Pub Date : 2023-01-02DOI: 10.1080/19436149.2023.2168381
G. Vatandoust, M. Sheipari
Abstract No one disputes the authenticity of the Islamic Revolution of 1979 that led to the overthrow of the Pahlavi regime and left its footprint in the region and the world at large. This research is an attempt to revisit the Islamic Revolution from an entirely new perspective, looking at the fall of the Pahlavi regime from a combined modified J-Curve Theory of James Davis and Abraham Maslow’s theory of human needs. These combined theories are applied to the socio-economic conditions that lead to the fall of the Pahlavi regime in 1979. The article aims to determine the socioeconomic variants within the general framework and limitations of the J-Curve and to modify the theory to further explain the more ambiguous aspects that fall beyond the socioeconomic components, those defined as the ‘self-actualization needs,’ in what Maslow describes as the basic self-fulfillment aspirations of human beings. The study has several major objectives. Foremost it concentrates on a review of the socioeconomic bottlenecks during the last fifteen years prior to the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Observers regard these as the years of economic and social growth and prosperity. However, these years also led the country to the brink of collapse and revolution. The study seeks to analyze the socio-economic boom and bust in Iran’s development and the rapid decline during the final years prior to the fall of the Pahlavi regime. The attempt is to try and understand the reasons behind the bottlenecks and failures of many of the policies adopted by the regime and to test the validity of the J-Curve theory. The study also looks beyond Davies’ theory of revolution and argues that the J-Curve cannot respond to higher levels of human needs, particularly the self-actualization needs proposed by Maslow. To resolve this issue, we expand the J-Curve theory to include other paradigms as it became necessary to modify the J-Curve to suit the case. Evidence shows that the Shah promised more than he delivered, which led to his ultimate fall because his promise of a ‘Great Civilization’ could not be realized.
{"title":"Modified J-Curve Theory, Iran’s Socio-Economic Bottlenecks and the 1979 Fall of the Pahlavi Monarchy","authors":"G. Vatandoust, M. Sheipari","doi":"10.1080/19436149.2023.2168381","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19436149.2023.2168381","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract No one disputes the authenticity of the Islamic Revolution of 1979 that led to the overthrow of the Pahlavi regime and left its footprint in the region and the world at large. This research is an attempt to revisit the Islamic Revolution from an entirely new perspective, looking at the fall of the Pahlavi regime from a combined modified J-Curve Theory of James Davis and Abraham Maslow’s theory of human needs. These combined theories are applied to the socio-economic conditions that lead to the fall of the Pahlavi regime in 1979. The article aims to determine the socioeconomic variants within the general framework and limitations of the J-Curve and to modify the theory to further explain the more ambiguous aspects that fall beyond the socioeconomic components, those defined as the ‘self-actualization needs,’ in what Maslow describes as the basic self-fulfillment aspirations of human beings. The study has several major objectives. Foremost it concentrates on a review of the socioeconomic bottlenecks during the last fifteen years prior to the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Observers regard these as the years of economic and social growth and prosperity. However, these years also led the country to the brink of collapse and revolution. The study seeks to analyze the socio-economic boom and bust in Iran’s development and the rapid decline during the final years prior to the fall of the Pahlavi regime. The attempt is to try and understand the reasons behind the bottlenecks and failures of many of the policies adopted by the regime and to test the validity of the J-Curve theory. The study also looks beyond Davies’ theory of revolution and argues that the J-Curve cannot respond to higher levels of human needs, particularly the self-actualization needs proposed by Maslow. To resolve this issue, we expand the J-Curve theory to include other paradigms as it became necessary to modify the J-Curve to suit the case. Evidence shows that the Shah promised more than he delivered, which led to his ultimate fall because his promise of a ‘Great Civilization’ could not be realized.","PeriodicalId":44822,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Critique","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48351984","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-02DOI: 10.1080/19436149.2022.2132194
Arne F Wackenhut
Abstract: While many states directly engage their non-resident populations to rally support for domestic political agendas, extract remittances, or to further foreign policy objectives, few countries have been more active in this space than Turkey under the Justice and Development Party (AKP). By the early 2020s, researchers and scholars had obtained a fairly good understanding of the ways in which the Turkish government seeks to (selectively) engage or cooperate with, but also to suppress some members of what it perceives as its diaspora. These efforts are specified in official diaspora engagement policies and implemented through, for instance, governmental institutions like the ‘Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Communities’ (YTB), or cultural institutions like the ‘Yunus Emre Institutes.’ However, even though scholars have learned a fair bit about the supply side of Turkish diaspora engagement, we know comparatively little about the demand side of and for such efforts. To begin filling this gap, this article switches perspectives from the supplier to the consumer/recipient and seeks to understand better the ways in which diasporans perceive, relate to, and engage with such efforts. By building on primary and secondary sources as well as semi-structured interviews with members of the Turkish diaspora in Sweden, this article seeks to contribute to an understanding of the varied ways in which diasporans relate and react to different forms of state-led diaspora engagement.
{"title":"On the Receiving End of Diaspora Engagement Policies: Evidence from the Turkish Diaspora in Sweden","authors":"Arne F Wackenhut","doi":"10.1080/19436149.2022.2132194","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19436149.2022.2132194","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: While many states directly engage their non-resident populations to rally support for domestic political agendas, extract remittances, or to further foreign policy objectives, few countries have been more active in this space than Turkey under the Justice and Development Party (AKP). By the early 2020s, researchers and scholars had obtained a fairly good understanding of the ways in which the Turkish government seeks to (selectively) engage or cooperate with, but also to suppress some members of what it perceives as its diaspora. These efforts are specified in official diaspora engagement policies and implemented through, for instance, governmental institutions like the ‘Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Communities’ (YTB), or cultural institutions like the ‘Yunus Emre Institutes.’ However, even though scholars have learned a fair bit about the supply side of Turkish diaspora engagement, we know comparatively little about the demand side of and for such efforts. To begin filling this gap, this article switches perspectives from the supplier to the consumer/recipient and seeks to understand better the ways in which diasporans perceive, relate to, and engage with such efforts. By building on primary and secondary sources as well as semi-structured interviews with members of the Turkish diaspora in Sweden, this article seeks to contribute to an understanding of the varied ways in which diasporans relate and react to different forms of state-led diaspora engagement.","PeriodicalId":44822,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Critique","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44148415","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-02DOI: 10.1080/19436149.2022.2135364
Gözde Böcü
Abstract: Recent accounts in diaspora studies have advanced our understanding of various political, social and economic transnational phenomena and processes that take place between the home state and the diaspora. However, there is a growing trend in the literature that focuses on home-state diaspora relations at the expense of the core tenant of the transnationalism framework, namely the assumption that immigrant transborder politics and connections span various dynamics that involve both the home and the host country. In this article, I argue that we must revisit calls for simultaneity and turn to the interaction of policies between the home and host state when analyzing diaspora making and shaping processes. To demonstrate my argument, I analyze historical policy interactions between Turkey’s diaspora policy and Germany’s immigration and integration policy and show how interactive dynamics between the home and host country have simultaneously shaped politics in Turkey’s diasporas over time.
{"title":"Home and Host Country Policy Interaction in the Making of Turkey’s Diasporas","authors":"Gözde Böcü","doi":"10.1080/19436149.2022.2135364","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19436149.2022.2135364","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:\u0000 Recent accounts in diaspora studies have advanced our understanding of various political, social and economic transnational phenomena and processes that take place between the home state and the diaspora. However, there is a growing trend in the literature that focuses on home-state diaspora relations at the expense of the core tenant of the transnationalism framework, namely the assumption that immigrant transborder politics and connections span various dynamics that involve both the home and the host country. In this article, I argue that we must revisit calls for simultaneity and turn to the interaction of policies between the home and host state when analyzing diaspora making and shaping processes. To demonstrate my argument, I analyze historical policy interactions between Turkey’s diaspora policy and Germany’s immigration and integration policy and show how interactive dynamics between the home and host country have simultaneously shaped politics in Turkey’s diasporas over time.","PeriodicalId":44822,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Critique","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43730008","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-02DOI: 10.1080/19436149.2022.2132193
Bahar Başer, A. Ozturk
Abstract: The authoritarian turn in Turkey compelled many citizens to change life trajectories which included extreme measures such as migration and exile. Thousands of people left Turkey in the last decade, this recent wave constituting one of the largest Turkish migrations to Europe and beyond. The profile of the migrants included those who were comfortable with and/or opposed the current regime’s political and social policies, members of oppressed minority groups, Gülen movement members who are accused of orchestrating the failed 2016 coup attempt as well as white collar and secular Turkish citizens who made lifestyle migration choices because of the political and economic developments in the country. The article focuses on the narratives of a specific group within this new wave, those whom we refer to as Turkey’s intelligentsia in exile, and who decided to leave Turkey following the Gezi protests in 2013. The findings are based on 25 interviews conducted in 2021 with former academics, activists, artists, journalists and politicians who migrated to a variety of locations as a result of pending trials or arrest warrants against them, dehumanization discourse that pro-regime politicians directed toward them, as well as lack of freedom of speech and assembly.
{"title":"From Exit to Voice: Reflections on Exile through the Accounts of Turkey’s Intelligentsia","authors":"Bahar Başer, A. Ozturk","doi":"10.1080/19436149.2022.2132193","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19436149.2022.2132193","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:\u0000 The authoritarian turn in Turkey compelled many citizens to change life trajectories which included extreme measures such as migration and exile. Thousands of people left Turkey in the last decade, this recent wave constituting one of the largest Turkish migrations to Europe and beyond. The profile of the migrants included those who were comfortable with and/or opposed the current regime’s political and social policies, members of oppressed minority groups, Gülen movement members who are accused of orchestrating the failed 2016 coup attempt as well as white collar and secular Turkish citizens who made lifestyle migration choices because of the political and economic developments in the country. The article focuses on the narratives of a specific group within this new wave, those whom we refer to as Turkey’s intelligentsia in exile, and who decided to leave Turkey following the Gezi protests in 2013. The findings are based on 25 interviews conducted in 2021 with former academics, activists, artists, journalists and politicians who migrated to a variety of locations as a result of pending trials or arrest warrants against them, dehumanization discourse that pro-regime politicians directed toward them, as well as lack of freedom of speech and assembly.","PeriodicalId":44822,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Critique","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49202525","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-02DOI: 10.1080/19436149.2022.2135362
Ayhan Kaya
Abstract: This article scrutinizes the ways in which Turkish state actors have shaped the social ecosophy of emigrants and their descendants residing in Europe. Describing the Turkish state’s perspectives toward emigrants reveals that Turkish state actors always have instrumentalized emigrants since the beginning of the migratory processes in the 1960s. The focus will be on the current Turkish government’s acts and policies, which are likely to contribute to the Muslimization of Turkey-origin emigrants in diaspora, or in other words, to their labeling simply as ‘Muslims’. Based on a thorough analysis of secondary literature, discourse analyses of contemporary Turkish political leaders’ speeches aimed at Turkish emigrants and their descendants as well as my earlier and ongoing field research findings, I argue that it is the indifference of some European state actors who have not offered political opportunity structures for devout Muslims with Turkish background to be incorporated into the public/political space at the expense of pushing them into the Turkish state actors’ hands that offer alternative political opportunity structures. Hence, the article elaborates the ways in which receiving states’ policies and practices toward migrant-origin people impact diaspora politics of the migrant-sending states. The emphasis is on German and Turkish state actors.
{"title":"Home-State Politics Vis-à-Vis Turkish Emigrants: Instrumentalizing Emigrants","authors":"Ayhan Kaya","doi":"10.1080/19436149.2022.2135362","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19436149.2022.2135362","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:\u0000 This article scrutinizes the ways in which Turkish state actors have shaped the social ecosophy of emigrants and their descendants residing in Europe. Describing the Turkish state’s perspectives toward emigrants reveals that Turkish state actors always have instrumentalized emigrants since the beginning of the migratory processes in the 1960s. The focus will be on the current Turkish government’s acts and policies, which are likely to contribute to the Muslimization of Turkey-origin emigrants in diaspora, or in other words, to their labeling simply as ‘Muslims’. Based on a thorough analysis of secondary literature, discourse analyses of contemporary Turkish political leaders’ speeches aimed at Turkish emigrants and their descendants as well as my earlier and ongoing field research findings, I argue that it is the indifference of some European state actors who have not offered political opportunity structures for devout Muslims with Turkish background to be incorporated into the public/political space at the expense of pushing them into the Turkish state actors’ hands that offer alternative political opportunity structures. Hence, the article elaborates the ways in which receiving states’ policies and practices toward migrant-origin people impact diaspora politics of the migrant-sending states. The emphasis is on German and Turkish state actors.","PeriodicalId":44822,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Critique","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41823196","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-02DOI: 10.1080/19436149.2022.2129339
A. Ozturk, Hakkı Taş, Bahar Başer
Diasporas have become a topic of academic and political discussion and interest since 2000. Until recently, most diaspora research has focused on the ways the states in the Global North ‘ receive ’ outsiders but has devoted limited scrutiny to the role of sending states in shaping opportunity structures abroad. 1 The recently growing literature on diaspora politics draw our attention to the rise of state-led diaspora engagement initiatives which aim at cultivating, (re)building, (re)shaping and (de/re)mobilizing diasporas. Currently, more than one hundred states have established forms of diaspora engagement policies and institutions, with a variety of motivations. 2 Scholars try to understand the development of diaspora-engagement policies cultivated by political actors in the homeland from various disciplines including international relations, political science and sociology. 3 How these policies are cultivated and transformed through time 4 and their
{"title":"Guest Editors’ Introduction: Turkey’s Diaspora Governance Policies from the Past to the Present","authors":"A. Ozturk, Hakkı Taş, Bahar Başer","doi":"10.1080/19436149.2022.2129339","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19436149.2022.2129339","url":null,"abstract":"Diasporas have become a topic of academic and political discussion and interest since 2000. Until recently, most diaspora research has focused on the ways the states in the Global North ‘ receive ’ outsiders but has devoted limited scrutiny to the role of sending states in shaping opportunity structures abroad. 1 The recently growing literature on diaspora politics draw our attention to the rise of state-led diaspora engagement initiatives which aim at cultivating, (re)building, (re)shaping and (de/re)mobilizing diasporas. Currently, more than one hundred states have established forms of diaspora engagement policies and institutions, with a variety of motivations. 2 Scholars try to understand the development of diaspora-engagement policies cultivated by political actors in the homeland from various disciplines including international relations, political science and sociology. 3 How these policies are cultivated and transformed through time 4 and their","PeriodicalId":44822,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Critique","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49596264","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-02DOI: 10.1080/19436149.2022.2132192
Banu Senay
Abstract: Since the early 2000s, under successive Justice and Development Party (AKP) governments, Turkey has developed more systematic ‘engagement’ policies with its extra-territorial communities, including citizens abroad, kin and ‘relatives’, and non-Turkish international students sponsored to study in Turkey. This article examines the governmental techniques taken up by the ruling AKP elites to mobilize these constituencies as a source of what Félix Krawatzek and Lea Müller-Funk call ‘political remittance.’ To achieve this goal, the Turkish state has configured itself as an ‘impresario.’ It utilizes public pedagogy and political spectacle as key devices through which to generate desired remittances from extra-territorial communities, as well as to cast and craft its future leaders, friends, and allies.
{"title":"The Impresario State: Rituals of Diaspora Governance and Constructing Regime-Friendly Publics beyond Turkey’s Borders","authors":"Banu Senay","doi":"10.1080/19436149.2022.2132192","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19436149.2022.2132192","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:\u0000 Since the early 2000s, under successive Justice and Development Party (AKP) governments, Turkey has developed more systematic ‘engagement’ policies with its extra-territorial communities, including citizens abroad, kin and ‘relatives’, and non-Turkish international students sponsored to study in Turkey. This article examines the governmental techniques taken up by the ruling AKP elites to mobilize these constituencies as a source of what Félix Krawatzek and Lea Müller-Funk call ‘political remittance.’ To achieve this goal, the Turkish state has configured itself as an ‘impresario.’ It utilizes public pedagogy and political spectacle as key devices through which to generate desired remittances from extra-territorial communities, as well as to cast and craft its future leaders, friends, and allies.","PeriodicalId":44822,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Critique","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41842989","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-02DOI: 10.1080/19436149.2022.2135363
Hakkı Taş
Abstract: Diasporas do not arise from fixed connections to objective circumstances such as dispersion or relation to a homeland, but instead constantly are negotiated and re-constituted. Ranging from internal gradual change to sudden exogenous change, the re-making of a diaspora can take diverse forms. Despite the prevalence of constructivist and processual approaches, however, research on diaspora identity change has been limited. This paper takes a comparative historical perspective to the post-2016 diasporization of the Gülen Movement (GM) and discusses how the GM responded differently to sudden exogenous shocks in 1997, 2007, and 2016. In both historical institutionalism and rational choice theories, the sudden exogenous shocks do the heavy lifting to explain change; however, it is rather the endogenous parameters that account for the variation in the GM’s responses to those shocks.
{"title":"Collective Identity Change under Exogenous Shocks: The Gülen Movement and Its Diasporization","authors":"Hakkı Taş","doi":"10.1080/19436149.2022.2135363","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19436149.2022.2135363","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: Diasporas do not arise from fixed connections to objective circumstances such as dispersion or relation to a homeland, but instead constantly are negotiated and re-constituted. Ranging from internal gradual change to sudden exogenous change, the re-making of a diaspora can take diverse forms. Despite the prevalence of constructivist and processual approaches, however, research on diaspora identity change has been limited. This paper takes a comparative historical perspective to the post-2016 diasporization of the Gülen Movement (GM) and discusses how the GM responded differently to sudden exogenous shocks in 1997, 2007, and 2016. In both historical institutionalism and rational choice theories, the sudden exogenous shocks do the heavy lifting to explain change; however, it is rather the endogenous parameters that account for the variation in the GM’s responses to those shocks.","PeriodicalId":44822,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Critique","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44046943","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-28DOI: 10.1080/19436149.2022.2127631
Damla Aksel
Abstract: In examining the transformations in statecraft, the existing scholarship on Turkish diaspora policies largely adopts Foucault’s governmentality perspective and suggests that the shifting policies reflect the home states’ attempt to assert control over citizens, not through coercion but rather through consent. While this framing has proved workable, it provides limited room for students of diaspora studies to incorporate the overall conceptualization on the resistance in which the non-resident citizens and countries of residence engage vis-à-vis home country politics and the potential failures of these policies. I propose to follow James Scott’s legibility framework to emphasize that the home states’ evolving policies to engage with non-resident citizens is a social engineering project, aiming to facilitate the state’s ability to monitor and mold the behavior of mobile populations in the context of neoliberal globalization. I argue that the legibility framework allows us to analyze not only the standardization processes, but also the resistance against it both from the migrants and from their countries of residence. To make my argument, I employ the framework to the case of Turkey, which has received considerable attention since the mid-2010s. This article is based on archival research of Turkish state documents on emigration, empirical research conducted between 2013 and 2014 involving nearly 100 interviewees including Turkish state officials in Turkey and with migrant representatives in France and the United States, and further examination of secondary resources, including informal talks with policy makers and diaspora representatives in the post-2016 period.
{"title":"Diaspora Engagement Policies as Transnational Social Engineering: Rise and Failure of Turkey’s Diaspora Policies","authors":"Damla Aksel","doi":"10.1080/19436149.2022.2127631","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19436149.2022.2127631","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:\u0000 In examining the transformations in statecraft, the existing scholarship on Turkish diaspora policies largely adopts Foucault’s governmentality perspective and suggests that the shifting policies reflect the home states’ attempt to assert control over citizens, not through coercion but rather through consent. While this framing has proved workable, it provides limited room for students of diaspora studies to incorporate the overall conceptualization on the resistance in which the non-resident citizens and countries of residence engage vis-à-vis home country politics and the potential failures of these policies. I propose to follow James Scott’s legibility framework to emphasize that the home states’ evolving policies to engage with non-resident citizens is a social engineering project, aiming to facilitate the state’s ability to monitor and mold the behavior of mobile populations in the context of neoliberal globalization. I argue that the legibility framework allows us to analyze not only the standardization processes, but also the resistance against it both from the migrants and from their countries of residence. To make my argument, I employ the framework to the case of Turkey, which has received considerable attention since the mid-2010s. This article is based on archival research of Turkish state documents on emigration, empirical research conducted between 2013 and 2014 involving nearly 100 interviewees including Turkish state officials in Turkey and with migrant representatives in France and the United States, and further examination of secondary resources, including informal talks with policy makers and diaspora representatives in the post-2016 period.","PeriodicalId":44822,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Critique","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49025173","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-27DOI: 10.1080/19436149.2022.2102563
Eric Hooglund
Published in Middle East Critique (Vol. 31, No. 3, 2022)
发表于《中东批判》(2022年第31卷第3期)
{"title":"Editor’s Note","authors":"Eric Hooglund","doi":"10.1080/19436149.2022.2102563","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19436149.2022.2102563","url":null,"abstract":"Published in Middle East Critique (Vol. 31, No. 3, 2022)","PeriodicalId":44822,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Critique","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-07-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138518447","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}