The Past as a Benchmark in Defining Turkey’s Status Politics

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 168-192
Author(s):  
Hakan Mehmetcik ◽  
Ferit Belder
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Social Constructivism ◽  
Constructivist Approach ◽  
Turkish Foreign Policy ◽  
The Past ◽  
Status Seeking ◽  
Temporal Side ◽  
Historical Identity ◽  
Status Politics

This article deals with Turkey’s status politics since the 2000s, by employing an aspirational constructivist approach that links social psychology with social constructivism in international relations. It focuses on the temporal side of status, stemming from historical identity construction in Turkish foreign policy (TFP) rhetoric and practices under the rule of the Justice and Development Party (JDP) since 2002. Turkey’s status politics is motivated by its past legacies rather than by a peer-to-peer comparison. Therefore, different variances and practices of identity politics in TFP offer valuable insights into its status-seeking practices. The article offers five images of the past that define various role sets and status claims for Turkey.

scholarly journals Moral authority and status in International Relations: Good states and the social dimension of status seeking

2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 526-546 ◽  
Author(s):  
William C. Wohlforth ◽  
Benjamin de Carvalho ◽  
Halvard Leira ◽  
Iver B. Neumann
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Moral Authority ◽  
Social Dimension ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
Middle Power ◽  
The Social ◽  
Status Seeking ◽  
Positional Good ◽  
Social Creativity ◽  
Status Politics

AbstractWe develop scholarship on status in international politics by focusing on the social dimension of small and middle power status politics. This vantage opens a new window on the widely-discussed strategies social actors may use to maintain and enhance their status, showing how social creativity, mobility, and competition can all be system-supporting under some conditions. We extract lessons for other thorny issues in status research, notably questions concerning when, if ever, status is a good in itself; whether it must be a positional good; and how states measure it.

scholarly journals Militant memocracy in International Relations: Mnemonical status anxiety and memory laws in Eastern Europe

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Maria Mälksoo
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Social Hierarchy ◽  
Dense Network ◽  
The Past ◽  
Status Seeking ◽  
Conceptual Analogy ◽  
Laws And Policies ◽  
International Social

Abstract This article theorises the nexus between mnemonical status anxiety and militant memory laws. Extending the understanding of status-seeking in international relations to the realm of historical memory, I argue that the quest for mnemonical recognition is a status struggle in an international social hierarchy of remembering constitutive events of the past. A typology of mnemopolitical status-seeking is presented on the example of Russia (mnemonical positionalism), Poland (mnemonical revisionism), and Ukraine (mnemonical self-emancipation). Memory laws provide a common instance of securing and/or improving a state's mnemonical standing in the relevant memory order. Drawing on the conceptual analogy of militant democracy, the article develops the notion militant memocracy, or the governance of historical memory through a dense network of prescribing and proscribing memory laws and policies. Similar to its militant democracy counterpart, militant memocracy is in danger of self-inflicted harm to the object of defence in the very effort to defend it: its precautionary and punitive measures resound rather than fix the state's mnemonical anxiety problem.

Driving liberal change? Global performance indices as a system of normative stratification in liberal international order

2021 ◽  
pp. 001083672110554
Author(s):  
Bahar Rumelili ◽  
Ann E. Towns
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
European Union ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Moral Status ◽  
The United States ◽  
Performance Indices ◽  
The Past ◽  
Global Performance ◽  
Status Seeking ◽  
Normative Status

The existing literature on Global Performance Indices (GPIs) is mostly dominated by unit-level analyses focused on specifying the relevant properties of the GPIs and the motivations of state actors in being influenced by GPIs. This article advances a systemic approach, which conceives of GPIs as collectively constituting a system of normative stratification in International Relations (IR). By bringing together the literature on GPIs with the relevant IR literatures on international hierarchies and status-seeking, we identify the structural attributes of the GPI-based system of stratification, how these structural attributes shape the distribution of normative status positions among states, and how this distribution is likely to condition the pursuit of status by states. In particular, we argue that the disaggregated structure and relative ranking of states, respectively, generate status ambiguity and immobility, which both dissuade states from seeking higher moral status through improving their scores in the existing indices. We illustrate the patterns of status ambiguity and immobility present in the GPI-based system of stratification through an empirical analysis of the scores and rank positions of the United States, European Union (EU) members, and “rising powers” in five different indices in the past decade.

What Makes the World Hang Together? Neo-utilitarianism and the Social Constructivist Challenge

1998 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 855-885 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Gerard Ruggie
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Social Constructivism ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Social Constructivist ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Neoliberal Institutionalism ◽  
Dimensions Of Space

Social constructivism in international relations has come into its own during the past decade, not only as a metatheoretical critique of currently dominant neo-utilitarian approaches (neo-realism and neoliberal institutionalism) but increasingly in the form of detailed empirical findings and theoretical insights. Constructivism addresses many of the same issues addressed by neo-utilitarianism, though from a different vantage and, therefore, with different effect. It also concerns itself with issues that neo-utilitarianism treats by assumption, discounts, ignores, or simply cannot apprehend within its characteristic ontology and/or epistemology. The constructivist project has sought to open up the relatively narrow theoretical confines of conventional approaches—by pushing them back to problematize the interests and identities of actors; deeper to incorporate the intersubjective bases of social action and social order; and into the dimensions of space and time to establish international structure as contingent practice, constraining social action but also being (re)created and, therefore, potentially transformed by it.

Diversification propaganda work with foreign audiences

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (4(13)) ◽  
pp. 31-50
Author(s):  
Shiyu Zhang ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Strategic Partnership ◽  
The Past ◽  
Bilateral Relations ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Relationship

Over the past decade, bilateral relations between China and Russia have attracted the attention of the whole world. As neighbors and rapidly developing countries, China and Russia are becoming increasingly important in the international arena. The strategic partnership and interaction between China and Russia occupy a significant place in the politics of both countries. Cooperation is developing dynamically in various fields, primarily in politics. After 2012, a change of government took place in China and Russia, which brought new changes to international relations. Studying the involvement of the media in this process can clarify their impact on international relations, in particular, their role in the relationship between China and Russia.

Rebranding China

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoyu Pu
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Chinese Foreign Policy ◽  
First Century ◽  
Theoretical Argument ◽  
Status Signaling ◽  
Status Seeking ◽  
Military Transformation ◽  
The Status ◽  
Offensive Realism

China plays a variety of status games, sometimes emphasizing its status as an emerging great power and other times highlighting its status as a fragile developing country. The reasons for this are unclear. Drawing on original Chinese sources, social psychological theories, and international relations theories, this book provides a theoretically informed analysis of China’s global rebranding and repositioning in the twenty-first century. Contrary to offensive realism and power transition theory, the book argues that China is not always a status maximizer eager to replace the United States as the new global leader. Differing from most constructivist and psychological studies that focus on the status seeking of rising powers, this study develops a theory of status signaling that combines both rationalist and constructivist insights. The book argues that Chinese leaders face competing pressure from domestic and international audiences to project different images. The book suggests that China’s continual struggle for international status is primarily driven by domestic political calculations. Meanwhile, at the international level, China is concerned about over-recognition of its status for instrumental reasons. The theoretical argument is illustrated through detailed analysis of Chinese foreign policy. Examining major cases such as China’s military transformation, China’s regional diplomacy, and China’s global diplomacy during the 1997 Asian and 2008 global financial crises, this book makes important contributions to international relations theory and Asian studies.

Other People's Struggles

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Owen
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Global Justice ◽  
British History ◽  
Original Theory ◽  
The Past ◽  
Contemporary Politics ◽  
Do So

Other People’s Struggles is the first attempt in over forty years to explain the place of “conscience constituents” in social movements. Conscience constituents are people who participate in a movement but do not stand to benefit if it succeeds. Why do such people participate when they do not stand to benefit? Why are they sometimes present and sometimes absent in social movements? Why and when is their participation welcome to those who do stand to benefit, and why and when is it not? The work proposes an original theory to answer these questions, crossing discipline boundaries to draw on the findings of social psychology, philosophy, and normative political theory, in search of explanations of why people act altruistically and what it means to others when they do so. The theory is illustrated by examples from British history, including the antislavery movement, the women’s suffrage and liberation movements, labor and socialist movements, anticolonial movements, antipoverty movements, and movements for global justice. Other People’s Struggles also contributes to new debates concerning the rights and wrongs of “speaking for others.” Debates concerning the limits of solidarity—who can be an “ally” and on what terms—have become very topical in contemporary politics, especially in identity politics and in the new “populist” movements. The book provides a theoretical and empirical account of how these questions have been addressed in the past and how they might be framed today.

Latin America and the League of Nations

1926 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-30
Author(s):  
Percy Alvin Martin
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Latin American ◽  
The United States ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
World War ◽  
The Past ◽  
Treaty Of Versailles ◽  
Post War ◽  
International Status

To students of international relations it has become almost a commonplace that among the most significant and permanent results of the World War has been the changed international status of the republics of Latin America. As a result of the war and post-war developments in these states, the traditional New World isolation in South America, as well as in North America, is a thing of the past. To our leading sister republics is no longer applicable the half-contemptuous phrase, current in the far-off days before 1914, that Latin America stands on the margin of international life. The new place in the comity of nations won by a number of these states is evidenced—to take one of the most obvious examples—by the raising of the legations of certain non-American powers to the rank of embassies, either during or immediately after the war. In the case of Brazil, for instance, where prior to 1914 only the United States maintained an ambassador, at the present time Great Britain, France, Italy, Belgium, Portugal, and Japan maintain diplomatic representatives of this rank.Yet all things considered one of the most fruitful developments in the domain of international relations has been the share taken by our southern neighbors in the work of the League of Nations. All of the Latin American republics which severed relations with Germany or declared war against that country were entitled to participate in the Peace Conference. As a consequence, eleven of these states affixed their signatures to the Treaty of Versailles, an action subsequently ratified in all cases except Ecuador.

scholarly journals Amendments of 2020 to the Russian Constitution as an Update to Its Symbolic and Identity Programme

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jakub Sadowski
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
Cultural Analysis ◽  
Current Version ◽  
Legal Text ◽  
The Past ◽  
Russian Constitution ◽  
Research Procedure ◽  
Historical Identity ◽  
Fundamental Law ◽  
Symbolic Content

AbstractIn the renewed Russian Fundamental Law, in addition to a number of provisions introducing changes to the political system, there are also statements of programmatic importance, as well as several provisions with symbolic and identity function. In this article these provisions are subject to functional and semiotic-cultural analysis. Particular emphasis has been placed on legally irrelevant content transmitted by the new regulations, on their semantic connections with the content of the preamble and on their cultural context. The research procedure carried out allows us to state that, compared with the 1993 text, the Russian Constitution in its current version participates to a much greater extent in the complex system of transmission of symbolic content, as well as the narratives that contribute to social memory, cultural and historical identity. In doing so, it goes beyond its genre limitations, opening the basic text to the functions assigned to the preamble. In the fragments I have analysed in the paper there are undoubtedly functional and genre disturbances, and with them changes the mode of semiosis of the legal text, both in its normative and programmatic form. Renewed Constitution is the case in which a legal text, by its very nature designing the possible future world, does so through ideas about the past.

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