Explaining the Politics of Security: Syrian Refugees in Turkey and Lebanon

Author(s):  
Sefa Secen

Abstract Under what conditions do governments view and respond to the arrival of refugees primarily as a security threat? Comparatively analyzing the securitization of Syrian refugees in two host countries, Turkey and Lebanon, this paper proposes a domestic political context–based theory and typology of securitization. Based on a quantitative and qualitative content analysis of the media data including mainstream national Turkish and Lebanese newspaper articles, this research first differentiates between different levels of securitization and finds that moderate securitization in Lebanon during the early years of the refugee crisis (2013–2014) coincided with an open border policy, inaction, legal ambiguity, and benign neglect. From 2015, a marked increase of securitization in Lebanon coincided with controlled borders, restrictive policies, and heightened tension. Securitization of Syrian refugees has followed a somewhat different trajectory in Turkey, where the state switched from non-recognition (2013–2014) to recognition (2014–2016) and then from recognition to integration (2016–present), while a decrease in securitization mapped onto this policy trajectory despite the opposition's and the public's increasing discontentment with the presence of refugees. Then, this paper argues that the low level of securitization in Turkey is an outcome of the incumbent party's Islamist political ideology that motivates transnational religious solidarity, whereas the high level of securitization in Lebanon is a consequence of elite divisions and the country's unique historical experiences with Palestinian refugees that engender competing security perspectives and agendas on Syrian refugees. Overall, this study demonstrates how contextual or domestic factors are key to explaining government attitudes toward refugee groups and contributes to our understanding of the sources and processes of securitization.

Author(s):  
Tjipta Lesmana

Freedom of the press worldwide faces serious threat from owners of the media. Theoretically, journalist is independent and able to write whatever he or she wants to print. News is anything that fits to print, the jargon outcried in early years of Libertarian Media Theory. It is the journalist who has the  power to give criteria for “fitting” to print. Now the jargon has changed drastically: “He who pays the piper calls the tune’’. Newsroom  is nowaday not beyond owner’s interventionOwners run news media for specific reason. If they decide that a commentary or a news report goes against their beliefs or their interests or if they consider them biased, they certainly will want to intervene.The case of daily Koran SINDO is interesting to be investigated. While most media in the world, including those in Indonesia, heavily exposed President Donald Trump’s controversial policy in banning people from 6 midle-east and African countries from entering the US, daily Koran SINDO totally blocked the news. Not any single news criticising Trump’s policy is printed at the paper owned by Hary Tanoesudibjo. How the daily “plays the game” the author makes a simple research using qualitative content analysis.


2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raith Zeher Abid ◽  
Shakila Abdul Manan ◽  
Zuhair Abdul Amir Abdul Rahman

Numerous studies have examined the manner in which minority groups, including refugees, are depicted in the media discourse of the host countries or the dominant majority groups. The results of such studies indicate that media systematically discriminate these minority groups and deem them as a security, economic and hygiene threat to the majority groups. Through the use of Lakoff and Jonson’s conceptual metaphor theory, this study compares and contrasts the representation of Syrian refugees in the online media discourse of not only host countries but also non-host countries, which, in this study, refers to nations that do not host Syrian refugees. The results show that statistical differences between the metaphors used by host and non-host countries only occur when using the metaphors that describe the entry of refugees and the burden they are inflicting on the host countries. This is clearly indicated by the p-values of the log-likelihood test.


Author(s):  
Paul D. Kenny

This chapter discusses the concept of populism in greater detail and also describes how party systems are measured and classified. Rather than conceive of populism as a type of thin political ideology, this book understands populism as a distinctively personalistic type of political movement or organization in which charismatic leaders look to directly mobilize mass constituencies through the media and other means. The chapter next distinguishes between programmatic, patronage, and populist party systems, based on which type of party is most common. Finally, the chapter provides a quantitative analysis of the consequences of populist electoral success for democracy across a number of indicators. It shows that populist rule has generally negative consequences for the functioning of liberal democracy, which makes the effort to understand populist electoral success all the more pressing.


The Forum ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 319-346
Author(s):  
Sadie Dempsey ◽  
Jiyoun Suk ◽  
Katherine J. Cramer ◽  
Lewis A. Friedland ◽  
Michael W. Wagner ◽  
...  

Abstract Since the 2016 election, the relationship between Trump supporters and Fox News has gained considerable attention. Drawing on interviews with more than 200 people and a representative survey conducted in the state of Wisconsin, we dive deeper into the media habits of Trump supporters using a mixed methods analytical approach. While we do not refute the importance of Fox News in the conservative media ecology, we find that characterizing Trump supporters as isolated in Fox News bubbles obscures the fact that many are news omnivores, or people who consume a wide variety of news. In fact, we find that Trump supporters may have more politically heterogeneous consumption habits than Trump non-supporters. We find that 17% of our survey respondents who support Trump in Wisconsin are regularly exposed to ideologically heterogeneous news media. We also find that like other voters, Trump supporters are disenchanted with the divisive nature of contemporary media and politics. Finally, we analyze the media use of young Trump supporters and find an especially high level of news omnivorousness among them.


2017 ◽  
Vol 233 ◽  
pp. 111-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyle Jaros ◽  
Jennifer Pan

AbstractXi Jinping's rise to power in late 2012 brought immediate political realignments in China, but the extent of these shifts has remained unclear. In this paper, we evaluate whether the perceived changes associated with Xi Jinping's ascent – increased personalization of power, centralization of authority, Party dominance and anti-Western sentiment – were reflected in the content of provincial-level official media. As past research makes clear, media in China have strong signalling functions, and media coverage patterns can reveal which actors are up and down in politics. Applying innovations in automated text analysis to nearly two million newspaper articles published between 2011 and 2014, we identify and tabulate the individuals and organizations appearing in official media coverage in order to help characterize political shifts in the early years of Xi Jinping's leadership. We find substantively mixed and regionally varied trends in the media coverage of political actors, qualifying the prevailing picture of China's “new normal.” Provincial media coverage reflects increases in the personalization and centralization of political authority, but we find a drop in the media profile of Party organizations and see uneven declines in the media profile of foreign actors. More generally, we highlight marked variation across provinces in coverage trends.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 2899
Author(s):  
Sang Hun Lee ◽  
Yi Hyun Kang ◽  
Rong Dai

Speeches delivered in the Conference of the Parties (COPs) to the Convention on Biological Diversity represent leading discourses about biodiversity conservation. The discourse shared by high-level politicians is especially influential in the financing and decision-making process of global biodiversity governance. However, the speeches given in the COPs have not been the subject of systematic analyses until now. This study analyzes the host countries’ speeches given at the six most recent COPs and investigates which discourses have been expressed in the speeches. The regulatory discourse that views nature as a resource was found to be the dominant discourse, while other discourses that view nature as a scientific object or a spiritual entity were represented only marginally. As the need for a transformational policy for biodiversity conservation is growing amid a global pandemic, it is essential to deepen our understanding of the dynamics and complexity of nature and reflect it in the policy process. This study suggests that more balanced discourse on biodiversity may earn broader audiences’ consensus on biodiversity conservation.


2016 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 24-39
Author(s):  
Nabila El-Ahmed ◽  
Nadia Abu-Zahra

This article argues that Israel substituted the Palestinian refugees' internationally recognized right of return with a family reunification program during its maneuvering over admission at the United Nations following the creation of the state in May 1948. Israel was granted UN membership in 1949 on the understanding that it would have to comply with legal international requirements to ensure the return of a substantial number of the 750,000 Palestinians dispossessed in the process of establishing the Zionist state, as well as citizenship there as a successor state. However, once the coveted UN membership had been obtained, and armistice agreements signed with neighboring countries, Israel parlayed this commitment into the much vaguer family reunification program, which it proceeded to apply with Kafkaesque absurdity over the next fifty years. As a result, Palestinians made refugees first in 1948, and later in 1967, continue to be deprived of their legally recognized right to return to their homes and their homeland, and the family reunification program remains the unfulfilled promise of the early years of Israeli statehood.


2020 ◽  
Vol V (IV) ◽  
pp. 27-33
Author(s):  
Irem Sultana ◽  
Malik Adnan ◽  
Muhammad Imran Mehsud

This research paper inspected the role of Pakistani media to protect indigenous languages and culture in Pakistan. The study examined the situation; if Pakistani media outpours concern with the native languages or not. The article also checked the media landscape, its language-wise segregation and scenario of literacy in different areas of the country. The outcomes of the study showed that Pakistani media is neglecting the indigenous languages. The study results exhibited clearly that media houses’ focus on protecting native languages, is not profound. The findings also showed that foreign ownership of Media houses plays a role in neglecting indigenous language promotions. The current study presented that Pakistani mainstream media is damaging the local and native languages. The study was the outcome of qualitative content analysis and in-depth interviews of senior communication experts.


Author(s):  
Rina Arimarsetiowati ◽  
Fitria Ardiyani

Plantlet that has developed shoots and roots will have a high level adaptation in the field. The objective of this experiment was to improve the ability of planlet in shooting and rooting so that it is ready for acclimatization in the field. The increase ability in shooting and rooting of the planlet were conducted by adding various types of auxin in the media. The arabica coffee embryo of clone AS 2K which has entered the phase of the cotyledons was transfered into the treatment media containing half-strength of MS (Murashige & Skoog) macro and micro nutrient, vitamin B5, 30 g/L glucose, 100 ml/L coconut water, 50 mg/L AgNO3 added with the combination of IAA, IBA and NAA. The research was conducted by using completely randomized design with seven combined treatment i.e. 0.1 mg/L IBA, 0.1 mg/L NAA, 0.1 mg/L IAA; 0 , 1 mg/L IBA + 0.1 mg/L NAA, 0.1 mg/L IBA + 0.1 mg/L IAA, 0.1 mg/L NAA + 0.1 mg/L IAA; without auxin. There were 12 replications in every treatment and each replication consisted of five cotyledonary embryos. The parameters of observation were the root length, leaf number, leaf area, stem diameter, and height of plantlets. The observations were conducted in eighth weeks after cotyledonary embryo had shoots. The results showed that in the number of leaves and height of planlet parameters, the treatment without auxin was the best result compared to planlet with auxin addition. The addition of auxin varians and their combination did not significantly influent leaf area, root length and stem diameter parameters. The medium tested was optimum for the growth of shoots and roots of AS 2K arabica coffee.


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