Adolescents’ Engagement in Ethnic Harassment: Prejudiced Beliefs in Social Networks and Classroom Ethnic Diversity

Research on ethnic victimization to date has done little to identify the reasons why adolescents victimize their peers due to their ethnic background. To address this limitation, we examined: (1) the extent to which prejudiced attitudes within adolescents’ close and larger social networks determine their engagement in ethnic harassment, and (2) the extent to which classroom ethnic diversity plays a role in any such link. Our sample included 902 Swedish adolescents (M _age ?=?14.40, SD?=?.95; 50.3% girls). We found that Swedish adolescents who held negative attitudes toward immigrants or who were surrounded by prejudiced peers were more likely to be involved in ethnic harassment, particularly in classrooms with high ethnic diversity. Adolescents in classrooms with a high anti-immigrant climate were more likely to harass their immigrant peers. These findings suggest that prejudiced beliefs in youth social networks put young people at risk of engaging in ethnic harassment, particularly in ethnically diverse classrooms.     

On the borders of the Turkish and Iranian nation-states: the story of Ferzende and Besra

Following the First World War, empires were replaced with nation-states for good and the map of the Middle East was redrawn. Traced back to the final decades of the nineteenth century, Kurdish nationalism did not result in a nation-state in the modern Middle East. Therefore, the Kurds inhabiting the borderlands of the four nation-states of Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria came to be perceived as ‘trouble’ by these nation-states. Through the use of a wide array of published and unpublished Kurdish, Turkish, Persian and French archival documents, memoirs and oral and written literary pieces, this article unearths the role of a Kurdish tribal chief by the name of Ferzende in Mount Ararat Revolt in the late 1920s and early 1930s against the Turkish and Iranian nation-states. An exceptional contribution of this study is its exploration of the petition submitted to the Iranian Parliament by Ferzende's wife Besra. This study thus is a fresh contribution to the study of social history of the Middle East from the margins.     

Neuerungen im Zusammenhang mit der Volksanwaltschaft

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Turkey, Water and the Middle East: Some Issues Lying Ahead

This article analyzes cross-border water disputes in Mesopotamiathat involve Turkey, Iraq and Syria. It focuses on the SoutheasternAnatolia Project (Turkish: Güneydou Anadolu Projesi (GAP))that is being undertaken by various administrations of the governmentof the Republic of Turkey in the last few decades and triesto shed light on some important legal issues surrounding it.On 3 October 2005, Turkey began negotiations with the EuropeanUnion (EU) for accession as a full member. Attention is alsogiven to the extent to which the matter may complicate Turkey'srelations with the EU during these negotiations. Water conflicts in the Middle East have recently become a popularsubject for international scholars.¹ Numerous writers, fromacademics to intelligence analysts, have contributed variousperspectives to the increasingly complex issues surroundingthe topic. Scholars who specialize in water problems in theMiddle East have devoted particular attention to the regionwatered by the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers, and their tributaries—anarea commonly known as Mesopotamia. Many of these publicationsare promulgated by two distinct (and opposing) party views:that of the Turkish government on the one hand, and that ofthe Syrian and Iraqi governments on the other.² Consequently,much of the work underpinning the growing body of scholarshipin this area reflects the biases of each position. In analyzing the longstanding conflicts over water rights inMesopotamia, this paper endeavors to accomplish several things.First, to give readers a more complete understanding of thecurrent dispute, a detailed account of the opposing views ofTurkey and Syria/Iraq is provided. Second, the merits of eachposition are weighed in light of the current state of publicinternational law, with particular attention given to Turkey'sdesire to exercise extensive control over the watercourses atissue. Lastly, the potential effects of the changing politicalclimate in the region—namely Turkey's accession talkswith the EU, Iraq's recent regime change, and the uncertaintyof Syria's political future—are considered and discussed.     

Resistance to centralisation in the Ottoman periphery: the Kurdish Baban and Bohtan emirates

Modern Kurdish historiography, which examines resistance to provincial centralisation in Ottoman Kurdistan, focuses largely on Bedir Khan’s Bohtan emirate and his revolt in the 1840s, while ignoring the rest of the other Kurdish emirates such as Baban emirate. While both states, Qajar Iran and Ottoman Empire, were endeavouring to solve their conflicts in the 1840s (a process which culminated in the treaty of Erzurum in 1847) the future of the Baban emirate and its territories emerged as one of the major issues during the course of negotiations. The Baban emirate was the last emirate to give up its struggle against the Sublime Porte’s centralisation reforms. The legacy of the Kurdish emirates is important to understand better the relations between the centre of the Ottoman Empire and its eastern periphery, a much less studied subject in Ottoman historiography. This article will highlight the impact of the centralisation policies in Kurdistan, more specifically on territories of the Bohtan and Baban emirates. It will be demonstrated that the changes wrought by the Tanzimat reforms were partially successful in transforming the Kurdish notables, who later became a part of the state bureaucracy. However, the reform-minded officials, who were appointed after the Kurdish emirs were removed from the region, failed to persuade the locals in favour of the new administration thus transforming their lives.