Suchergebnisse

Starting from the empirical observation of high levels of absorption of EU cohesion funds but strikingly low levels of substantive change in regional cohesion, this essay offers a contextual analysis of regional development policies in Hungary. Based on theoretical frameworks dealing with Europeanisation, new regionalism and participative development, it explores the reasons for this observation by analysing the role of administrative and planning structures and of development discourses. The essay shows that the Europeanisation of regional development policy triggered several changes in the planning process and led to the partial inclusion of new actors. However, the main effect of this was a growing centralisation of development policy making. The essay explains this by pointing to the domestic political context and the historical foundations of regional development discourses of the conservative and leftist liberal parties. While there are overlaps between the discourses on both sides of the ideological divide, they are perceived as incompatible by political actors. Thus, it is argued that considerations of political power, rather than ideological nature, shape Hungarian regional and development policy and explain the incremental reform process. Adapted from the source document.

In this article we examine two research questions. The first is how states use their membership in international organizations to attain foreign policy goals, enhance their political visibility, exercise strategic influence in global political affairs, and obtain advantageous policy outcomes. Recently Turkey successfully sought to use international fora, such as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the African Union (AU), with which Turkey has a strategic partnership, to launch initiatives with African states to galvanize action on policy matters of common concern among Turkey and African countries. It would be wrong, however, to claim that Turkey seeks a form of hegemony in Africa, as is widely stated about China, India, and other regional powers in the continent. Instead, following Sandra Destradi, we prefer to view Turkey's presence in Africa as an effort to involve African states in Turkey's pursuit of material gains by convincing those states of their shared values and goals with Turkey. Material gains consist broadly of economic advantages, such as increased trade opportunities and investment, as well as political visibility in global affairs. Economic advantages are easily demonstrable through trade figures, which we present. Political visibility can be qualified on a case-by-case basis, and we examine two such cases. The first is the role of Turkey in the Cotton Forum of the OIC since 2007; the second is Turkey's recent establishment of multilateral and bilateral relations with African states. Adapted from the source document.

Moral politics, neoliberal governmentality, and gender -- Discourse to emotion framework: how to read hutbes as data sources? -- How do public narratives serve for neoliberal governmentality? -- Manipulation, discipline and regulation: the discursive construction of expertise and social policy -- Deliberation, contestation, and the boundaries of neoliberal governmentality.

The creation of Turkish nationhood, citizenship, economic transformation, the forceful removal of minorities and national homogenisation, gender rights, the position of armed forces in politics, and the political and economic integration of Kurdish minority in Turkish polity have all received major interest in academic and policy debates. The relationship between politics and religion in Turkey, originating from the early years of the Republicanism, has been central to many - if not all - of these issues. This book looks at how centralized religion has turned into a means of controlling and organizing the Turkish polity under the AKP (Justice and Development Party) governments by presenting the results from a study on Turkish hutbes (mosque sermons), analysing how their content relates to gender roles and identities. The book argues that the political domination of a secular state as an agency over religion has not suppressed, but transformed, religion into a political tool for the same agency to organise the polity and the society along its own ideological tenets. It looks at how this domination organises gender roles and identities to engender human capital to serve for a neoliberal economic developmentalism. The book then discusses the limits of this domination, reflecting on how its subjects position themselves between the politico-religious authority and their secular lives. Written in an accessible format, this book provides a fresh perspective on the relationship between religion and politics in the Middle East. More broadly, it also sheds light on global moral politics and illiberalism and why it relates to gender, religion and economics.

This article investigates the puzzle of the emergence of Turkish politicians' discourse on population stagnation and growth despite healthy population growth and an above-replacement-level birth rate. We understand this emergence through considering how politicians link national identity and economic value to population increase. Empirically, our article traces the slogans that then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoǧan and the governing party politicians used to frame the "population issue" in Turkey from 2008 to 2013. Drawing from the Ajans Press database of over 5,000 newspaper articles, we selected 120 of the news items including politicians' slogans: the terms children, women, economy, family, morality, and birth. We grouped them in four clusters: youth/young couples, children, population control/ abortion, and prosperity. This allowed us to depict how politicians' slogans sustain the dimensions of population politics that we inductively generated. We show that the "three children" slogan of the current President Erdoǧan preceded and replaced population policy deliberations, and affected the public discursively. Thanks to a media that is only semi-free, this discourse has acquired an existence beyond the context where it was initially expressed. We argue that the norms embedded in political discourse and circulated for public deliberation generate the discursive governance of population politics. Thereby, politicians advance governance even without introducing major policy changes.

Experience in various countries demonstrated that populist leaders enfeeble democracy. Once elected, populist leaders concentrate power in their hands while undermining horizontal checks on their power. By drawing upon the Trump presidency in the U.S., this article reveals one of the dynamics in which populist leaders bypass institutions of horizontal checks in policy-making. It argues that populist leaders use social media platforms to disseminate discourse to convince people that a certain course of action is necessary and thereafter bypass formal institutions in policy-making. Trump used discourse first to discipline the federal bureaucracy, second to roll back Obama-era social and environmental regulations, and third to reorient the US migration policy. His discourse became pervasive thanks to his efficient use of Twitter, which allowed him to achieve political change without going through formal institutional channels.