scholarly journals Securitization of Memory Politics and Identity Politics as Academic and Political Tools

Author(s):  
L.A. Fadeeva

The article discusses securitization of memory politics and identity politics as a part of academic tools and some kind of political tools. The author characterizes the process of securitization analyzing both academic and political discourse of the last decade. The securitization of the politics of memory and identity, as well as the politicization of history are reflected in academic publications and political declarations, pouring out into hot discussions, debates, wars of memory, struggle of identities. Research findings can create basis for a political turn or a new foreign policy course. Securitization puts the category of identity in the context of international security while identity politics could be used as a soft power element or foreign policy tool. There has been a turn towards defining identity politics as a concrete ideological weapon that can be used against opponents in the ideological and political struggle. This significantly changes meaning of identity politics. The author considers that in scientific analysis it is advisable to avoid extreme politization of identity.

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eckhardt Fuchs ◽  
Marcus Otto

Cultures of remembrance or memory cultures have constituted an interdisciplinary field of research since the 1990s. While this field has achieved a high level of internal differentiation, it generally views its remit as one that encompasses “all imaginable forms of conscious remembrance of historical events, personalities, and processes.” In contrast to this comprehensive and therefore rather vague definition of “culture of remembrance” or “memory culture”, we use the term “politics of memory” here and in what follows in a more specific sense, in order to emphasize “the moment at which the past is made functional use of in the service of present-day purposes, to the end of shaping an identity founded in history.” Viewing the issue in terms of discourse analysis, we may progress directly from this definition to identify and investigate politics of memory as a discourse of strategic resignifications of the past as formulated in history and implemented in light of contemporary identity politics. While the nation-state remains a central point of reference for the politics of memory, the field is by no means limited to official forms of the engagement of states with their past. In other words, it does not relate exclusively to the official character of a state’s policy on history. Instead, it also encompasses the strategic politics of memory and identity pursued by other stakeholders in a society, a politics that frequently, but not always, engages explicitly with state-generated and state-sanctioned memory politics. Thus, the politics of memory is currently unfolding as a discourse of ongoing, highly charged debate surrounding collective self-descriptions in modern, “culturally” multilayered, and heterogeneous societies, where self-descriptions draw on historical developments and events that are subject to conflict.


2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 157-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
Toyin Cotties Adetiba

One of the South Africa's great soft power attributes has been the attraction and power of its transition to inclusive democratic governance after a long period of apartheid rule. This gave South Africa a certain moral authority and prestige to play very significant roles in conflict resolution and mediation through peacekeeping operations. Every government in an ever-changing and dynamic geopolitical environment ensure that its defence force cum foreign policy conform to the international environment while aiming at the defence and protection of its national interests. Using interpretive approach; this work argues that; fundamentally, there are three basic factors that reinforce South Africa’s participation in peacekeeping which are politics, economy and security. By extension these three elements is considered a transformational agent of South Africa’s economy. SANDF is, therefore, considered a dynamic and exceptional foreign policy tool that complements and at same time enhances South Africa’s diplomatic manoeuvrings and influence within the wider international developments. It is concluded that South Africa’s multilateral and foreign policy agendas have been driven by the pursuit of its national interest while trying to ensure peace in other African states. 


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-128
Author(s):  
Ahmet Erdi Öztürk

With the instrumentalisation of Islam via the state apparatuses in foreign policy, Sunni Islam has become both an instrument and a purpose of the repressive Justice and Development Party and Turkey has started to be one of the front runners of countries who are increasingly competing for using Islam as a foreign policy tool. This relatively new role of Turkey has created various diverging ideas among the host countries where Turkey is active. While some countries are rather content with Turkey’s religiously fueled policies and humanitarian aid, and define Turkey as one of the most influential actors which can use religion as a soft power tool, others refuse to define Turkey’s policies within the boundaries of religious soft power due to its extra-territorial authoritarian practices and instrumentalisation of religion for these. Under these circumstances, this study defines Turkey’s religious soft power as an ambivalent one and scrutinises the reasons behind this ambiguity via exploring some country cases from Southeast Europe.


2021 ◽  
Vol 107 (7) ◽  
pp. 18-26
Author(s):  
Lyubov Fadeeva ◽  

The author of the article attempts to use the theories of the European identity, memory politics, identity politics by placing them in the context of the European (international) security. The author considers it fundamentally important to pay attention not so much to the threats to European identity, but to how identity is used to legitimize foreign policy of the European Union. The article highlights such perspectives of this problem as the confrontation inside the EU on the politics of memory and identity and the justification of the EU foreign policy towards Russia by the need to protect the European identity and European values. The author uses the discourse-analysis and identity research methods. The main emphasis is placed on the competitiveness of identity politics and the possibilities of using it for political purposes, to legitimize solutions to ensure the security of the European Union and the world as a whole.


Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 38
Author(s):  
Ahmet Erdi Ozturk

Although the pro-democracy agenda of Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) gained significant domestic and international credibility throughout the early 2000s, the party has, since approximately 2010, experienced a dramatic process of democratic decline. The AKP has intensively used Islamist policies at home and abroad to consolidate its base of support under the leadership of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Weaponised in foreign policy, Islam has become both an instrument and an objective of the repressive AKP, and Turkey has emerged as a front runner in a race among countries increasingly using religion as a foreign policy tool. This new role for Turkey has created a slew of disparate perceptions among foreign countries. While some are content with Turkey’s religiously fuelled policies and designate Turkey as an influential actor which can use Islam as a soft power tool, others refuse to define Turkey’s policies within the boundaries of soft power due to its extra-territorial authoritarian practices. This study defines Turkey’s Islamic soft power as ambivalent and scrutinises the reasons behind this ambiguity by exploring examples from other countries in South-eastern and Western Europe.


2015 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 21-46
Author(s):  
Kubilay Arin

When Turkey’s Justice and Development Part (AKP) came to power in 2002, it brought a new strategy to foreign policy. Some scholars ascribed this reorientation to the rise of neo-Ottomanism, others to Islamization, and yet others to a Middle Easternization of foreign policy. All labels have one element in common: They give weight to Islam and Turkey’s imperial past as soft power assetsin the conduct of foreign policy by rejecting secular Kemalism in the country’s diplomacy. The AKP capitalized on Turgut Özal’s neo-Ottomanist foreign policy and Necmettin Erbakan’s multi-dimensional foreign policy by using Turkey’s pivotal geopolitical location to transform it into a global actor. The ongoing Islamic revival has caused the country’s attempted full westernization to slow down. But the West itself is hardly a monolithic bloc, given its own many internal cultural, linguistic,religious, political, and economic differences. I therefore describe Turkey as a “hybrid,” a modern and developing “semi-western” state, and argue that over time it will become ever more “socially conservative.”


Author(s):  
Lisel Hintz

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.


Author(s):  
Lisel Hintz

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.


Author(s):  
Jeremy Youde

China possesses the world’s largest economy, but that economic clout has not necessarily translated into taking leading roles within existing global health governance institutions and processes. It is a country that both contributes to and receives financial assistance from global health institutions. It has incorporated health into some of its foreign policy activities, but it has largely avoided proactively engaging with the values and norms embodied within the global health governance system. This ambivalent relationship reflects larger questions about how and whether China fits within international society and what its engagement or lack thereof might portend for international society’s future. This chapter examines China’s place within global health governance by examining its interactions with international society on global health issues, its use of health as a foreign policy tool, and its relationships with global health governance organizations.


Author(s):  
Fatih Resul Kılınç ◽  
Şule Toktaş

This article addresses the international movement of asylum seekers and refugees, particularly Syrian immigrants, and their impact on populism in Turkish politics between 2011 and 2018. The article argues that populist politics/rhetoric directed against Syrians in Turkey remained limited during this period, especially from a comparative perspective. At a time when rising Islamophobia, extreme nationalism, and anti-immigrant sentiments led to rise of right-wing populism in Europe, populist platforms exploiting specifically migrants, asylum seekers, and the Syrians in Turkey failed to achieve a similar effect. The chapter identifies two reasons for this puzzling development even as the outbreak of the Syrian civil war triggered a mass influx of asylum seekers and irregular immigrants into Turkey. First, the article focuses on Turkey’s refugee deal with the EU in response to “Europe’s refugee crisis,” through which Turkey has extracted political and economic leverage. Next, the article sheds light on Turkey’s foreign policy making instruments that evolved around using the refugee situation as an instrument of soft power pursuant to its foreign policy identity. The article concludes with a discussion of the rise of anti-Syrian sentiments by 2019.


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