Pub Date : 2022-11-08DOI: 10.1080/19448953.2022.2143849
Ezgi Pinar, A. Gehring
ABSTRACT Instruments of direct suppression and tight control are widely discussed parts of education politics in Turkey. They are often perceived as parts of a wider political struggle that is crucial to produce imaginaries and memories supporting the populist narrative of the ruling AKP. The important role of higher education in the reproduction of a professional labour force does, however, indicate that these instruments cannot be reduced to that function. Ideological objectives and economic interests are often in a contradictory relationship, hindering the AKP’s ability to formulate a coherent strategy for higher education. Analysing the contradictions of the AKP’s higher education policies offers significant insights into the limits of populist politics that are in conflict with aspects of the economic order.
{"title":"‘They Cannot Herd a Sheep’ Populist Politics and Its Struggles for and Against Education in Turkey","authors":"Ezgi Pinar, A. Gehring","doi":"10.1080/19448953.2022.2143849","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19448953.2022.2143849","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Instruments of direct suppression and tight control are widely discussed parts of education politics in Turkey. They are often perceived as parts of a wider political struggle that is crucial to produce imaginaries and memories supporting the populist narrative of the ruling AKP. The important role of higher education in the reproduction of a professional labour force does, however, indicate that these instruments cannot be reduced to that function. Ideological objectives and economic interests are often in a contradictory relationship, hindering the AKP’s ability to formulate a coherent strategy for higher education. Analysing the contradictions of the AKP’s higher education policies offers significant insights into the limits of populist politics that are in conflict with aspects of the economic order.","PeriodicalId":45789,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies","volume":"25 1","pages":"440 - 457"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45777902","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 : 2022-11-08DOI: 10.1080/19448953.2022.2143781
E. T. Vardağlı
ABSTRACT This study analyzes an unconventional diplomacy initiative by the nascent Republic of Turkey. Upon the proposal of the President Mustafa Kemal [Atatürk], the ship Karadeniz (Black Sea) was transformed into a public diplomacy cruiser in 1926, sailing to western ports to promote Turkey’s newly established republican regime. After a long decade of wars and diplomatic hardships, the Revolutionary cadre in Turkey turned to unconventional means to generate a new identity for the country. This study examines the motives behind this unconventional diplomacy attempt over the Karadeniz Floating Fair case, which was a foresighted public diplomacy project. Karadeniz was furnished with a variety of exhibition items ranging from the popular products of the country to the newly developing artistic forms and displayed them in the port cities of Europe and the USSR. It is argued that this unconventional diplomacy formulation ensued from certain restraints of conventional diplomacy related to the national image.
{"title":"Unconventional Diplomatic Initiatives of Nascent Turkish Republic: The Karadeniz Expedition in 1926","authors":"E. T. Vardağlı","doi":"10.1080/19448953.2022.2143781","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19448953.2022.2143781","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This study analyzes an unconventional diplomacy initiative by the nascent Republic of Turkey. Upon the proposal of the President Mustafa Kemal [Atatürk], the ship Karadeniz (Black Sea) was transformed into a public diplomacy cruiser in 1926, sailing to western ports to promote Turkey’s newly established republican regime. After a long decade of wars and diplomatic hardships, the Revolutionary cadre in Turkey turned to unconventional means to generate a new identity for the country. This study examines the motives behind this unconventional diplomacy attempt over the Karadeniz Floating Fair case, which was a foresighted public diplomacy project. Karadeniz was furnished with a variety of exhibition items ranging from the popular products of the country to the newly developing artistic forms and displayed them in the port cities of Europe and the USSR. It is argued that this unconventional diplomacy formulation ensued from certain restraints of conventional diplomacy related to the national image.","PeriodicalId":45789,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies","volume":"25 1","pages":"222 - 238"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47327633","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 : 2022-11-08DOI: 10.1080/19448953.2022.2143860
Pavlos I. Koktsidis
ABSTRACT This article explores the rationale and modus operandi of Turkey’s soft power projection in north Cyprus [‘TRNC’] with the aim to better understand its effects on the Turkish Cypriot political and social spheres. The study explores the recorded activities carried out by Turkey’s most prominent soft power agencies in north Cyprus and cross-checks findings with field-notes collected from 2018 to 2021. While acknowledging that under AKP’s rule, religion, history, and humanitarian ideals have constituted the backbone of Turkey’s soft power agenda in areas important to its foreign policy interests, the analysis demonstrates that Turkish soft power does not simply rest on the attractiveness and persuasiveness of its ‘message value’ alone. Turkey exercises a centrally coordinated and multi-dimensional soft power that capitalizes heavily on dependencies and local vulnerabilities. With the use of subtle and direct forms of coercion and interference, understood as part of a legitimate exchange of ‘influence for security’, Turkey’s soft power content and methodologies have become particularly problematic, as they do not presume the purely voluntary, independent, and co-opting nature of relations between the powerholder and the receptor community.
{"title":"Turkey’s ‘Soft Power Interventionism’ in the Turkish Cypriot Community: Agents, Objectives, and Implications","authors":"Pavlos I. Koktsidis","doi":"10.1080/19448953.2022.2143860","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19448953.2022.2143860","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article explores the rationale and modus operandi of Turkey’s soft power projection in north Cyprus [‘TRNC’] with the aim to better understand its effects on the Turkish Cypriot political and social spheres. The study explores the recorded activities carried out by Turkey’s most prominent soft power agencies in north Cyprus and cross-checks findings with field-notes collected from 2018 to 2021. While acknowledging that under AKP’s rule, religion, history, and humanitarian ideals have constituted the backbone of Turkey’s soft power agenda in areas important to its foreign policy interests, the analysis demonstrates that Turkish soft power does not simply rest on the attractiveness and persuasiveness of its ‘message value’ alone. Turkey exercises a centrally coordinated and multi-dimensional soft power that capitalizes heavily on dependencies and local vulnerabilities. With the use of subtle and direct forms of coercion and interference, understood as part of a legitimate exchange of ‘influence for security’, Turkey’s soft power content and methodologies have become particularly problematic, as they do not presume the purely voluntary, independent, and co-opting nature of relations between the powerholder and the receptor community.","PeriodicalId":45789,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies","volume":"25 1","pages":"522 - 539"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43491931","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 : 2022-11-06DOI: 10.1080/19448953.2022.2143771
Deniz Kuru, Hazal Papuççular
ABSTRACT This article provides an introduction to the special issue on ‘New Diplomatic Histories of Turkey’. Utilizing approaches that follow the rich pathways offered by the increasingly relevant new diplomatic history, we aim to go beyond traditional diplomatic history studies on Turkey, which usually focus on inter-state relations that mostly remain at the bilateral levels. In this regard, this introduction first analyses the recent turn taking place in diplomatic history. By portraying in detail the recent scholarly efforts to enhance the field, it becomes possible to pinpoint the multiple directions in which Turkey-pertinent diplomatic–historical studies could move ahead in novel ways. Upon this premise, second, we summarize the content of the special issue by emphasizing how the present articles connect studies on the diplomacy of Turkey to approaches enriched by new diplomatic history. In this regard, the studies in this special issue cover a wide range of topics, from transnationalism to public diplomacy. The last part deals with possible ways through which to widen the scope of Turkey’s diplomatic histories.
{"title":"Introduction to the Special Issue: New Diplomatic Histories of Turkey","authors":"Deniz Kuru, Hazal Papuççular","doi":"10.1080/19448953.2022.2143771","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19448953.2022.2143771","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article provides an introduction to the special issue on ‘New Diplomatic Histories of Turkey’. Utilizing approaches that follow the rich pathways offered by the increasingly relevant new diplomatic history, we aim to go beyond traditional diplomatic history studies on Turkey, which usually focus on inter-state relations that mostly remain at the bilateral levels. In this regard, this introduction first analyses the recent turn taking place in diplomatic history. By portraying in detail the recent scholarly efforts to enhance the field, it becomes possible to pinpoint the multiple directions in which Turkey-pertinent diplomatic–historical studies could move ahead in novel ways. Upon this premise, second, we summarize the content of the special issue by emphasizing how the present articles connect studies on the diplomacy of Turkey to approaches enriched by new diplomatic history. In this regard, the studies in this special issue cover a wide range of topics, from transnationalism to public diplomacy. The last part deals with possible ways through which to widen the scope of Turkey’s diplomatic histories.","PeriodicalId":45789,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies","volume":"25 1","pages":"167 - 184"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43126204","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 : 2022-11-06DOI: 10.1080/19448953.2022.2143783
H. Sert
ABSTRACT The Cyprus dispute has preoccupied the agenda of the Turkish diplomacy for almost seventy years. From the mid-1950s onwards, the Cyprus issue in the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs had been upgraded from a desk to its busiest department. Turkish diplomatic bureaucracy had been so much wrapped up in the Cyprus issue that a generation of Turkish diplomats were trained at this diplomatic battlefield. Consequently, they developed a specific policy formulation, which would in time transform Turkey’s position towards a more aggressive line. In this regard, this study scrutinizes the role of Turkish diplomats during the most decisive moment of the Cyprus dispute, namely the Turkish military campaign of July 1974.
{"title":"When Diplomats Lead to a War: The Role of the Turkish Diplomatic Bureaucracy in the Military Intervention in Cyprus","authors":"H. Sert","doi":"10.1080/19448953.2022.2143783","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19448953.2022.2143783","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The Cyprus dispute has preoccupied the agenda of the Turkish diplomacy for almost seventy years. From the mid-1950s onwards, the Cyprus issue in the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs had been upgraded from a desk to its busiest department. Turkish diplomatic bureaucracy had been so much wrapped up in the Cyprus issue that a generation of Turkish diplomats were trained at this diplomatic battlefield. Consequently, they developed a specific policy formulation, which would in time transform Turkey’s position towards a more aggressive line. In this regard, this study scrutinizes the role of Turkish diplomats during the most decisive moment of the Cyprus dispute, namely the Turkish military campaign of July 1974.","PeriodicalId":45789,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies","volume":"25 1","pages":"257 - 277"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47736743","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 : 2022-11-04DOI: 10.1080/19448953.2022.2143846
Gokhan Bacik
ABSTRACT This article studies Islamisation in Turkey by analysing some performances of the Supreme Council of Radio and Television (RTÜK), the state agency with the duty of licensing and supervising the various media organizations. As the article demonstrates, Islamisation at RTÜK occurs with its informal incorporation of Islamic ethical principles in its professional decisions. This instance of Islamisation is significant, for it operates informally by engaging Islamic rules directly. RTÜK demonstrates neatly how a state agency can reference Islamic principles in the very act of justifying the rationale of its official decisions about the content of the media organ under its review. It is with such analyses that this article aims to propose a more rigorous conceptualisation and explanation of Islamisation in Turkey than the ones commonly available in the literature: It provides an in-depth analysis of Islamisation in the news media, a field that Islamist political actors know full well to be strategic in the transformation of a society; and by demonstrating that Islamisation endeavours in Turkey are not confined to the obvious organs of propagandisation like the news media, but they penetrate informally also the supposedly neutral statutory rules and regulations.
{"title":"Informal Application of Islamic Rules in Turkey: The Imposition by RTÜK of Islamic Ethics on Television Broadcasting","authors":"Gokhan Bacik","doi":"10.1080/19448953.2022.2143846","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19448953.2022.2143846","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article studies Islamisation in Turkey by analysing some performances of the Supreme Council of Radio and Television (RTÜK), the state agency with the duty of licensing and supervising the various media organizations. As the article demonstrates, Islamisation at RTÜK occurs with its informal incorporation of Islamic ethical principles in its professional decisions. This instance of Islamisation is significant, for it operates informally by engaging Islamic rules directly. RTÜK demonstrates neatly how a state agency can reference Islamic principles in the very act of justifying the rationale of its official decisions about the content of the media organ under its review. It is with such analyses that this article aims to propose a more rigorous conceptualisation and explanation of Islamisation in Turkey than the ones commonly available in the literature: It provides an in-depth analysis of Islamisation in the news media, a field that Islamist political actors know full well to be strategic in the transformation of a society; and by demonstrating that Islamisation endeavours in Turkey are not confined to the obvious organs of propagandisation like the news media, but they penetrate informally also the supposedly neutral statutory rules and regulations.","PeriodicalId":45789,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies","volume":"25 1","pages":"378 - 398"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44126684","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 : 2022-11-02DOI: 10.1080/19448953.2022.2037981
E. Çolakoğlu
ABSTRACT This article aims to reveal the transformation of the US Cyprus policy between 1960 and 1967. In the early 1960s, the US adopted a policy of non-intervention in the Cyprus dispute. However, the developments on the Island in 1964 made it impossible for the US to refrain from the dispute after a point. For this reason, the US tried to manage the Cyprus dispute so that it would not harm the harmony and cohesion of the NATO Alliance. During this period, the US occasionally confronted Turkey and Greece. However, despite all the tensions, the US administration was careful not to break relations with its allies completely. On the other hand, Turkey and Greece considered themselves indispensable to the US during this period. Each ally always expected the support of the US against the other. However, most of the time, both allies were dissatisfied with the attitude of the US at the same time.
{"title":"From Non-Intervention to Mediation: The Transformation of the US Cyprus Policy (1960–1967)","authors":"E. Çolakoğlu","doi":"10.1080/19448953.2022.2037981","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19448953.2022.2037981","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article aims to reveal the transformation of the US Cyprus policy between 1960 and 1967. In the early 1960s, the US adopted a policy of non-intervention in the Cyprus dispute. However, the developments on the Island in 1964 made it impossible for the US to refrain from the dispute after a point. For this reason, the US tried to manage the Cyprus dispute so that it would not harm the harmony and cohesion of the NATO Alliance. During this period, the US occasionally confronted Turkey and Greece. However, despite all the tensions, the US administration was careful not to break relations with its allies completely. On the other hand, Turkey and Greece considered themselves indispensable to the US during this period. Each ally always expected the support of the US against the other. However, most of the time, both allies were dissatisfied with the attitude of the US at the same time.","PeriodicalId":45789,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies","volume":"24 1","pages":"912 - 936"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42170537","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 : 2022-10-26DOI: 10.1080/19448953.2022.2131079
C. Hoffmann, Ceren Ergenç
ABSTRACT The new geopolitics of energy in the Eastern Mediterranean is not determined by hydrocarbons anymore. A significant expansion of renewables is underway. Driven by a surge in ‘Green Finance’ and decarbonization policies, this development changes conventional relationships of dependency. This takes place in an environment, where Asian and Western energy security strategies rapidly evolve in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean play a central role in this repositioning. China, far from merely being a dinosaur, is the largest producer of renewable energy. It also invests in infrastructure abroad, including Egypt. The largest Arab nation not only seeks to become a global energy hub, but also a decarbonization champion, as reflected in the hosting of COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh. This article will look at these developments, including its internal and external contradictions to understand the motivation behind China’s commitment to Egyptian solar expansion. It will demonstrate that, while part of a global political economy of decarbonization, China’s main motivation for investing in renewables in the Eastern Mediterranean remains geostrategic, tied to its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This, in turn, informs how we think of the Geo-Political Ecology of Decarbonization in the region.
{"title":"A Greening Dragon in the Desert? China’s Role in the Geopolitical Ecology of Decarbonisation in the Eastern Mediterranean","authors":"C. Hoffmann, Ceren Ergenç","doi":"10.1080/19448953.2022.2131079","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19448953.2022.2131079","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The new geopolitics of energy in the Eastern Mediterranean is not determined by hydrocarbons anymore. A significant expansion of renewables is underway. Driven by a surge in ‘Green Finance’ and decarbonization policies, this development changes conventional relationships of dependency. This takes place in an environment, where Asian and Western energy security strategies rapidly evolve in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean play a central role in this repositioning. China, far from merely being a dinosaur, is the largest producer of renewable energy. It also invests in infrastructure abroad, including Egypt. The largest Arab nation not only seeks to become a global energy hub, but also a decarbonization champion, as reflected in the hosting of COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh. This article will look at these developments, including its internal and external contradictions to understand the motivation behind China’s commitment to Egyptian solar expansion. It will demonstrate that, while part of a global political economy of decarbonization, China’s main motivation for investing in renewables in the Eastern Mediterranean remains geostrategic, tied to its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This, in turn, informs how we think of the Geo-Political Ecology of Decarbonization in the region.","PeriodicalId":45789,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies","volume":"25 1","pages":"82 - 101"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44808835","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 : 2022-10-12DOI: 10.1080/19448953.2022.2132004
V. Fouskas
behind her father’s painful death, turned out to be incompatible with the strict racial hierarchy within the Loreto Mission which gradually contributed to her decision to part ways and establish her own order. The discriminations she faced, especially during the Loreto years, subsequently motivated her to overcome the racial boundaries which significantly guided her vision to experiment with a transcendental spirituality. The third part also suggests that, though in the years following the establishment of the Missionaries of Charity, the relationship between Mother Teresa and the Vatican had strengthened for several pragmatic reasons, there had been no significant change in the Vatican’s policy towards Albania. Equally important in this section is Alpion’s rebuttal of the recent tendency to uncritically attribute a kind of patriotism to the image of Mother Teresa, akin to that of Skanderbeg, the Albanian national hero of the 15 century. The text suggests that despite her repeated attempts at a reconciliation with her nation, her nationality remained a perpetual anomaly in the context of her spiritual quest. Considering the wealth of new historical evidences that the book brings into light, the necessity of this study is evident in its assertion that Mother Teresa’s beliefs and actions not merely sprang out of an innate spiritual constitution but was also an individual response to crises that were facilitated by the history of her nation. Her life reflected many trials and tribulations that were common to the people of her community. Alpion’s narrative is interspersed with insightful genealogical and biographical details of Mother Teresa’s life that are often overlooked by the biographers and hagiographers alike—her intimacies, relationships with her mother, siblings, cousin Filomela, and the special bond with her father, thereby locating specific behavioural and psychological motivations behind her spirituality. It vividly draws upon her joys, frustrations, religious proclivities, her complicated yet comforting relationship with Jesus and a constant struggle to comprehend Godhead. This pioneering book endows the modern saint with a human history.
{"title":"Digital age: the changes in economy, society, politics","authors":"V. Fouskas","doi":"10.1080/19448953.2022.2132004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19448953.2022.2132004","url":null,"abstract":"behind her father’s painful death, turned out to be incompatible with the strict racial hierarchy within the Loreto Mission which gradually contributed to her decision to part ways and establish her own order. The discriminations she faced, especially during the Loreto years, subsequently motivated her to overcome the racial boundaries which significantly guided her vision to experiment with a transcendental spirituality. The third part also suggests that, though in the years following the establishment of the Missionaries of Charity, the relationship between Mother Teresa and the Vatican had strengthened for several pragmatic reasons, there had been no significant change in the Vatican’s policy towards Albania. Equally important in this section is Alpion’s rebuttal of the recent tendency to uncritically attribute a kind of patriotism to the image of Mother Teresa, akin to that of Skanderbeg, the Albanian national hero of the 15 century. The text suggests that despite her repeated attempts at a reconciliation with her nation, her nationality remained a perpetual anomaly in the context of her spiritual quest. Considering the wealth of new historical evidences that the book brings into light, the necessity of this study is evident in its assertion that Mother Teresa’s beliefs and actions not merely sprang out of an innate spiritual constitution but was also an individual response to crises that were facilitated by the history of her nation. Her life reflected many trials and tribulations that were common to the people of her community. Alpion’s narrative is interspersed with insightful genealogical and biographical details of Mother Teresa’s life that are often overlooked by the biographers and hagiographers alike—her intimacies, relationships with her mother, siblings, cousin Filomela, and the special bond with her father, thereby locating specific behavioural and psychological motivations behind her spirituality. It vividly draws upon her joys, frustrations, religious proclivities, her complicated yet comforting relationship with Jesus and a constant struggle to comprehend Godhead. This pioneering book endows the modern saint with a human history.","PeriodicalId":45789,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies","volume":"25 1","pages":"160 - 165"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48166116","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 : 2022-10-10DOI: 10.1080/19448953.2022.2129322
M. Altunışık, Derya Göçer
ABSTRACT Iran has traditionally presented itself as a cusp state, manoeuvring between different regions. Recently, Iran is attempting to situate itself among the emerging connections between Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean. There are also limitations to Iran’s cuspness, as domestic politics and geopolitical rivalries in the Middle East challenge the country’s efforts to perform this function. This paper analyses (1) Iran’s shifting regional engagements and identity in the context of the Eastern Mediterranean and Asia, (2) the implications of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) for Iran’s shifting regional engagements and identity, (3) the limitations Iran faces in this reorientation.
{"title":"Iran’s New Chapter in Cuspness: Linking the Eastern Mediterranean and Asia","authors":"M. Altunışık, Derya Göçer","doi":"10.1080/19448953.2022.2129322","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19448953.2022.2129322","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Iran has traditionally presented itself as a cusp state, manoeuvring between different regions. Recently, Iran is attempting to situate itself among the emerging connections between Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean. There are also limitations to Iran’s cuspness, as domestic politics and geopolitical rivalries in the Middle East challenge the country’s efforts to perform this function. This paper analyses (1) Iran’s shifting regional engagements and identity in the context of the Eastern Mediterranean and Asia, (2) the implications of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) for Iran’s shifting regional engagements and identity, (3) the limitations Iran faces in this reorientation.","PeriodicalId":45789,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies","volume":"25 1","pages":"136 - 151"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42417910","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}
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