Linking Identity Politics and Foreign Policy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisel Hintz
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Relevant Literature ◽  
Process Tracing ◽  
Theoretical Argument ◽  
Change Over Time ◽  
Inside Out ◽  
Domestic Level ◽  
Over Time

This chapter provides clear definitions of the concepts the book uses and the theory of inside-out identity contestation it develops. The chapter defines competing identity proposals as suggested understandings of the national self that prescribe and proscribe specific behaviors and red lines as particularly intolerable points of contention among supporters of various proposals. It then argues that identity hegemony is the goal of these supporters, and contestation is the process by which the contours of identity debates change over time in supporters’ efforts to achieve hegemony. The chapter briefly reviews relevant literature to carve out space for the book’s theoretical argument: when supporters of a proposal are blocked at the domestic level, they take their fight “outside” through the use of international institutional conditionality, transnational activist networks, and/or diasporic politics. The chapter also discusses the methodology of intertextual analysis and process tracing employed in the study.

Identity Politics Inside Out

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisel Hintz
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Pop Culture ◽  
Process Tracing ◽  
Inside Out ◽  
Domestic Level

Teasing out the complex link between identity politics and foreign policy, this book turns the concept of identity politics as traditionally used in IR scholarship inside out. Rather than treating national identity as a cause or consequence of a state’s foreign policy, it rethinks foreign policy as an arena, alternative to domestic politics, in which contestation among competing proposals for national identity takes place. It argues that elites choose to take their contestation “outside” when their identity gambits are blocked at the domestic level by supporters of competing proposals, theorizing when and how internal identity politics becomes externalized. Turkey offers an ideal empirical window onto these dynamics because of dramatic challenges to understandings of Turkishness and because its identity is implicated in multiple international roles, such as NATO ally, EU candidate, and OIC member. Using intertextual analysis, the book extracts competing proposals for Turkey’s identity from a wide array of pop culture and social media sources, interviews, surveys, and archives. It then employs process tracing to demonstrate how elites sharing an Ottoman Islamist understanding of identity counterintuitively used an EU-oriented foreign policy to challenge the institutional grip of pro-Western, secular Republican Nationalism back home, thus clearing the way for an increased presence of Islam domestically and a renewed role in the Middle East. The framework developed closes the identity-foreign policy circle, analytically linking the “inside-out” spillover of national identity debates in foreign policy with changes in the contours of these debates produced by their contestation abroad.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisel Hintz
Keyword(s):  
International Economic ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Pop Culture ◽  
Political Campaigns ◽  
Economic Conditions ◽  
Eu Membership ◽  
Inside Out

This chapter introduces the book’s aim of turning the concept of identity politics inside out. It presents Turkey as an empirical window onto these dynamics, familiarizing readers with puzzling shifts in domestic politics and foreign policy that do not correspond to shifts in geopolitical dynamics, international economic conditions, or the coming to power of a new party. For example, after the AKP made progress toward EU membership in its first term, the party’s subsequent terms witnessed a sharp reorientation of Turkey, a traditional Western ally, toward the Middle East. This period also demonstrates a rise in “Ottomania”—reviled until recently as delusions of imperial Islamic grandeur—which now permeates everything from pop culture to political campaigns. How was such a drastic reorientation of Turkey possible under the AKP? This introduction lays out how the book solves this puzzle by turning identity politics inside out and outlines the structure of the book.

U.S. Leadership in a Shrinking World: The Breakdown of Consensuses and the Emergence of Conflicting Belief Systems

1983 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 368-392 ◽  
Author(s):  
James N. Rosenau ◽  
Ole R. Holsti
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Belief Systems ◽  
The United States ◽  
Domestic Policy ◽  
Change Over Time ◽  
Soviet Invasion ◽  
American Society ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Over Time

The adaptation of the United States to its declining role as a superpower is examined through an inquiry into the belief systems of the society's leaders. Three sets of mutually exclusive domestic policy belief systems are identified, along with three sets of mutually exclusive foreign policy belief systems. The degree to which they are linked to each other is explored, and the connections are found to be tenuous—suggesting that the cleavages at work in American society are more enduring and less subject to change than may be readily apparent. The last section of the paper uses more recent data from a sample of American leaders to examine the degree to which foreign policy belief systems are susceptible to change over time, allowing for an analysis of the extent to which the hostage crisis in Iran and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan affected pre-existing belief systems. The overall finding is that the impact was negligible, and that foreign policy belief systems are largely resistant to change.

Legitimacy and Power in the Soviet Union Through Socialist Ritual

1984 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christel Lane
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Political System ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Theoretical Argument ◽  
Change Over Time ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Right ◽  
Over Time

Every political system must secure compliance with its commands on the part of the ruled; the methods applied to achieve this vary from society to society and within societies over time. One way of gaining compliance is for political elites to establish the legitimacy of the political system, of their position within it, and of the commands that are issued. Political power can be said to be legitimate when, in the words of Sternberger, it is exercised both with a consciousness on the part of the elite that it has a right to govern and with some recognition by the ruled of that right. Both this consciousness of the right to govern and its acknowledgement by the ruled is derived from some source of authorization which may change over time. This paper will focus on the conscious attempts of Soviet political elites from the early sixties onwards to change their strategy of gaining compliance by reducing reliance on coercion and strengthening political legitimacy. It will draw attention to their efforts to develop a new source of authorization and to employ a new legitimation procedure. In developing the theoretical argument the Weberian typology of legitimate rule will be employed, and this approach to the topic will be contrasted with that adopted by T. H. Rigby in two recent publications.

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