Vol. 43, No. 3, September 2008
Opinions
Making Sense of Turkish Politics
Sahin Alpay
Turkey, a candidate state that started
negotiating membership in the EU in 2005, has witnessed serious political conflict since
April 2007 when the military threatened to intervene once again in the political process.
The Chief Prosecutor filed closure cases before the Constitutional Court first against the
Democratic Society Party, the first pro-Kurdish party to enter parliament, and then
against the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) which won a landslide election
victory in the parliamentary elections of July 2007. The Court decided by the slimmest of
margins against the closure of AKP, allowing the country to escape narrowly one of its
worst political crises. The attempted "judicial coup" can only be explained by
the state ideology of and the nature of democracy in Turkey. The political conflicts are
related not to a fight over dismantling or protecting secularism, but to the power
struggle between old and new elites in the country.
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The Union for the Mediterranean: A Genuine Breakthrough or More of the Same?
Dimitar Bechev and Kalypso Nicolaidis
The new French scheme for a Union for
the Mediterranean (UfM), officially inaugurated on 13 July, has stirred up a great deal of
controversy inside the EU. Even in its watered-down form, the initiative promises to
relaunch the stalled relations between the two sides of the Mediterranean in the context
of the Barcelona Process. Though vulnerable to all manner of external shocks linked to the
multiple inter- and intra-state conflicts around the Mediterranean, the Sarkozy plan is a
welcome move to a greater degree of "co-ownership" through the institution of a
joint presidency. Of great importance in the interest of overcoming at least some of the
problems that have bedeviled the Barcelona Process is further "decentring" of
Euro-Med politics away from Brussels and more comprehensive trade opening by the EU.
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Threats from Within: Four Challenges Inside the NATO Alliance
Julianne Smith and Michael Williams
Common wisdom is that NATO's future
hinges solely on the outcome of the International Security Assistance Force mission in
Afghanistan. While the state of Afghanistan will impact the future of the Alliance for
better or for worse, it will not be the sole or even primary factor to influence the
future of NATO. In many ways, Afghanistan has become an excuse for the Alliance to ignore
some of the in-built problems of the organisation. The allies' inability to define clearly
the nature of the Alliance and its core missions, a lack of capability and poor funding,
topped off by exceedingly weak and troubled relations with other international
organisations, particularly the European Union, all pose significant challenges that the
alliance must address to remain relevant, coherent, and equipped to engage effectually in
future operations.
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A Global Response to Terrorism
Ian Shapiro
The Bush administration has been too
quick to dismiss containment as an obsolete hangover of the Cold War. Appropriately
modified to operate through international institutions and regional alliances, containment
provides the most viable available basis for responding to terrorist threats emanating
from rogue regimes and weak states.
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Essays
Meeting the Challenges of Climate Change
EU Leadership in International Climate Policy: Achievements and Challenges
Sebastian Oberthür and Claire Roche Kelly
Climate change has taken centre stage
in European and international politics. Since the second half of the 1980s, the EU has
established itself as an international leader on climate change and has considerably
improved its leadership record. The Union has significantly enhanced both its external
representation and its internal climate policies. However, implementation and policy
coherence, coordination of EU environmental diplomacy, an evolving international agenda,
EU enlargement, and a still precarious EU unity remain major challenges. Shifts in
underlying driving forces and advances of EU domestic climate and energy policies
nevertheless support the expectation that the EU will remain a progressive force in
international climate policy for some time.
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The Environmental Security Debate and its Significance for Climate Change
Rita Floyd
Policymakers, military strategists and
academics all increasingly hail climate change as a security issue. This article revisits
the (comparatively) long-standing "environmental security debate" and asks what
lessons that earlier debate holds for the push towards making climate change a security
issue. Two important claims are made. First, the emerging climate security debate is in
many ways a re-run of the earlier dispute. It features many of the same proponents and
many of the same disagreements. These disagreements concern, amongst other things, the
nature of the threat, the referent object of security and the appropriate policy
responses. Second, given its many different interpretations, from an environmentalist
perspective, securitisation of the climate is not necessarily a positive development.
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Islam and Europe
How to Engage with Political Islam? Lessons from Europe
Nathalie Tocci and Nona Mikhelidze
Since the late 1980s, research on
political Islam has been much in vogue in Europe and the US. This phenomenon is typically
viewed as an expression of religion rather than of politics. Precisely because of the
assumed "religious" underpinnings of political Islam, most Western attempts to
engage with Islamists often remain trapped in an attempt to test their "democratic
credentials". By focussing on what Islamists think about democracy, many studies have
ignored the political, social and economic contexts in which Islamists operate. Accounting
for the political underpinning of Islamist movements can both help understand their
political evolution and open up fruitful avenues for comparative analysis. For this
reason, attention is turned to Europe to seek best practices of external engagement with
domestic opposition movements in authoritarian contexts, such as Western engagement with
opposition actors in Franco's Spain, Kuchma's Ukraine and Shevardnadze's Georgia.
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Time to Deradicalise? The European Roots of Muslim Radicalisation
Amel Boubekeur
When European Muslim citizens are
involved in social conflicts or when they contest the place that is given them in Europe,
these political claims are often seen as radical and inspired by external influences. If
an attempt is made to understand what part the influences of the so-called Muslim
"countries of origin" play in the way Muslims contest European models of society
and integration, it turns out that the roots of radicalisation are often purely European.
The idea that it is the Islamic and communitarian nature of the European Muslim way of
life which is at the base of their failing integration has to be challenged. Indeed, the
initiatives of religious actors have failed to channel the radicalisation of European
Muslims' political demands. The role of the religious variable is of much less importance
in political radicalisation than the lack of an institutional response to the demands for
greater social and economic integration.
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Italy in World Affairs
The Long Path from Recognition to Representation of Muslims in Italy
Andrea Coppi and Andrea Spreafico
The Muslim community in Italy does not
benefit from official recognition, which could, among other things, provide it with access
to state funding. Nor does its fragmented nature favour a process of aggregation leading
to the formation of a single representative body delegated to dialogue with the
institutions. The government initiative establishing the Council of Italian Islam
(Consulta) sought to encourage an original course in this direction, but it seems that the
body is unlikely to solve the problem. The solutions adopted in various European countries
and the proposals put forward by experts suggest that legal recognition cannot sidestep
the question of representation and therefore calls for a process of cultural mediation.
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Muslim Diversity in Italy: An Unacknowledged Reality
Antonella Guarneri
Immigration towards Italy is on the
increase and, as a part of it, the Muslim presence is too. The range of countries of
origin of Muslim immigrants in Italy is very broad and this multi-ethnicity, along with
the divisions in the Muslim faith itself make the Muslim presence difficult to understand
and quantify. In addition, this fragmentation poses a dilemma for the state between
considering immigrants an unicum or devising different policies for specific
immigrant groups or communities. It also makes it easier for the uninformed Italian
public, with the help of the media, to equate all Muslims with fundamentalism, terrorism
and crime, spawning ungrounded fears. While waiting for a comprehensive bill on freedom of
worship that would facilitate official recognition of Islam, Italian society will have to
become more knowledgeable and open towards the Muslims in its midst.
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Book Reviews
Beyond Wiring Diagrams? ESDP Explained and Assessed
Sonia Lucarelli
Review of: Security and defence
policy in the European Union, Jolyon Howorth, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007
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Experimenting Leadership
Cesare Merlini
Review of: The great experiment,
Strobe Talbott, Simon & Schuster, 2008
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China and the World: Rethinking Security in a Multipolar System
Gerald Chan
Review of: China stands up,
David Scott, Routledge, 2007; Human security and the Chinese, Robert E. Bedeski,
Routledge, 2007; Chinese strategic culture and foreign policy decision-making,
Huiyun Feng, Routledge, 2007; China turns to multilateralism, edited by Guoguang
Wu and Helen Lansdowne, Routledge, 2008; and China factors, Gordon C. K. Cheung,
Transaction Publishers, 2007
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