Sternberg explained that their approach was to look at how we Europeans live together within the EU, through the lens of one of the most highly charged bilateral relationships of the crisis - between Greeks and Germans - and focusing on the war of images and stories, of mutual representations in the media. The book looked at how each side imagined and represented the other during the course of the crisis, how in that process they also re-imagined themselves, and how this transformed the picture of Europe as a whole. And what all this did to mutual recognition – a foundation of demoi-cracy. For the authors, the crisis cast a merciless light on the tensions between aspiration for, and denials of, mutual recognition. Their conclusion was however one of hope – behind all the problems, both sides were deeply engaged with each other and this engagement fed back into a reshaping of their images of the other and of themselves, leading to the re-emergence of a common collective.
Reporting on what's happening at SEESOX, the topics being discussed, the theories put forward, and the points made
Monday, 12 February 2018
The Greco-German Affair in the Euro Crisis: Mutual Recognition Lost?
On 7 February 2018, the fourth SEESOX Core Seminar in the Hilary Term was a presentation of The Greco-German Affair in the Euro Crisis: Mutual Recognition Lost?, by the authors, Claudia Sternberg (UCL), Kira Gartzou-Katsouyanni (LSE), and Kalypso Nicolaidis (St Antony’s). Discussants, all from St Antony’s, were Mehmet Karli, Adis Merdzanovic and Manolis Pratsinakis. The session was chaired by Jonathan Scheele.
Sternberg explained that their approach was to look at how we Europeans live together within the EU, through the lens of one of the most highly charged bilateral relationships of the crisis - between Greeks and Germans - and focusing on the war of images and stories, of mutual representations in the media. The book looked at how each side imagined and represented the other during the course of the crisis, how in that process they also re-imagined themselves, and how this transformed the picture of Europe as a whole. And what all this did to mutual recognition – a foundation of demoi-cracy. For the authors, the crisis cast a merciless light on the tensions between aspiration for, and denials of, mutual recognition. Their conclusion was however one of hope – behind all the problems, both sides were deeply engaged with each other and this engagement fed back into a reshaping of their images of the other and of themselves, leading to the re-emergence of a common collective.
Sternberg explained that their approach was to look at how we Europeans live together within the EU, through the lens of one of the most highly charged bilateral relationships of the crisis - between Greeks and Germans - and focusing on the war of images and stories, of mutual representations in the media. The book looked at how each side imagined and represented the other during the course of the crisis, how in that process they also re-imagined themselves, and how this transformed the picture of Europe as a whole. And what all this did to mutual recognition – a foundation of demoi-cracy. For the authors, the crisis cast a merciless light on the tensions between aspiration for, and denials of, mutual recognition. Their conclusion was however one of hope – behind all the problems, both sides were deeply engaged with each other and this engagement fed back into a reshaping of their images of the other and of themselves, leading to the re-emergence of a common collective.
Monday, 5 February 2018
Energy and geopolitics in the Eastern Mediterranean
Speakers: Constantinos Filis (Panteion University) and Vassilis Kappis (University of Buckingham)
Energy and geopolitics in the Eastern Mediterranean (EM). Dr Vassilis Kappis (University of Buckingham) and Dr Constantinos Filis (Panteion University).
This seminar, chaired by Ezgi Basaran, comprised two distinct presentations, with only implicit overlap apart from the regional commonality. Dr Kappis looked at big power rivalry in the region, while Dr Filis examined prospects for energy exports.
Dr Kappis quoted de Blij to postulate that geopolitics is the interplay among geography, power, politics and international relations. A branch of political geography in essence, it considers the strategic value of land and sea in the pursuit of national interests and influence. In Mackinder’s theory, who controls the heartland controls the world island, while Spykman argued that who controls the Rimland controls the continent; he is regarded as the godfather of containment.
Post-cold war the West was dominant over Rimland. NATO had absolute control over the Eastern Mediterranean, as well as further east. The Gulf War and NATO’s eastward expansion, most recently with the inclusion of Montenegro in 2016, demonstrated this. The Bush doctrine, post-9/11, intensified the push to the east; this was a “unilateral moment” in international politics, emphasizing pre-emptive wars in the view that deterrence alone was not adequate.
Energy and geopolitics in the Eastern Mediterranean (EM). Dr Vassilis Kappis (University of Buckingham) and Dr Constantinos Filis (Panteion University).
This seminar, chaired by Ezgi Basaran, comprised two distinct presentations, with only implicit overlap apart from the regional commonality. Dr Kappis looked at big power rivalry in the region, while Dr Filis examined prospects for energy exports.
Dr Kappis quoted de Blij to postulate that geopolitics is the interplay among geography, power, politics and international relations. A branch of political geography in essence, it considers the strategic value of land and sea in the pursuit of national interests and influence. In Mackinder’s theory, who controls the heartland controls the world island, while Spykman argued that who controls the Rimland controls the continent; he is regarded as the godfather of containment.
Post-cold war the West was dominant over Rimland. NATO had absolute control over the Eastern Mediterranean, as well as further east. The Gulf War and NATO’s eastward expansion, most recently with the inclusion of Montenegro in 2016, demonstrated this. The Bush doctrine, post-9/11, intensified the push to the east; this was a “unilateral moment” in international politics, emphasizing pre-emptive wars in the view that deterrence alone was not adequate.
Monday, 29 January 2018
Hunger and Fury: The Crisis of Democracy in the Balkans
On 24 January 2018, SEESOX hosted Jasmin Mujanović (EastWest Institute), who came to present his new book Hunger and Fury: The Crisis of Democracy in the Balkans. Danijela Dolenec (University of Zagreb) acted as discussant, while the seminar was chaired by Adis Merdzanovic (St Antony’s College, Oxford).
Mujanović started his presentation by outlining the major themes of the book. As he explained, the process of democratisation never truly began in the Balkans, even though particularly Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo had been poster children for top-down state building. His book, therefore, is a critical intervention on what needs to happen for true democratisation to start. It centres on two arguments. The first one concerns the nature of democracy, which cannot be reduced to mere institutions and practices, but needs to be understood as a generational project that necessarily includes a bottom-up, citizen-activist component. As Mujanović said, it’s a process that includes both the ballot box and the public square.
The second argument centres on the question why the quality of “democracy” in the region is so poor, and, in fact, has been steadily declining for the past decade. How was that possible? According to Mujanović, one of the central parts of the explanation concerns agency, particularly the agency of local elites. In a process that he termed “elastic authoritarianism”, ideological movements and foreign empires have come and gone in the region, but the elite structures remained largely unchanged. The elites were capable of transforming their ideologies because they were so good in understanding when hegemonic orders are falling apart. Understanding how they did it and what consequences their strategies had are thus very important for a future push towards the successful establishment of a democratic regime that truly includes the demos, the people.
With respect to the future, Mujanović outlined two possible scenarios: the first, pessimistic one concerns a possible marriage between the local authoritarian tendencies with new, similarly authoritarian international patrons, particularly in Russia, China, Turkey, or the Gulf states. The second, optimistic scenario may be found in a different kind of politics, which Mujanović sees emerging in the region. Recent public protests and demands for reform, elite and regime changes in Slovenia, Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina have made clear that there is a bottom-up, activist surge happening at the moment. Its goal is to make democracy, as the rule of the demos, a reality in the region. Citizens seek to transform the polis through an antagonistic, popular opposition to the current elites. While Mujanović, therefore, sees reasons to be cautiously optimistic with respect to the future of the region, he emphasised that this as well was a generational project.
Mujanović started his presentation by outlining the major themes of the book. As he explained, the process of democratisation never truly began in the Balkans, even though particularly Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo had been poster children for top-down state building. His book, therefore, is a critical intervention on what needs to happen for true democratisation to start. It centres on two arguments. The first one concerns the nature of democracy, which cannot be reduced to mere institutions and practices, but needs to be understood as a generational project that necessarily includes a bottom-up, citizen-activist component. As Mujanović said, it’s a process that includes both the ballot box and the public square.
The second argument centres on the question why the quality of “democracy” in the region is so poor, and, in fact, has been steadily declining for the past decade. How was that possible? According to Mujanović, one of the central parts of the explanation concerns agency, particularly the agency of local elites. In a process that he termed “elastic authoritarianism”, ideological movements and foreign empires have come and gone in the region, but the elite structures remained largely unchanged. The elites were capable of transforming their ideologies because they were so good in understanding when hegemonic orders are falling apart. Understanding how they did it and what consequences their strategies had are thus very important for a future push towards the successful establishment of a democratic regime that truly includes the demos, the people.
With respect to the future, Mujanović outlined two possible scenarios: the first, pessimistic one concerns a possible marriage between the local authoritarian tendencies with new, similarly authoritarian international patrons, particularly in Russia, China, Turkey, or the Gulf states. The second, optimistic scenario may be found in a different kind of politics, which Mujanović sees emerging in the region. Recent public protests and demands for reform, elite and regime changes in Slovenia, Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina have made clear that there is a bottom-up, activist surge happening at the moment. Its goal is to make democracy, as the rule of the demos, a reality in the region. Citizens seek to transform the polis through an antagonistic, popular opposition to the current elites. While Mujanović, therefore, sees reasons to be cautiously optimistic with respect to the future of the region, he emphasised that this as well was a generational project.
Monday, 22 January 2018
The Rise of Erdogan: The Crisis of Turkey
The Hilary Term Core Seminar Series kicked off with Soner Çağaptay’s seminar entitled “The Rise of Erdogan: The Crisis of Turkey” on 18 January 2018. The talk was chaired by Ceren Lord (Oxford University), with Gareth Winrow as Discussant.
Çağaptay is a prominent Turkey expert and the Director of Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute. He is a historian by training and received his Ph.D. from Yale University. His latest book focuses on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and where he sits in the sweep of Turkey’s political history. As he did in his book, Çağaptay gave an overview of Erdogan’s rule since 2002 and told the story of an increasingly authoritarian and Islamic Turkey. In his view, Turkey has become a bipolar country, with one block consisting of conservative AKP voters who adore Erdoğan, and the other made up of mostly left-leaning people who detest him.
The July 2016 coup attempt consolidated this societal divide. President Erdoğan has become the unchallenged leader of the country, while those who refuse to support him have been portrayed as enemies of the state. Çağaptay argued that there are two motives behind Erdoğan’s authoritarianism. Firstly, even though he has turned out to be the most powerful leader since Atatürk, Erdogan still feels an existential threat. Therefore, in his thinking and rhetoric, authoritarianism is required to survive. The second reason behind Erdogan’s tight grip, Cağaptay contended, can be found in his working-class roots in Istanbul’s Kasımpasa neighbourhood. Çağaptay considered that he and his pious family – like all devout families - were treated as second-class citizens by the secular establishment. Thus, he consolidated his power by claiming that he is the only one who has restored - and will restore - Muslim dignity in Turkey.
Çağaptay is a prominent Turkey expert and the Director of Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute. He is a historian by training and received his Ph.D. from Yale University. His latest book focuses on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and where he sits in the sweep of Turkey’s political history. As he did in his book, Çağaptay gave an overview of Erdogan’s rule since 2002 and told the story of an increasingly authoritarian and Islamic Turkey. In his view, Turkey has become a bipolar country, with one block consisting of conservative AKP voters who adore Erdoğan, and the other made up of mostly left-leaning people who detest him.
The July 2016 coup attempt consolidated this societal divide. President Erdoğan has become the unchallenged leader of the country, while those who refuse to support him have been portrayed as enemies of the state. Çağaptay argued that there are two motives behind Erdoğan’s authoritarianism. Firstly, even though he has turned out to be the most powerful leader since Atatürk, Erdogan still feels an existential threat. Therefore, in his thinking and rhetoric, authoritarianism is required to survive. The second reason behind Erdogan’s tight grip, Cağaptay contended, can be found in his working-class roots in Istanbul’s Kasımpasa neighbourhood. Çağaptay considered that he and his pious family – like all devout families - were treated as second-class citizens by the secular establishment. Thus, he consolidated his power by claiming that he is the only one who has restored - and will restore - Muslim dignity in Turkey.
Thursday, 30 November 2017
Revisiting Yugoslavia in the shadow of the present: Continuities and discontinuities
This day-long Symposium, on 23 November, was not yet another conference about the disintegration of Yugoslavia. States are not just their institutions and institutional boundaries, they are also ideas, cultures, experiences and cultures. While some things did disintegrate, the end of Yugoslavia was not a permanent rupture, as many things also remained in place in the successor states.
The first panel looked at politics and society. Adis Merdzanovic compared liberalism in Yugoslavia with the version of liberalism put forward by the European Union as part of the accession process. Catherine Baker examined the usefulness or not of the concept of nostalgia in delineating a cultural space that spans the former Yugoslav region.
Ivor Sokolic presented a paper on the impact of the civil society on democratisation in the post-Yugoslav space by highlighting its ambiguous and disordered nature. Jasmin Ramović considered the role of worker self-management in peacebuilding in the Balkans.
The second panel covered international affairs. Ljubica Spaskovska spoke about the legacies of Yugoslav non-aligned multilateralism and the selective appropriation of this part of socialist Yugoslavia’s legacies by the successor states. James Ker-Lindsay focussed on EU integration and post-Yugoslav cooperation, competition, and conflict: showing how integration might be interpreted as an attempt to foster regional re-integration. Othon Anastasakis spoke on the influences of the former empires, concretely Russia and Turkey, in the region before and after the disintegration of Yugoslavia. Dejan Jović argued that Yugoslavia’s disintegration was not only the collapse of the federal republic but also of its three central republics, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The third panel was dedicated to economics. Adam Bennett described the “impossible marriage” between microeconomic worker self-management and macroeconomic management. Milica Uvalic told us what happened to worker self-management, and how the successor states’ handling of market economic and democratic reforms led to divergent paths. Peter Sanfey examined the question whether the successor states are on the path to becoming sustainable market economies.
After the conference, there was a keynote address in the ESC, given by Norman Davies on the question which lay behind the symposium: Do countries ever really disappear?
The goal is to produce an edited volume based on the presentations on Yugoslavia and the successor states, and highlighting the central theme of continuities and discontinuities between past and present.
The first panel looked at politics and society. Adis Merdzanovic compared liberalism in Yugoslavia with the version of liberalism put forward by the European Union as part of the accession process. Catherine Baker examined the usefulness or not of the concept of nostalgia in delineating a cultural space that spans the former Yugoslav region.
Ivor Sokolic presented a paper on the impact of the civil society on democratisation in the post-Yugoslav space by highlighting its ambiguous and disordered nature. Jasmin Ramović considered the role of worker self-management in peacebuilding in the Balkans.
The second panel covered international affairs. Ljubica Spaskovska spoke about the legacies of Yugoslav non-aligned multilateralism and the selective appropriation of this part of socialist Yugoslavia’s legacies by the successor states. James Ker-Lindsay focussed on EU integration and post-Yugoslav cooperation, competition, and conflict: showing how integration might be interpreted as an attempt to foster regional re-integration. Othon Anastasakis spoke on the influences of the former empires, concretely Russia and Turkey, in the region before and after the disintegration of Yugoslavia. Dejan Jović argued that Yugoslavia’s disintegration was not only the collapse of the federal republic but also of its three central republics, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The third panel was dedicated to economics. Adam Bennett described the “impossible marriage” between microeconomic worker self-management and macroeconomic management. Milica Uvalic told us what happened to worker self-management, and how the successor states’ handling of market economic and democratic reforms led to divergent paths. Peter Sanfey examined the question whether the successor states are on the path to becoming sustainable market economies.
After the conference, there was a keynote address in the ESC, given by Norman Davies on the question which lay behind the symposium: Do countries ever really disappear?
The goal is to produce an edited volume based on the presentations on Yugoslavia and the successor states, and highlighting the central theme of continuities and discontinuities between past and present.
David Madden (Senior Member, St Antony's College, Oxford)
Monday, 27 November 2017
Technocratic government—challenges and legacy: the case of Romania
On 22 November 2017, SEESOX hosted a panel discussion with Dacian Ciolos (Prime Minister of Romania 2015-17), Raluca Pruna (Justice Minister, 2015-17) and Dragos Tudorache (Interior Minister 2016-17). Heidi Maurer (LSE and DPIR, Oxford) was Discussant; Jonathan Scheele (St. Antony’s College) chaired the discussion.
Introducing the session, Scheele noted that technocratic government is usually defined as government by experts, not elected by the people, but accountable to Parliament. Most political scientists do not approve of such an arrangement, since it seen as a cop-out by the political class. There is also debate as to whether such governments actually work, or whether they just kick difficult issues down the road. In Romania in October 2015 a night club fire had killed over 100 people. It was seen as due to corrupt licensing procedures, and there were protests across Romania. The Prime Minister resigned on November 7. The President called in Dacian Ciolos and asked him to form a government; on November 17 the new technocratic government was sworn in. It ruled until 4 January 2017, when it handed over to a new elected government. By February 2017 there were again protests, over government plans to change the law on corruption.
Dragos Tudorache, who had also worked for the EU, was first Head of Chancery for the PM and later Interior Minister; he explained the initial challenges. They had had 2-3 days to put the programme together, with people who largely did not know each other. He had been helped by mechanisms already in place but never used — for instance, EU money had been spent to develop sophisticated IT tools, which were then left dormant. He set common ownership and objectives for his team, and made the work accountable to the media and the people.
This was the first time a whole government had been formed of technocrats, and derived from the fact that none of the political class wanted to form a government at that point. He had found it hard to change existing mentalities, so set up a Chancery where strategic thinking could be developed. He had interesting discussions with counterparts in other countries, including the UK. In the first few weeks the phones did not stop ringing, with calls from people all over the world who wanted to come back to Romania to help; this was very motivating.
Introducing the session, Scheele noted that technocratic government is usually defined as government by experts, not elected by the people, but accountable to Parliament. Most political scientists do not approve of such an arrangement, since it seen as a cop-out by the political class. There is also debate as to whether such governments actually work, or whether they just kick difficult issues down the road. In Romania in October 2015 a night club fire had killed over 100 people. It was seen as due to corrupt licensing procedures, and there were protests across Romania. The Prime Minister resigned on November 7. The President called in Dacian Ciolos and asked him to form a government; on November 17 the new technocratic government was sworn in. It ruled until 4 January 2017, when it handed over to a new elected government. By February 2017 there were again protests, over government plans to change the law on corruption.
Dragos Tudorache, who had also worked for the EU, was first Head of Chancery for the PM and later Interior Minister; he explained the initial challenges. They had had 2-3 days to put the programme together, with people who largely did not know each other. He had been helped by mechanisms already in place but never used — for instance, EU money had been spent to develop sophisticated IT tools, which were then left dormant. He set common ownership and objectives for his team, and made the work accountable to the media and the people.
This was the first time a whole government had been formed of technocrats, and derived from the fact that none of the political class wanted to form a government at that point. He had found it hard to change existing mentalities, so set up a Chancery where strategic thinking could be developed. He had interesting discussions with counterparts in other countries, including the UK. In the first few weeks the phones did not stop ringing, with calls from people all over the world who wanted to come back to Romania to help; this was very motivating.
Monday, 6 November 2017
Frontline Turkey: the conflict at the heart of the Middle East
On 1 November 2017, Ezgi Başaran, award-winning Turkish journalist and coordinator of the Programme on Contemporary Turkey at SEESOX, launched her book Frontline Turkey: the conflict at the heart of the Middle East. The event was chaired by the BBC journalist and author of the book The New Turkey, Chris Morris.
In presenting her book Ezgi Başaran narrated the history of the Kurdish problem in the context of a decade and a half of AKP rule in Turkey. She described how Turkey’s most troublesome and persistent conflict had brought Turkey’s democratic institutions to a state of collapse just when a solution seemed in sight. As a journalist who had been following the Kurdish issue in Turkey for more than ten years, she had interviewed almost all of the prominent figures who shaped the course of the Kurdish movement in the country. Based on this unique material she outlined the chronology of events leading to the launch of a peace process between Turkey’s President Erdogan and the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party), and focusing on the dramatic and very intense period that followed, up to the collapse of the process in 2015and the coup attempt in 2016.
According to Başaran, Turkey’s peace process with the Kurds collapsed principally as a result of both the expansion of the Syrian Kurdish cantons adjacent to the Turkish border and the ambitions of then Prime Minister Erdogan to create an executive presidency for himself. Opposed to the YPG, the mainly-Kurdish militia in Syria that had rescued the Yazidis and fought with US backing in Kobane, President Erdogan saw no problem in having an open border policy for the Jihadists in Syria from the end of 2013 to 2015. This turned Turkey into a hub for Jihadists from all over the world, including ISIS recruits, creating huge security vulnerabilities for the country and, by extension, for Europe as a whole. In addition, the collapse of the peace process triggered a series of events that made politics and social life in Turkey particularly volatile, exacerbating the turmoil in Syria, and also bringing international relations between Turkey and several countries in the West and the Middle East to their lowest ebb. Başaran argued however that those on the other side of the table, the Kurds - and PKK in particular – should also share the blame by miscalculating their actions from the moment the peace process failed.
In presenting her book Ezgi Başaran narrated the history of the Kurdish problem in the context of a decade and a half of AKP rule in Turkey. She described how Turkey’s most troublesome and persistent conflict had brought Turkey’s democratic institutions to a state of collapse just when a solution seemed in sight. As a journalist who had been following the Kurdish issue in Turkey for more than ten years, she had interviewed almost all of the prominent figures who shaped the course of the Kurdish movement in the country. Based on this unique material she outlined the chronology of events leading to the launch of a peace process between Turkey’s President Erdogan and the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party), and focusing on the dramatic and very intense period that followed, up to the collapse of the process in 2015and the coup attempt in 2016.
According to Başaran, Turkey’s peace process with the Kurds collapsed principally as a result of both the expansion of the Syrian Kurdish cantons adjacent to the Turkish border and the ambitions of then Prime Minister Erdogan to create an executive presidency for himself. Opposed to the YPG, the mainly-Kurdish militia in Syria that had rescued the Yazidis and fought with US backing in Kobane, President Erdogan saw no problem in having an open border policy for the Jihadists in Syria from the end of 2013 to 2015. This turned Turkey into a hub for Jihadists from all over the world, including ISIS recruits, creating huge security vulnerabilities for the country and, by extension, for Europe as a whole. In addition, the collapse of the peace process triggered a series of events that made politics and social life in Turkey particularly volatile, exacerbating the turmoil in Syria, and also bringing international relations between Turkey and several countries in the West and the Middle East to their lowest ebb. Başaran argued however that those on the other side of the table, the Kurds - and PKK in particular – should also share the blame by miscalculating their actions from the moment the peace process failed.
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