This article analyses the entanglement of religion, nationalism, and populism in Turkey under the Justice and Development Party (AKP). Drawing on scholarship on nationalism and populism and on the instrumental use of religion, it shows how the AKP has recast national identity through Islamic themes. By fusing religious and nationalist narratives, the party presents itself as the authentic voice of 'the nation', treats Islam as a core marker of Turkishness, and marginalizes secular interpretations. This synthesis helps explain the AKP's broad electoral appeal and its legitimation strategies, which depict opponents as threats to the nation's moral fabric. The article argues that this produces a distinctive populism that valorizes 'authentic' Islamic values, invokes a particular historical identity, and imagines a homogeneous community aligned with AKP ideology, reshaping secular foundations and policy.
This article examines how Turkey and Hungary cooperated to contest norms of the Liberal International Order (LIO) between 2013 and 2025. Drawing on the content analysis of semi-structured interviews and speeches, it argues that their partnership was rooted in shared experiences of stigmatization by the EU. They reinterpreted EU criticism and stalled accession prospects through civilizational narratives portraying their regimes as unfairly misrecognized. This process of counter-stigmatization created an ideational foundation for mutual recognition and coalition-building. First, in the EU, Hungary and Turkey cooperated to contest enlargement conditionality, by advocating faster and less normative accession and visa liberalization processes. Second, Hungary challenged EU gas diversification efforts by making Turkey's Russian gas dominated energy hub more visible in the EU via Budapest's observer status in the Organization of Turkic States. The findings contribute to the literature on ontological security, populist foreign policy, and the LIO's contestation with an ideational perspective.
This article examines the shifting patterns of women's empowerment in diplomacy in Southeast Europe (SEE), focusing on Bulgaria, Cyprus, and Greece. While women's overall representation in these foreign services has increased, an important puzzle remains: women continue to be largely excluded from the region's most strategically sensitive ambassadorial posts. Drawing on a mixed-methods approach that moves beyond numerical indicators, the study investigates the qualitative dimensions of women's participation, including access to high-stakes ambassadorial and leadership roles. Integrating insights from the author's own diplomatic experience, the analysis reveals how informal institutions-unwritten norms, homosocial networks, and the gatekeeping role of national security intelligence agencies-shape career advancement in ways that still disadvantage women. By uncovering the informal institutional mechanisms that restrict women's access to strategic diplomatic appointments, the article advances a new research agenda on gender and foreign policy in SEE, illuminating dynamics that remain largely invisible in mainstream international relations and diplomacy studies.
This article compares the structural and political dynamics that led to the collapse of Yugoslavia and the 1960 Republic of Cyprus, aiming to draw lessons for current reunification efforts in Cyprus. Using a qualitative comparative approach, it highlights shared challenges such as deep ethnic divisions, flawed constitutional arrangements, economic inequalities, external interference, and imbalances in political representation. While recognizing the viability of a two-state solution, the study argues that a federal model remains feasible if rooted in mutual acceptance, equitable power-sharing, and protection against domination. It stresses the need for a common Cypriot identity, economic integration, and safeguards for minority rights. Ultimately, the article concludes that federalism in ethnically divided societies requires more than institutional design - it depends on political will, intercommunal trust, and the careful management of unity and diversity.
Migration to Greece is a structural feature of the country's social and political life, yet inflows fluctuate sharply, repeatedly straining reception, asylum and welfare systems. This article develops a pilot prediction model using a Hidden Markov Model (HMM) to identify latent 'regimes' of migratory pressure and derive evidence-based policy implications. Using harmonized quantitative data on arrivals, the model distinguishes three flow scenarios, soft, medium and hard, each reflecting distinct ranges and patterns of annual inflows. The regimes are discussed in relation to key geopolitical and socio-economic developments and used to derive scenario-based policy implications for reception capacity, asylum processing, and local welfare and integration. The engagement with securitization and human security is used as a contextual lens to interpret policy trade-offs. The article then sets out targeted implications for reception capacity, asylum processing, local welfare and integration, calibrated to each regime and to the institutional constraints of Greek migration governance.
This study examines the divergent transitional trajectories of Ukraine and Russia over recent decades using expanded version of the triple transition framework. Drawing on statistical and graphical analyses of multiple indicators, the study documents a widening gap between the two countries: Ukraine has strengthened democratic institutions, diversified its economy, and embraced a civic national identity, whereas Russia has consolidated authoritarianism, deepened resource dependence and an imperial ideology. Despite cultural closeness and similar starting conditions shaped by communist rule, the two societies have evolved in different directions, with divergence most pronounced in political institutions and societal values. Although the study does not directly test causal hypotheses, it contributes to identifying plausible developmental determinants underlying these contrasting trajectories. The findings suggest that the Russian invasion of Ukraine should be understood not as a conflict between two similar transitional states but as an assault by an imperialist rentier dictatorship on an emerging democracy.
As there is still room for exploring the securitization process as a part of the Securitization Theory, this research paper shows that the securitization process can be contentious. There were at least two successful securitization processes in the MND. The current study interviewed 18 political members of the coalition government led by Syriza and 24 opposition members from Spring 2019 to 2020. The interviews focused on the events associated with the Macedonian Name Dispute (MND), which overshadowed the Greek discourse from 2018 to 2019 and supposedly solved one of the world's oldest and most potent territorial name disputes. The first securitization process was promoted by the government, and the other by the dominant right-wing opposition party of New Democracy, which eventually became the new government after the national elections on 7 July 2019. In this contentious process, the side that exploited the media seemed to maintain its securitization longer.
Focusing on the dynamics of the protracted Cyprus conflict, this study examines how a technical arrangement about jointly developing energy and sharing the resultant revenue can function as a conflict management tool. It argues that a functional revenue-sharing mechanism could bring energy-related tensions and differences into a manageable framework by shifting them from the political level to technical management concerns. Investigating the 2019 Turkish Cypriot proposal as a joint energy development and revenue sharing mechanism as an empirical reference point, the study stresses that such a functional administrative framework can be considered not as a normative peace remedy but as a limited and conditional conflict management tool. The findings reveal that progress in negotiations is hindered by the enduring sovereignty concerns between leaders of the two communities and their repeated failures with efforts to end the long-lasting Cyprus problem; thus, a functional mechanism can gain legitimacy only if it is designed in line with sovereignty neutrality.
Romeyka, an endangered Archaic Greek, is spoken in the mountain villages of the Eastern Black Sea region. Despite the limited use in Turkish traditional media, the free environment of social media helps preserve languages at risk of disappearing. Based on this assumption, this study conducts fieldwork in Trabzon to investigate how social media contributes to reimagining the Romeyka culture and collective identity. The findings revealed that using Romeyka in virtual spaces facilitates the reproduction of this distinct language and culture; however, the Romeyka speakers have different definitions of self-identity and its place in the Turkish nation.
Russia - Ukraine war has fundamentally redefined European energy security, exposing structural vulnerabilities while accelerating systemic transformation. Before 2022, the European Union sourced over 40% of its gas from Russia, a dependency that collapsed following supply disruptions and the sabotage of Nord Stream. Drawing on Eurostat, ACER, and ENTSOG data, this study traces short-term impacts (2022-2024), including supply shocks, unprecedented price volatility, and emergency interventions that prevented systemic collapse but deepened fiscal burdens and energy poverty. A scenario-based analysis (2025-2040) then explores three trajectories: Baseline (gradual recovery), Escalation (persistent conflict and constrained supply), and Green Leap (accelerated clean energy transition). Results show that only the Green Leap pathway achieves near-zero import dependency, stabilized energy costs, and emissions consistent with EU climate neutrality, whereas Baseline risks underperformance and Escalation imposes unsustainable costs. The findings highlight the paradox of crisis: short-term measures often conflicted with decarbonization, yet they catalyzed policy acceleration.
The EU enlargement to the Western Balkans differs from previous rounds of enlargement by an unprecedented rise of conditionality, both imposed by the EU institutions or individual member states bilaterally. In addition to the standard set of conditions aimed at legal, economic, and political transformation of societies, these criteria were introduced to prioritize regional reconciliation and address the recent past. However, a number of bilateral conditions have emerged that are perceived as non-technical and primarily focus on history, heritage, and cultural identity, effectively blocking candidates' advancement to the EU membership. It is argued in the article that these sets of conditions are counter-indicative for the enlargement agenda, stimulating divisions, and opening space for non-EU actors. Drawing from interdisciplinary comparative regional research on bilateral culturalized conditionality, the article addresses how research-based inclusive intangible cultural heritage (ICH) safeguarding can assist in resolving identity conflicts and contribute to unblocking EU integration.
This article examines the populist securitization of migration in Turkey through Julia Kristeva's concept of abjection, arguing that refugees are discursively constructed as the 'abject other,' contaminating the imagined national body. Far-right actors normalize exclusionary politics by mobilizing affects of disgust, fear, and anger to dramatize crisis, scapegoat refugees for socioeconomic grievances, and demand extraordinary measures. Drawing on discourse analysis (2011-2025), the study traces how metaphors of dirt, invasion, and purification are translated into securitizing logics. This dynamic is crystallized in the discourse of the Victory Party (Zafer Partisi) and its leader & Uuml;mit & Ouml;zda & gbreve;, whose rhetoric diffuses contagiously across the political spectrum. Integrating Kristeva's psychoanalytic framework with scholarship on populism and securitization, the article theorizes how affective economies of revulsion underpin exclusionary politics. The findings reveal a paradox: far-right actors in Turkey remain electorally weak yet discursively hegemonic, illuminating affect-driven populist securitization in non-Western contexts and its global implications.
To fully understand minority perceptions, positive attitudes must also be examined. This study is the first to investigate positive attitudes toward Armenians in Turkish parliamentary politics. Drawing on qualitative content analysis of parliamentary speeches between 1946 and 2018 and guided by Weberian rationality theory, the analysis identifies three themes: legal equality, cultural harmony, and material contributions. The findings reveal a paradoxical dynamic in which Armenians are simultaneously valued for their contributions and symbolically positioned as an outgroup. Positive statements frequently emphasize loyalty, harmony, and usefulness, portraying Armenians as appreciated yet conditional members of society. The study contributes to research on minority perceptions and stereotypes by showing how positive attitudes construct Armenians as 'well-behaved outsiders' who contribute materially while facing contested equality.
