkey, a party that has a number of characteristics in common with its European counterparts. The objective of the article is to illustrate a paradox. These types of parties tend to display a considerable degree of adaptability and exhibit a tendency to move in a more moderate direction. They shed some of their violent and extremist leanings in the process as they try to transform themselves from closed communities or networks to mass parties of national standing. This apparent moderation should not disguise, however, the key underlying weakness of such parties, namely their limited commitment to the core values of liberal democracy and political pluralism. Indeed, such parties can continue to play an important negative role in terms of their ability to block the process of democratic deepening in nascent democratic regimes.     

Democratization and the politicization of religious civil society in Turkey

In this article, we explain how the political opportunity structure characterized by official secularism and state regulation of religion has shaped the politicization of religiously oriented civil society in Turkey. The ban on religious political parties and strict state control over religious institutions create constraints for the expression of religious interests. However, due to changes in laws regulating the civil society sector and rule by a religiously sympathetic political party, religious groups use associations and foundations to express their interests. We observe that, in this strictly controlled opportunity structure, religiously oriented Muslims have framed their religious interests in the political realm parallel to those of the dominant political party, the Justice and Development Party (AKP). Through a study of non-governmental organizations we document the rhetoric religious groups use to frame their position on several key issues: religious freedom for the majority religious group, methods of resolving issues related to minority populations, and the Ottoman heritage of charitable service.     

Centre-right politics in Turkey after the November 2002 general election: neo-liberalism with a Muslim face

This article analyses the implications for centre-right politics and democracy in Turkey of the rise to power of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalk?nma Partisi, AKP) in the November 2002 general election. It is argued that the AKP has both similarities with and differences from the centre-right political parties that have dominated Turkish politics in the aftermath of the 1980 coup d’état. It is possible to find continuity in the conciliatory and synthesizing stance of the AKP, as well as in its rather conservative stance. The AKP’s disposition vis-à-vis state-centred politics is considered, as is its standpoint with regard to pluralism and democracy.     

A Systematic Study to Understand the Effects of Particle Size Distribution of Magnetic Fingerprint Powders on Surfaces with Various Porosities

This study intends to design magnetite (Fe₃O₄)‐based magnetic fingerprint powders with different particle size distributions. It also investigates the influence of particle size distribution on the visualization of latent fingermarks with as little background staining as possible on the surfaces with various porosities in a systematic way. Two strategies were used to prepare the magnetic fingerprint formulations for this study: milling of coarse magnetite particles for different durations, and mixing of sieved fine particles with different size ranges with coarse particles. Particle size analyses of the prepared magnetic powders, optical microscopy‐based roughness analysis of the surfaces and SEM measurements of the visualized fingerprints and representative powders were performed. Mag2 of the formulations prepared through milling and Mag5 and Mag6 of the formulations prepared through sieving and mixing were more successful in the development of latent prints than the rest of the solutions.