Husrev Tabak | Recep Tayyip Erdogan University (original) (raw)

Selected Works by Husrev Tabak

European Review of International Studies, 2024

This paper brings the Kristevan perspective on hierarchy into a conversation with norm research a... more This paper brings the Kristevan perspective on hierarchy into a conversation with norm research and accordingly borrows the concept of the abject, formulated to study the formation of the Self and Other and the following hierarchy between the two, to better understand the hierarchical implications of norm diffusion. The research, therefore, redefines norm diffusion as a practice of norm abjection due to the diffusion's hegemonic, subordinating, and transformative character, and doing so has enabled us to illustrate the implications for the norm research of the dual-performative function of the normative hierarchy: (i) formation of the boundary between the Self and the Other and (ii) maintaining it through active exclusion and normative expansion. The paper empirically studies the functioning of norm abjection in the example of the United Nations' (UN) harmful traditional practices (htp) agenda, a fiercely condemnatory and decisively transformative normative project of the UN informed by its liberative development discourses and emancipatory gender regime. The paper, accordingly, examines the UN's abjecting of the harmful traditional practices as part of its efforts for diffusing progressive and emancipatory gender norms to the localities in the underdeveloped world to cast out the local vicious, wicked, primitive, and

Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, 2023

Authors: Kadri Kaan Renda, Ali Onur Özçelik, Hüsrev Tabak This article offers a critical discuss... more Authors: Kadri Kaan Renda, Ali Onur Özçelik, Hüsrev Tabak

This article offers a critical discussion of third-country access to normative contestation within the European normative order. It empirically examines the external contestation of the EU’s recent sanctions policy directed towards Russia by Turkey, a candidate state, and elaborates on the context in which Turkey contested and renegotiated the normative validity of the EU’s sanction policy. The study empirically suggests that Turkey, while behaviourally practising non-compliance, accessed the European normative order and negotiated the normativity of its non-alignment. In the making of this proactive contestation, the normativity of the country’s positions and the invalidity of the sanctions policy have been widely negotiated in domestic politics by the political elites. Eventually, Turkey, against the EU’s expectations from a candidate state, turned the normative monologue on the sanctions into a multilogue of legitimate normative differences on the validity claims of a united action.

Norm Diffusion Beyond the West, 2023

As a recent scholarly discussion, non-western norm research is necessary for its value in enablin... more As a recent scholarly discussion, non-western norm research is necessary for its value in enabling the scholarship to observe the locally justified (and ever-changing) normative strategies of the non-western agents. To contribute to this discussion, this chapter proposes diaspora and kin spaces as one more venue in which we can discuss and observe the taking place of non-western possibilities of norm diffusion. Taking diaspora and kin spaces as settings for non-western norm diffusion is crucial. They represent a long-neglected domain for studying norm diffusion both in western-centric and non-western norm research. This is the case despite that such spaces have been the settings even the states hesitant to or unable to internationalize local norms globally or regionally —as often seen in the non-western contexts—can transfer norms. This is because states’ access to diaspora and kin spaces is relatively easy due to the fewer boundaries a diaspora/kin community would have towards a local norm of the putative homeland. Diasporic spaces function as settings for making and re-making homeland's norms, they thus turn into overseas settings for running normative contestations of the homeland abroad. In particular, the chapter traces the mechanisms of how Turkey circulated the ethno-nationalist norms in the Balkan region in various historical periods. On one hand, the case study provides an alternative approach to the agency by considering Turkish diasporas. On the other, it indicates the fluidity of the ethno-nationalist norms related to the idea of Turkishness that are appropriated to changing strategic preferences

Asian Journal of Women's Studies, 2022

This paper examines the localization process of the global gender equality norm in Turkey and ar... more This paper examines the localization process of the global gender equality norm in Turkey and argues that the normative contestations on this concern, among rival political blocs and activist groups, have not allowed any resolution. Accordingly, the global gender equality norm has undergone state-led secular localization as of the 1990s. In the post-2010 context under AKP rule, however, this process was disrupted by the proponents of the alternative conservative local norm of gender justice, who sought to replace the already localized norm of gender equality. Our study examines the contestations and rivalries regarding gender equality in the country with an emphasis on normative strategies utilised by the secular and conservative political blocs. Based on face-to-face interviews conducted with representatives of the main trade unions in the country, we also did a minor case study of the ongoing contestations regarding the adoption of gender equality norms, as manifested in trade union activism.

Journal of Asian and African Studies, 2023

This research problematizes the contested nature of the global norm diffusion by focusing on intr... more This research problematizes the contested nature of the global norm diffusion by focusing on intra-group rivalries and fragmentations shaping local responses (often reactionary and resistant) to global norms. Such an examination is important primarily to account for what leads to shifts in the local reception of norms over time. This study empirically explores local fragmentation, rivalry and change in response nexus in the example of the reception of the global gender equality norms in Turkey by the conservative normative bloc. It reveals that the conservative bloc is not a monolithic normative order and that there are two main competing receptions of the gender equality norm within the group in Turkey. With a firm emphasis on Turkey’s first initiating and later withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention, the study elaborates how the institutionalized conservative response to gender equality has shifted from a compromising acceptance to a rejection over time.

Even before the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Turkic communities, living in states newly indepe... more Even before the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Turkic communities, living in states newly independent from Ottoman rule, were 'protected' by the Ottomans. With the creation of the new Turkish Republic, the notion of 'Outside Turks' became embedded in a new foreign policy which aimed to unite these communities, with whom Kemalist Turkey claimed to share ethnic origin, to the homeland. After 1980, and particularly during the Justice and Development Party rule, the country's domestic agenda, however, was transformed to imagine Outside Turks along cultural and religious lines, rather than in a purely ethnic sense. Husrev Tabak provides a foreign policy analysis to account for this vital shift, arguing that four post-Kemalist norms are responsible: Ottomania, de-ethnicized nationhood, Turkish Islam and Islamic Internationalism. By focusing on the case of the Kosovar Turks, the book reveals that the post-Kemalist move to re-imagine Outside Turkish communities was largely counterproductive. In losing Turkey as a secure point of reference for their ethnic identity, these communities began to fashion a nationalism which gained a reactionary character. The Kosovar Turks now more vehemently embrace Kemalist attitudes and discourses and their sense of Turkish ethnicity has been sharpened. In tracing the impact of norm changes within Turkey on ethnic Turks beyond Turkey, the book illustrates the way in which domestic norms can be used as a significant foreign policy analysis tool. The Kosovar Turks and Post-Kemalist Turkey will therefore be essential reading for those interested in Turkey's foreign policy and post-Kemalism, as well as those researching the ongoing impact of the Ottoman Empire's multinational, multicultural legacy.

Global Society, 2021

This article suggests the relevance of diffusionism in discussing the past, the present, and the ... more This article suggests the relevance of diffusionism in discussing the past, the present, and the future of the International Relations (IR) norm diffusion literature. The paper argues, thus, that IR norm research has reproduced the diffusionist and beyond-diffusionist mechanisms and epistemologies that the anthropological research on culture diffusion has developed, and this has been consequential for the discipline. Accordingly, the diffusionism dominant in the mainstream IR norm research has led to the normalisation of normative hierarchies and power asymmetries between geographies in the diffusion context. The critical norm research, complementarily, while extensively criticising such biased scholarly practices, failed to diagnose the problem as diffusionism and thus failed to benefit from the informed conclusions the anthropological schools offered regarding beyond-diffusionism in diffusion research. The paper takes this as a basis for highlighting the necessity to further extend the dialogue between IR and social sciences and humanities on issues including diffusion.

in Papuççular and Kuru (eds) A Transnational Account of Turkish Foreign Policy. Palgrave Macmillan., 2020

This chapter raises a critique of methodological nationalism’s dominancy in the way transnational... more This chapter raises a critique of methodological nationalism’s dominancy in the way transnationality is studied within mainstream International Relations and adopts Beckian methodological cosmopolitanism for going beyond such a scholarly bias. Methodological cosmopolitanism, the study suggests, would enable IR and foreign policy scholarship (1) to elaborate and report the world they are studying (or the knowledge about the realities of it) without contributing to its reification as a material setting, and (2) to better understand the transnational and cosmopolitan shifts the contemporary world has gone through, by which the core units, levels and structures of research the scholarship adopt would be transnationally redefined. Here, the chapter introduces a domestic global politics framework as part of a quest for transnational cosmopolitan foreign policy research and applies it to explaining the transnational character and complexity of the Syrian civil war and the responses to it from within territorial Turkey.

Tabak H. (2020) Transnationality, Foreign Policy Research and the Cosmopolitan Alternative: On the Practice of Domestic Global Politics. In: Papuççular H., Kuru D. (eds) A Transnational Account of Turkish Foreign Policy. Palgrave Macmillan, 41-68.

urkey’s Return to the Western Balkans: Policies of Continuity and Transformation, Eds. Radeljic, B. & Özşahin, M.C., Springer, 115-140., 2022

EU Conditionality in Turkey: When it works? When it fails?, Eds. Çakmak, C. & Özçelik, A.O., Lexington Books, 171-192., 2022

Bustan: The Middle East Book Review, 2020

This review essay examines the historical and present configurations of transnational Kemalism, w... more This review essay examines the historical and present configurations of transnational Kemalism, with a focus on Kemalism’s transformation into a counter-hegemonic transnational dissidence movement during the rule of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) in Turkey. Accordingly, Kemalism, as the founding ideology of the Turkish state, has historically been the anchor for Turkish transnational politics. Ethnic Turkish kinship networks, for instance in the Balkans and the emigrant communities worldwide, were connected via Kemalism to the Anatolian mainland, and vice versa. With the AKP’s rise to the power in the 2000s, Kemalism lost its primacy and came to be viewed as a subversive ideology which was utilized in resisting, both nationally and transnationally, the officially promoted neo-Ottoman and Islamic representations of belonging and identity in Turkey and its diaspora communities. Here, the author’s research among the Kosovar Turkish population adds to a discussion of two works on this subject.

Journal of Economy Culture and Society, 2022

The historical practice of citizen participation in politics was confined to elections, yet in th... more The historical practice of citizen participation in politics was confined to elections, yet in the digital era, increasing digitalisation in everyday life has opened windows of opportunities for alternative civilian participation in the political processes, oppositionary activities being foremost among them. Individual or collective opposition parties thus today also confidently carry out political activities against governmental politics through cyber and digital spaces, and thanks to digital advances, oppositionary political participation can no longer be confined to national borders. Hence, in forms of digital transnationalism and transnational dissidence, irrespective of the connection of the articulator to the target country, people around the world criticise governmental politics and shape public perceptions in one country from abroad. Nevertheless, governments, as well, make use of digital space in taking part in transnational practices in both shaping domestic and international public opinion and challenging overseas or domestic dissident digital transnationalism with an aim to increase its control over the narrative of its politics. This paper elaborates on this paradoxical relationship-the nexus of digital transnationalism, transnational opposition and state control. The paper examines how and why cyberspace turns into a domain for transnational political opposition and, in a related way, examines state endeavours to regulate and govern digital areas as a means of overseeing the digital transnationalism of (trans)local and transnational dissidence groups. Particularly with reference to the latter, the paper deliberates on the limits of digital transnationalism against state control.

Uluslararası İlişkiler (International Relations), Volume 13, Number 51, 2016, 21-39 Metodolojik ... more Uluslararası İlişkiler (International Relations), Volume 13, Number 51, 2016, 21-39

Metodolojik Ulusçuluk, beşeri dünyanın, kendini ulus-devletler olarak organize etmiş uluslardan müteşekkil bir yapı olarak tahayyül edilmesi ve yazılması olarak tanımlanan ve sosyal bilimlerin tümü için sonuçları olan bir akademik yazım problemidir. Konuya ilişkin özellikle sosyoloji, antropoloji, tarih gibi alanlarda ilgili yanlışın gerek sebeplerini, gerekse doğurduğu kurucu sonuçları ortaya koyucu pek çok çalışma yapılmıştır. Metodolojik ulusçuluk Uluslararası İlişkiler’de de tartışılırken, tartışmalar ilgili pratiklerin Uluslararası İlişkiler için anlamıyla sınırlı kalmıştır. Dış politika çalışmalarındaysa konuya ilişkin derinlemesine bir tartışma yapılmamıştır. Buradan hareketle bu makale, Türkiye’de dış politika çalışmaları örnek incelemesiyle, dış politika çalışmalarındaki metodolojik ulusçuluk pratiklerini ve bunların kurucu etkilerini ortaya koymaya çalışmaktadır.

Methodological Nationalism and the Study of Foreign Policy in Turkey
Abstract
Methodological nationalism, while defined as imagining and studying a humanity consisting of nations that organizes itself as nation-states, poses a problem for academia with consequences for the entire social sciences. It has long been discussed and debated in the fields of sociology, anthropology and history and people have often sought to unfold the reasons and constitutive consequences of such research misconduct. Methodological nationalism has also been debated in International Relations (IR), yet debates remained limited to methodological nationalisms relevance to the debates on the future of IR. In the study of foreign policy, however, almost no studies have been conducted problematizing methodological nationalism. This study is thus an attempt to unfold the common practices of methodological nationalism in and their consequences for foreign policy research, in the case of the study of foreign policy in Turkey.

Ankara Üniversitesi SBF Dergisi, 2019

Öz. Refleksif modernleşme, ikinci modernite, kozmopolitanlaşma ve dünya risk toplumu kuramlarının... more Öz.
Refleksif modernleşme, ikinci modernite, kozmopolitanlaşma ve dünya risk toplumu kuramlarının öncülerinden ve Uluslararası İlişkiler alanında özellikle risk toplumu üzerine çalışmalarıyla bilinen sosyolog Ulrich Beck, Uluslararası İlişkiler yazımının tarihsel olarak ulusal durum tasavvuru üzerine inşa edildiğini, metodolojik ulusçuluğun alana içkin bir pratik olduğunu ve bunun ötesine geçmek için kozmopolitan bir metodoloji takip edilmesi gerektiğini savunmaktadır. Buradan hareketle bu çalışma metodolojik ulusçuluğun Uluslararası İlişkiler alanındaki içkin konumuna yönelik bir sorgu oluşturmakta, Ulrich Beck’in kozmopolitan sosyolojisinin ve metodolojik kozmopolitanizminin ilgili yanlışın ötesine geçmek için sunduğu araçları ve imkânları tartışmakta ve bu minvalde Beckçi kozmopolitanizmin alanda mevcut analiz birimleri ve kategorileri için öngördüğü değişim ve dönüşümleri tartışmaktadır. Çalışma, önerilen kozmopolitan dönüşümün anlamını genelde Uluslararası İlişkiler, özelde de Ulusötesi İlişkiler ve Dış Politika çalışmaları alanları için ayrı ayrı sorgularken, kozmopolitan yaklaşımın metodolojik ulusçuluğu ve onun getirdiği indirgemeci sorunları aşarak ilgili alanlara, temel araştırma kategorileri olan ulusalı, uluslararasını, ve küreseli ulusötesi nitelikli yapılar ve ilişkiler olarak yeniden tanımlama ve bu minvalde inceleme imkanı sunduğunu savunmaktadır.
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Abstract. - A Beckian critique of the International - .
The sociologist Ulrich Beck – a pioneering figure in reflexive modernism, second modernity, cosmopolitanization and world risk society, and the scholar known within the International Relations (IR) by his works on risk society – argued that IR has retrospectively been built on the premises of the national condition, thus methodological nationalism is an intrinsic practice within the field, and to go beyond it a cosmopolitan methodology shall be embraced. Based on this, this paper explores the intrinsic position of methodological nationalism within IR, discusses about the means and opportunities Ulrich Beck’s cosmopolitan sociology and methodology present in going beyond such misconduct and in this manner reflects on the changes and transformations the Beckian cosmopolitanism prescribes for the units and categories of analysis within the field. This paper, while examining the meaning of such transformation for IR in general and for transnational relations and foreign policy studies in specific, argues that the cosmopolitan approach, through going beyond methodological nationalism and beyond the problems of reductionism accompanying it, offers opportunities for the relevant fields of redefining the national, international, transnational and global as transnational structures and relations and of accordingly analysing them.

içinde Faruk Yalvaç (Ed.), Tarihsel Sosyoloji ve Uluslararası İlişkiler, Nika Yayınevi, Ankara, ... more içinde Faruk Yalvaç (Ed.), Tarihsel Sosyoloji ve Uluslararası İlişkiler, Nika Yayınevi, Ankara, 2018.

Kozmopolitan sosyolojinin, ulusal durum ve metodolojik ulusçuluk ön kabullerinin kendilerine en saf haliyle yer buldukları ve bir sosyal bilim disiplini olarak varlığını bu indirgemeci ön kabullere borçlu ‘Uluslararası’ İlişkiler disiplini için ciddi sonuçları vardır. Beck’in kozmopolitan sosyolojisi adına ‘uluslararası’ denilen –ulusal duruma ait dâhil edici ve dışarıda bırakıcı bir ayrım hattı olarak işlev gören– ölçeği kategorik olarak reddetmekte ve uluslararasının merkezi ön kabullerine ve analitik araçlarına topyekûn bir meydan okumayı temsil etmektedir (yani ‘uluslararası’sız bir Uluslararası İlişkiler öngörmektedir). Yerine ise, küresel beşeri tecrübeyi –küreseli hem yerelde hem küreselde bir tecrübe olarak gören, mekânsal/ulusal farklılıklardan kaynaklanan yerli olanla yabancı olan arasındaki ikiliği çözen ve insanları küresel bir yakınlık içerisine yaşıyor olarak tahayyül ettiren– zorunlu fiili kozmopolitan gelişmelere odaklanarak çalışmayı önermektedir. Bu çalışma da tam da bu noktada ilgili kozmopolitan gelişmelerin ve anlayışın Uluslararası İlişkiler için sonuçlarını incelemeyi amaçlamaktadır.

Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice, 27/3, pp. 346-353.

Insight Turkey, Vol. 17, No. 3, pp. 193-215. The IHH delivers relief aid to 140 countries worldw... more Insight Turkey, Vol. 17, No. 3, pp. 193-215.

The IHH delivers relief aid to 140 countries worldwide. Quite recently, as a novel humanitarian practice, the IHH has begun acting as a mediator in intra-state conflicts and even accumulated considerable experience in it. In the Bangsamoro peace process, for instance, the IHH was invited to play a mediator role as part of the internationally crewed Third Party Monitoring Team. Similarly, the IHH has been called upon to play mediatory roles in resolving kidnapping incidents in Syria and Pakistan, and has done so by negotiating with armed groups for the release of kidnapped and captive civilians. This paper, therefore, aims to explore the dynamics of and the motivations behind the IHH’s extension of its international humanitarian mission beyond providing relief and to examine the place of such civilian mediator role in the broader humanitarian turn in Turkey’s contemporary foreign policy.

Papers by Husrev Tabak

Ankara Üniversitesi SBF Dergisi, 2019

Refleksif modernleşme, ikinci modernite, kozmopolitanlaşma ve dünya risk toplumu kuramlarının önc... more Refleksif modernleşme, ikinci modernite, kozmopolitanlaşma ve dünya risk toplumu kuramlarının öncülerinden ve Uluslararası İlişkiler alanında özellikle risk toplumu üzerine çalışmalarıyla bilinen sosyolog Ulrich Beck, Uluslararası İlişkiler yazımının tarihsel olarak ulusal durum tasavvuru üzerine inşa edildiğini, metodolojik ulusçuluğun alana içkin bir pratik olduğunu ve bunun ötesine geçmek için kozmopolitan bir metodoloji takip edilmesi gerektiğini savunmaktadır. Buradan hareketle bu çalışma metodolojik ulusçuluğun Uluslararası İlişkiler alanındaki içkin konumuna yönelik bir sorgu oluşturmakta, Ulrich Beck’in kozmopolitan sosyolojisinin ve metodolojik kozmopolitanizminin ilgili yanlışın ötesine geçmek için sunduğu araçları ve imkânları tartışmakta ve bu minvalde Beckçi kozmopolitanizmin alanda mevcut analiz birimleri ve kategorileri için öngördüğü değişim ve dönüşümleri tartışmaktadır. Çalışma, önerilen kozmopolitan dönüşümün anlamını genelde Uluslararası İlişkiler, özelde de Ulus...

SİYASAL: Journal of Political Sciences, 2022

Gender equality is a global norm, and the existing norm mechanisms attribute to trade unions glob... more Gender equality is a global norm, and the existing norm mechanisms attribute to trade unions globally a stakeholder position in norm diffusion and promotion. This is well-articulated in the official documents and the institutions within the United Nations (UN) equality regime that collaborates with both the local and the international unions accordingly. Complementarily, local trade unions collaborate with the UN bodies and international trade unions in the diffusion of gender equality to their localities. Nevertheless, this multi-layered process is disrupted by local contestations, with bold consequences for the proper functioning of the equality norms. This paper is a scrutiny on the practice of the contestation on and the interruption of the functioning of the gender equality norm, with a particular focus on trade unions in Turkey. In the country, despite that trade unions have been well-integrated into the global gender regime and mechanisms; therefore, despite the existence of an uninterrupted norm flow regarding gender equality to the labour space, the trade unions offer competing interpretations, driven by their differing and even conflicting politico-cultural positioning. Within the paper, this process of interruption and its consequences for the broader functioning of the norm within the country have been thoroughly elaborated. Regarding the source of data in the research, we conducted semi-structured interviews with the union representatives, and we also extensively used the unions’ own publications and documentations.

Marmara University Journal of Political Science, 2018

The Justice and Development Party governments in Turkey have placed public diplomacy into the ser... more The Justice and Development Party governments in Turkey have placed public diplomacy into the service of foreign policy as a multi-dimensional tool-kit to be utilized in extending the overseas communication beyond governments towards their publics. And this may be the first time in the Republican history that by the Justice and Development Party era, people abroad have found Turkey's mission bodies more accessible and reachable in terms of both institutional presence and of institutional willingness to involve in their affairs/problems. The Justice and Development Party governments have accordingly adopted a comprehensive 'state-to-society' public diplomacy agenda, targeting for instance the so-called 'kin communities' , by which shared civilizational memories, values and histories are often recalled and promoted in building relations. The target communities have thus been encouraged to embrace such identity frames and hence to renegotiate and when possible redefine their sense of belonging in a civilizational sense. This is a development which brings the constitutive appeal of the country's new foreign policy into a brighter light. Based on this, this paper initially questions the constitutive influences Turkey has possibly posed to the targeted communities abroad. Moreover, in the implementation of such state-to-society public diplomacy, certain political figures in Turkey have functioned as intermediaries between the public diplomacy bureaucracy and the communities abroad, as facilitators of Turkey's access to the targeted communities, and vice versa. These political elites have mostly been the members of the ruling party in the Parliament, acted as the chairman of inter-parliamentary friendship groups, accompanied prime ministers and presidents in their visits to target communities, and used their personal ties and networks to bring the targeted communities closer to Turkey, and vice versa. They therefore have direct involvement in the conduct of overseas state-to-society policy and have personally contributed to the country's public diplomacy campaigns. This paper, at this juncture, secondly aims to unfold this intermediary role of the political elites, which would help garner a better understanding of the sources and causes of Turkey's societal influences abroad. The paper uses Turkey's relations with the Bosniak and Albanian communities in the Balkans as case studies to trace the state-to-society diplomacy and the intermediaries' roles within it. To better observe both the influence and the intermediaries' facilitative role, interviews are conducted with some of the political intermediaries who took part in Turkey's reach to the kin communities in the Balkans. -------------
Tabak, Hüsrev (2018) “Political Intermediaries and Turkey’s State-to-Society Diplomacy in the Balkans,” Marmara Üniversitesi Siyasal Bilimler Dergisi (Marmara University Journal of Political Science), Vol 6, No 1, pp.75-95.

European Review of International Studies, 2024

Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, 2023

Authors: Kadri Kaan Renda, Ali Onur Özçelik, Hüsrev Tabak This article offers a critical discuss... more Authors: Kadri Kaan Renda, Ali Onur Özçelik, Hüsrev Tabak

Norm Diffusion Beyond the West, 2023

Asian Journal of Women's Studies, 2022

Journal of Asian and African Studies, 2023

Global Society, 2021

in Papuççular and Kuru (eds) A Transnational Account of Turkish Foreign Policy. Palgrave Macmillan., 2020

urkey’s Return to the Western Balkans: Policies of Continuity and Transformation, Eds. Radeljic, B. & Özşahin, M.C., Springer, 115-140., 2022

EU Conditionality in Turkey: When it works? When it fails?, Eds. Çakmak, C. & Özçelik, A.O., Lexington Books, 171-192., 2022

Bustan: The Middle East Book Review, 2020

Journal of Economy Culture and Society, 2022

Uluslararası İlişkiler (International Relations), Volume 13, Number 51, 2016, 21-39 Metodolojik ... more Uluslararası İlişkiler (International Relations), Volume 13, Number 51, 2016, 21-39

Ankara Üniversitesi SBF Dergisi, 2019

Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice, 27/3, pp. 346-353.

Insight Turkey, Vol. 17, No. 3, pp. 193-215. The IHH delivers relief aid to 140 countries worldw... more Insight Turkey, Vol. 17, No. 3, pp. 193-215.

Ankara Üniversitesi SBF Dergisi, 2019

SİYASAL: Journal of Political Sciences, 2022

Marmara University Journal of Political Science, 2018

ÖZET. Uluslararası İlişkiler'de sosyalleşme çalışmaları sosyalleşme süreçlerinde yapı'nın önceliğ... more ÖZET. Uluslararası İlişkiler'de sosyalleşme çalışmaları sosyalleşme süreçlerinde yapı'nın önceliğine odaklanmış ve özneleri normlar, roller ve ilkelerin pasif kabul edicileri olarak tahayyül etmiştir. Bu ele alış aktörün sosyalleşmedeki etkin müdahilliği ve bilinçli tercih ihtimallerini yok saydığı için eleştirilmektedir. İlgili eleştirel yaklaşımı benimseyerek, bu çalışma, odağı yapı'dan özneye kaydırmanın ve sosyalleşme ortamlarında özneleri normların ve rollerin pasif değil etkin benimseyicileri olarak düşünmenin imkanlarını incelemektedir. Çalışma ayrıca sosyalleşme sürecinde normatif alternatifliklerin inşasını tartışmakta, Batı-dışı normatifliklere yönelik gösterilen yok sayma eğilimini eleştirmektedir. Çalışma, Türkiye'nin Şanghay İşbirliği Örgütü (ŞİÖ)'ne üyelik istekliliği tartışmalarını ve ŞİÖ'nün Batı-dışı bir sosyal ortam olarak normatif alternatifliğinin inşasını vaka incelemesi olarak almaktadır.

ABSTRACT. Socialization research in International Relations is dominated by studies focusing on the structure's primacy in the socialization process, considering agents as passive recipients of relevant norms, roles and principles. This study elaborates the possibilities of shifting focus in IR research from structure to agent in socialization and of thinking of agents as active adopters of norms and roles other than passive exposees to them in socialization context. The paper moreover discusses the construction of normative alternativities during socialization and raises a critique to the disregard shown to non-Western normativities. The research takes the discussions of Turkey's willingness to membership to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the relevant political discourses of building it as the normative alternative of Western social environments as a case study.

Tabak, Hüsrev ve Doğan, Muharrem (2017) “Aktör-Merkezli Sosyalleşme ve Batı-dışı Normatiflik Üzerine Bir İnceleme: Türkiye’nin ŞİÖ Üyeliğini Tartışmak”, Bölgesel Çalışmalar Dergisi, Cilt 1, Sayı 3, ss. 97-140.

Caucasus International, 2017

The 15 July failed coup in Turkey changed the country's foreign policy priorities. Since then, th... more The 15 July failed coup in Turkey changed the country's foreign policy priorities. Since then, the country has redefined its relations with a number of countries based on how they responded to the coup attempt, and whether they cooperated with Ankara in apprehending the penetrators, the FETÖ. Given that 2017 marked the 25th anniversary of the establishment of official diplomatic relations between Turkey and Azerbaijan, and that the two countries have had steady and mutually supportive policies throughout this time, this paper examines whether the post-15 July environment has led to changes in the relationship. Specifically, the paper analyzes Azerbaijan's response to the 'fight on FETÖ', and the development of relations following the coup attempt. Our assessment of the post-15 July political developments suggests that bilateral relations have affirmed the path dependency of the two countries. The attempted coup and its consequences have not had any kind of negative impact on relations; on the contrary, the support Azerbaijan showed to Turkey in the 'fight on FETÖ' has deepened mutual trust, thereby further strengthening the path dependent solidarity and cooperation.

The constructivist research agenda on norms has been dominated by international norms research wi... more The constructivist research agenda on norms has been dominated by international norms research with studies only rarely focusing on domestic norms. The research agenda on domestic norms, however, is dominated by the use of norms in explaining the domestic construction of foreign policies. Domestic norms’ internationalisation and functioning in an overseas setting has thus been a neglected research domain. This research note, based on the experience of the author in his doctoral research on domestic norms, has been written to shed some light on domestic norms research and to encourage more studies in the field. Accordingly, the paper, while reflexively visiting the relevant literature, brings about answers to the issues debated around the following questions: ‘How could an existent norm that is guiding a foreign policy practice be identified’? And ‘how can the overseas diffusion and implications of a domestic norm be traced and reported’? The responses to these questions will show the reader where to start a domestic norm-guided foreign policy enquiry and how to trace internationalisation of domestic norms thus the functioning of foreign policyguiding domestic norms in an overseas setting.

This paper examines the organisation of popular and official Islam during and after communism in ... more This paper examines the organisation of popular and official Islam during and after communism in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Through studying the interaction between the popular and the official forms of Islam in the historical context, this paper unfolds the debate on who speaks for Islam? That took place between official representatives and popular Islamic groups and movements in the former Yugoslavian republic. Such an enquiry revealed firstly that a close contact with the existing regime (regardless of its ideology) is essential for becoming and remaining as the official Islamic authority, as seen in the Islamic Community's pro-Titoist stance throughout in the former Yugoslavia. The findings of the enquiry secondly suggest that popular Islam and official Islam represent transitive positions; meaning that a popular Islamic movement can become the official Islam, vice versa. Accordingly, a former popular Islam front, the Mladi Muslimani (Young Muslims), in Yugoslavia evolved into an official Islamic authority after the dissolution of the country and by the Bosnia-Herzegovina's establishment, in the scope of which new popular Islamic groups bred. Published in the 'Gazi Akademik Bakış' journal (June 2017, Vol. 10, No. 20, pp. 299-312).

Turkey has faced, in the last two decades, a number of critical events, like wars, conflicts and ... more Turkey has faced, in the last two decades, a number of critical events, like wars, conflicts and frictions in the Balkans, the Caucasus, and the Middle East, that have represented a huge challenge for its foreign policy and civil and economic interventions. Turkish multi-directionality and multidimensionality have been tested by these occurrences, demonstrating that what some scholars and experts had defined as a “model” contained failures as well as success.

This book examines these dynamics through case studies of the humanitarian, cultural, economic and political dimensions of Turkey’s role in a diffuse neighbourhood, in which the country has tried to exert its power in recent decades.

Starting from the questions that the Cold War and the arrival of the AKP in government have opened for Ankara, the volume illustrates two of the most important sides of the Turkish strategic repositioning in the international system. The first part is focused on the main humanitarian and political struggles in contemporary Turkish society, while the second explores the main fault-lines in Turkey’s regional policy and the development of the country’s foreign policy.

As such, the book represents a valuable resource for both graduate and undergraduate students, academics and researchers in the areas of Turkish studies, foreign policy, regional politics, Middle Eastern studies, security, political economy and European studies as well as for the general public.

Eurasian Politics and Society: Issues and Challenges studies the various outcomes of regional tra... more Eurasian Politics and Society: Issues and Challenges studies the various outcomes of regional transformation, the ideology of Turkish Eurasianism, and the Eurasian Economic Union. In doing so, it looks at the power struggle in the South Caucasus, Kazakhstan’s relations with Russia, Russia’s sense of Eurasianism, and geopolitical awareness as a pattern of imperial self-perception for Putin’s Russia. The book also provides a detailed analysis of the situation in Syria from a humanitarian perspective, and utilizes an innovative approach in exploring how the European Neighbourhood Policy resonates in Neo/Functionalism.

As such, this volume represents a valuable resource for graduate and undergraduate students, academics and researchers in the areas of security, political economy, European studies, post-Soviet studies, and Eurasian studies.

This volume studies the contemporary dynamics of conflict and cooperation within Eurasia with ref... more This volume studies the contemporary dynamics of conflict and cooperation within Eurasia with reference to interdependencies, partnerships and contestations on regional security, energy, democratic transition, and trade. Its key concern, in a broader sense, is, therefore, to understand the various outcomes of post-Soviet regional transformation and the intra- and inter-regional integrative or dismantling interaction making the regional countries hopeful or pessimistic about the future of their immediate and extended neighbourhood within contemporary Eurasia. The contributions here unfold the contemporary strategies of individual states with regards to cooperation, on the one hand, and the unavoidable conflicts in both bilateral relations and on a regional level, on the other. The chapters examine, with reference to central Eurasia, the root causes and the transitive character of conflict and cooperation, regional security dynamics and competing security complexes, and rising powers increasing involvement in the equation favouring cooperation via trade. As such, this book provides a better understanding of both the issues and the challenges the wider Eurasian region is currently experiencing.

Normlar, Uluslararası İlişkiler için görece yeni bir tartışma sayılsa da sosyal bilimler için öyl... more Normlar, Uluslararası İlişkiler için görece yeni bir tartışma sayılsa da sosyal bilimler için öyle değildir; aktör davranışını anlamaya, açıklamaya ve yorumlamaya çalışan sosyal bilimcilerin onlarca yıldır kullandıkları analitik bir ölçek olagelmiştir. Zaman içerisinde onlara başvurularak cevap aranan sorular tematik ve metodolojik anlamda çeşitlilik gösterse de normlar, her daim aktör davranışının oluşumu ve sonuçları ile aktör ve yapı arasındaki kurucu ve sosyalleştirici etkileşimi incelemek isteyen araştırmacılara önemli bir gözlem zemini sunmuştur. Bu bölümde sosyal bilimler için analitik gözlem zemini olan normlar öncelikle sosyal bilimler, ardından da Uluslararası İlişkiler için cevap sunduğu düşünülen sorular çerçevesinde incelenecek; Uluslararası İlişkiler’deki tartışmaların sosyal bilimlerdeki yaygın kullanımlardan nasıl etkilendikleri ve paradigmatik ve kuramsal süreklilikleri (ve yer yer farklılaşmaları) ortaya konulacaktır. --- Tabak, Hüsrev (2017) “Normlar, Uluslararası İlişkiler ve Dış Politika”, içinde Ertan Efegil (ed) Sosyolojik Unsurların Dış Politikaya Etkisi, İstanbul: Gündoğan Yayınları, 139-173.

This chapter has examined what Turkey does with Islam in foreign policy, and has unfolded two dis... more This chapter has examined what Turkey does with Islam in foreign policy, and has unfolded two distinct yet contradictory, and at the same time overlapping, manifestations and expressions of Islam in Turkey’s foreign policy. Through refraining from attributing pejorative meanings to Islam’s playing a constitutive role in foreign policy, this research has demonstrated that Turkey confidently and constitutively deploys religious causes and discourses in foreign policy. In a similar way, it is seen that Turkey’s use of Islam in foreign policy is not in the scope of theo-politics. The relationship is rather in line with Turkey’s Turkish Islamic exceptionalism that suggests that Turkey’s Islamic experience is an authentic practice and existentially suitable to modern life, and that the imperial role Ottomans and the preceding ‘Turkish’ states played in the building and sustaining of Islamic civilization endows Turkey with a responsibility towards fellow Muslims worldwide. In this respect, in Turkey’s foreign policy, Islam manifests itself both as an internationalist appeal for Muslim solidarity and an international competition with radical teachings and practices. --- Tabak, Hüsrev (2017) “Manifestations of Islam in Turkey’s Foreign Policy”, in Tabak, Hüsrev, Tüfekçi, Özgür and Chiriatti, Alessia (eds) Domestic and Regional Uncertainties in the New Turkey, Newcastle upon Tyne, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 85-104.

Uluslararası Örgütler, Devletler ve Dış Politika, Ed. Şaban H. Çalış, Nobel Yayınevi, 29-58., 2022

Küresel İhvan: Müslüman Kardeşlerin Ulusötesi İlişkileri, Eds. Bozkurt, Abdulgani & Rakipoğlu, Mehmet, Ketebe., 2022

Bu bölümde dış yardımlar ve normlar arasındaki yardım eden ülke/kurum ile yardım alan ülke arasın... more Bu bölümde dış yardımlar ve normlar arasındaki yardım eden ülke/kurum ile yardım alan ülke arasındaki kurucu sonuçlar doğuran ve yardım alan ülkenin belirli zihni çerçevelere sosyalleştirilmesiyle sonuçlanan ilişki açıklanmaya çalışılmıştır. Makale, dış yardımın çok farklı kontekstlerde, farklı roller ve işlevlerle yer aldığının gösterilmesi ve dış yardımın hangi normatif ve düşünsel zemin üzere gerçekleştiğinin anlaşılması bakımından önem arz etmektedir. Bu kasamda makalede dış yardım ve normlar arasında en az üç boyutlu bir ilişkinin olduğu öne sürülmüştür. İlk boyut dış yardımın kendisinin bir norm olması durumudur. İkincisi, dış yardımın bir güdülü eylem olmasıdır yani dış yardımı güdüleyen belirli normların varlığıdır. Üçüncüsü ise dış yardımın norm yayılımı için bir araç olması durumudur yani norm-güdülü bir eylem olarak dış yardımın onu güdüleyen norma hareketlilik kazandırması ve onun yayılımına katkı sunmasıdır. Makale bütününde bu üç ilişki biçimi detaylıca incelenmiş, konuya ilişkin kuramsal ve kavramsal tartışmalara katkı yapmak amaçlanmıştır.

Tabak, Hüsrev (2016) Normlar ve Dış Yardımlar, içinde, Akıllı, Erman (ed) Türkiye’de ve Dünya’da Dış Yardımlar, Ankara: Nobel Yayınları, pp.34-54.

Bu çalışmada, sosyal bilimlerin genelinde aktör davranışının oluşumunu ve değişimini açıklamak is... more Bu çalışmada, sosyal bilimlerin genelinde aktör davranışının oluşumunu ve değişimini açıklamak isteyen araştırmacılarca bir ölçek olarak kullanılan ve sosyal ortam ile aktör arasındaki etkileşimi açıklayan sosyalleşmenin Uluslararası İlişkiler’e yansımaları ve hangi sorulara cevap vermek için (nasıl) çalışıldığı incelenmiştir. --- Tabak, Hüsrev (2017) “Sosyalleşme, Uluslararası İlişkiler ve Dış Politika”, içinde Ertan Efegil (ed) Sosyolojik Unsurların Dış Politikaya Etkisi, İstanbul: Gündoğan Yayınları, 175-206.

Tabak, Hüsrev (2014) “Normlar ve Uluslararası İlişkiler: Türkçe Yazın için Geç Kalınmış bir Araşt... more Tabak, Hüsrev (2014) “Normlar ve Uluslararası İlişkiler: Türkçe Yazın için Geç Kalınmış bir Araştırma Gündemi”, Demir, Idris (Ed.) Türkiye’nin Dış Politikası, Dora Yayınları, s.19-46.

Tabak, Hüsrev (2016) “Manifestaciones del islam en la política exterior turca. Internacionalismo ... more Tabak, Hüsrev (2016) “Manifestaciones del islam en la política exterior turca. Internacionalismo islámico e islam turco”, in Donelli F. et al. (eds) Un retrato de la Turquía contemporánea: Visión general y perspectivas (A portrait of contemporary Turkey: overview and outlook), Greater Mexico City, Universidad Anahuac.

The Power Triangle: Military, Security, and Politics in Regime Change, By Hazem Kandil, Oxford: ... more The Power Triangle: Military, Security, and Politics in Regime Change,
By Hazem Kandil, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.

The process by which a country's domestic norms are exported to its expatriate communities is the... more The process by which a country's domestic norms are exported to its expatriate communities is the central question of Husrev Tabak's new book, The Kosovar Turks and Post-Kemalist Turkey: Foreign Policy, Socialisation and Resistance. Tabak draws upon a constructivist theoretical framework to explore the Turkish government's efforts under the ruling AKP (Justice and Development Party) to shift the discourse on Turkey's involvement in the Balkans from a secular and paternal relationship between the Turkish state and ethnic Turks (" Outer Turks ") to a regional embrace that cultivates a sense of shared religious identity with all Muslims in the Balkans, not only Turks. At its core, this book is more about Turkey and its shifting foreign policy norms in the Balkans than it is about the fundamental identity of Turkish communities in Kosovo. The Kosovar Turks and Post-Kemalist Turkey effectively captures a moment in which a sea change in Turkish social and political thought brought religion, and by extension Ottomanism, to the forefront of foreign policy in the early 2000s.