The theoretical work of Thomas Hobbes marks the dawn of political modernity and thus also the beginning of modern reasoning about governing. In his Leviathan, Hobbes creates the modern space of the political through the exclusion of the world’s social and natural abundance. This crossroads of political thinking might not least be of relevance for the Anthropocene. After all, affirming the Anthropocene

When we occupy the spaces of war memorials, we respond with certain bodily comportments that relay the “truth” of those killed by war violence. Through a phenomenological examination of embodied responses to two war memorials, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery, I argue that social institutions employ bodies as a means of legitimizing

What is missing from the debate about the “end of IR theory” or the rejection of the now infamous “isms”? Queer theory. Those who declare that IR theory is over and those who see it as making a comeback; those who reject the “isms” and those who champion them seem like they are on opposite sides of a very wide spectrum. This article argues, however, that all is not as it seems. Instead, the various

There is an ongoing debate in the research literature on whether the neoliberal economic rationalities permeating public administration, policy, and governance across much of the world provide the means necessary for promoting sustainable development. Parallel to this debate, it has been suggested that resilience thinking, a notion with growing policy importance, could either reproduce the neoliberal

Scholarly literature has recently developed the notions of Anthropocene geopolitics and planetary security. How these relate to and whether they inform states’ foreign policy, however, remains a largely underdeveloped issue. This article goes some way toward addressing this gap both theoretically and empirically. Theoretically, it unpacks how traditional and Anthropocene geopolitics diverge in their

In the globalizing international relations (IR) debate, the “West” and “Global South” have conventionally been presented as fundamentally different categories. This has disguised any interconnectedness between the two categories and variation within them. What does this mean for the quest for “Global South theorizing?” In order to address this binary logic in the globalizing IR literature, I analyze

International Relations (IR) scholars uncritically accept the official narrative regarding the events of 9/11 and refuse to examine the massive body of evidence generated by the 9/11 truth movement. Nevertheless, as calls for a new inquiry into the events of 9/11 continue to mount, with the International 9/11 Consensus Panel and World Trade Centre Building 7 Evaluation inquiries having recently published

This article develops the proposal that U.S. Supreme Court Justices should be selected by sortition. The greatest threat to the legitimacy of the Supreme Court emanates from ever more politicized selection contests under the current system. Removing politics from Supreme Court recruitment is therefore crucial, and sortition is argued to be a suitable vehicle for accomplishing this. The proposal is

Is it possible to write a publishable, peer-reviewed academic paper in a day? We attempted this task in 2016, motivated by a desire to find new ways of doing academic work in the face of our growing sense of alienation within the neoliberal academy. This article provides our analysis of academic alienation and an auto-ethnography of our experiment. We discuss four lessons learned: (1) knowledge as

Research has demonstrated that there is a paucity of qualitative criminological research published in journals. Neoliberal ideology reigns hegemonic in the United Kingdom, promoting competition and quantifiable success. With neoliberal narratives infiltrating the functioning of academia, researchers are required to cater their methodological choices to suit metrics and arbitrary university goals. Consequently

There is a recurrent state crisis in Turkey. The failed July 15, 2016, coup attempt exposed the failure of available mechanisms to tackle this crisis, which surfaced at a time of systemic transformation from parliamentary rule to an executive presidential system in Turkey. The ruling political elite suggested this transformation as a panacea to bureaucratic tutelage, which was considered as a barrier

This article contributes to the emerging literature on possibilities to disseminate agonistic narratives in seemingly deadlocked conflict settings. In this context, conflict parties’ existence is often perceived as being under threat, which makes it demanding to question the current societal order. However, even in the most protracted of conflicts, narratives exist that challenge concurring understandings

Since the mid-2000s, Turkey has incorporated a soft power discourse into its foreign policy agenda and shifted its attention toward building up its soft power infrastructure. Up until 2013, Turkey was applauded as a regional powerhouse, an important player in the soft power arena, and a beacon of democracy and stability within an unstable region. However, the restrictions on free speech, media censorship

Disappearance of the established security paradigm of Kemalist state has not helped to create strong institutions and legal-bureaucratic structures that are supposed to prevent a certain political elite to dominate the political system and criminalize its adversaries by security reasons. Instead, survival concerns and political will of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) has become replacement

Among other aims, degrowth calls for a deprioritization of economic growth as primary indicator of success. However, deprioritizing economic growth is challenging because it is the antithesis of business as we know it today. Yet, in this study, we find examples of enterprises operating in the renewable energy industry in the Global South, which deprioritize traditional economic growth as their preferred

This article is a contribution to the political economy of consent based on the analysis of speeches, declarations, initiatives, and policies implemented in the name of resilience in the context of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. It argues that, in practice as much as in theory, resilience fuels peoples’ submission to an existing reality—in the case of Fukushima, the submission to radioactive contamination—in

In an era of increased mobility, naturalization is crucial for shaping international legal and political identities. It is therefore important to move beyond the legal definition of naturalization in order to comprehend its affective and social meaning. This article develops the notion “affective naturalization” by combining the literature of affect and politics with insights from economic anthropology

The study examines whether defeat in war increases the probability that states will be involved in an international crisis (as a diversionary policy), enter a process of political liberalization, or alternatively, curtail political rights. More generally, it examines the impact of the leaders’ weakness on their tendency to adopt these different strategies in order to overcome internal unrest. We look

The study aims to explore the role of the Turkish Grand National Assembly (TGNA) in Turkish foreign policy with respect to the cases of the Syria (and Iraq) motions. In the academic literature, there is considerable research arguing that parliaments do not influence parliamentary democracies’ foreign policies. However, the existing literature does not provide examples or case studies that go beyond

This article analyzes attempts to redirect foreign policy against multiple crises in Turkey that inhibit change. The gap between the country’s capabilities and resources and its regional and international commitments has overshadowed former success stories in Turkish Foreign Policy (TFP) by casting an all-encompassing sense of siege, retreat, and isolation. The new narrative and guided political mobilization

Drawing upon earlier research on the post failed coup survival of political leaders, we offer an ex ante in sample estimate of the likely political survival of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan following the fail coup of 2016. Depending on the assumption made about when he entered office, we conclude that his tenure is likely to endure until 2026, a result that was reached before his recent call

This article maintains that the treatment of the Ottoman/Turk in the English School of International Relations, as in broader Western scholarship, is Eurocentric and highlights less frequently utilized concepts to restructure our thinking on the Ottomans. In Eurocentric historical narratives, the Ottomans are represented as an abnormal entity or as the very opposite of Europeanness. This peculiar representation