Ali Bilgic

‘Real people in real places’: Conceptualizing power for emancipatory security through Tahrir

The objective of emancipatory security theory is to examine the insecurities of individuals and social groups that stem from oppressive power processes, relations, and structures. However, the image of power in emancipatory security studies does not correspond to such a normative and analytical motivation. This renders the theory susceptible to substantial criticism on the grounds of inadequate analysis of resisting individuals as agents of security in their own localities. To address this issue, the present article conceptualizes ‘emancipatory power’. In this exercise, Hannah Arendt’s understanding of power, enriched by Judith Butler’s concept of performativity and feminist insights, will be used as the theoretical foundation to tailor collective power based on trust in a ‘moment’ of emancipation. Collective power will be illustrated by references to the protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square in 2011.

Reclaiming the National Will: Resilience of Turkish Authoritarian Neoliberalism after Gezi

Abstract This article explores why and how authoritarian regimes become resilient when facing strong resistance from counter-hegemonic forces to their neoliberal social and economic projects. Examining the case of Turkey in 2013, it analyses the political subjectivities produced by authoritarian neoliberalism and the AKP government’s attempt to reassert its hegemony. To unpack this argument, the article first examines the Gezi Park protests, retracing the protestors’ own accounts to explore how the resistance to authoritarian neoliberalism materialised. It then analyses the discursive strategies of the government and pro-government media to show how the AKP government appropriated the Turkish right’s existing ‘national will’ narrative with a neo-Ottomanist and neoliberal makeover and tried to reproduce its hegemony through consent generation at the ‘National Will’ meetings.

Security through trust‐building in the Euro‐Mediterranean cooperation: two perspectives for the partnership

Trust‐building creates puzzles for analysts in relation to what kind of trust is built in world politics, between whom, and to what end. This article studies two types of trust in the Euro‐Mediterranean Partnership: rationalist trust which characterizes inter‐state cooperation to protect order and cosmopolitan trust which reveals the emancipatory potential of political structures that aim to achieve more security for individuals. In this study, two types of trust will be illustrated in the Euro‐Mediterranean cooperation by analyzing the link between security and trust. It is argued that while rationalist trust between states with ‘security as order’ rationality reconstructs the status quo in North African countries, cosmopolitan trust with ‘security as emancipation’ rationality toward North African individuals has the potential to transform these countries’ political structures.

Hybrid Hegemonic Masculinity of the EU before and after the Arab Spring: A Gender Analysis of Euro-Mediterranean Security Relations

In the academic literature on EU–southern Mediterranean relations, a focal point of neglect has been the gendered dimension of Euro-Mediterranean relations. This article argues that the Euro-Mediterranean space has been formed within the gendered global West/non-West relations with the purpose of promoting the Wests security interests. Euro-Mediterranean security relations, thus, embody a gendered power hierarchy between the hybrid hegemonic masculinity of the EU (bourgeois-rational and citizen-warrior) and the subordinate (both feminized and hypermasculinized) southern neighbourhood. In addition, it shows that following the Arab Spring the EU has been determined to maintain the status quo by reconstructing these gendered power relations. This gender analysis contributes to the literature on Euro-Mediterranean relations through its specific focus on the (re)construction processes of gendered identities within the West/non-West context in tandem with the EUs competing notions of security.

‘We are not barbarians’: Gender politics and Turkey’s quest for the West

Turkey’s policy-makers have historically aimed to position Turkey within the West by convincing the latter that Turkey meets the ‘standards’ of the West, that they ‘are not barbarians’. This article aims to offer a gender analysis of Turkey’s relations with the West by showing how ‘devalorization’ as feminization and hypermasculinization of the non-West becomes a source of insecurity for non-Western policy-makers. This gendered ontological insecurity is intensified when they face a military threat from a third party. The argument is that Turkey’s policy-makers try to benefit from military crises in order to represent Turkey as a state meeting Western ‘standards’ of masculinity, and therefore to address its gendered ‘devalorization’. The analysis aims to contribute to the literatures of postcolonial feminism and non-Western insecurities.

Exploring ‘What's Good about Security’: Politics of Security during the Dissolution of Yugoslavia

In the last decade, students of Critical Security Studies (CSS) have been increasingly studying and understanding the concept of security in negative terms. The way they choose to analyse security instils a one-sided understanding, which revolves around totalizing the material and ideational power of the state. This paper aims to discuss how students of CSS can avoid essentializing the meaning of security by extending its analytical scope beyond security professionalism and state-centrism. It will be argued that it is possible to inquire ‘what is good about security’ by examining the experiences of the most victimized through a study of the pluralism of politics of security. The argument will be illustrated through a discussion of ideas and practices of the Yugoslav anti-war feminist movement between 1989 and 1994.

The European Union and refugees. A struggle over the fate of Europe

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Global Affairs on 5 May 2017, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/23340460.2017.1322252.

Migrant encounters with neo-colonial masculinity: producing European sovereignty through emotions

ABSTRACT The EU/European political community’s reaction to irregular migrants is ambivalent. On the one hand, migrants are produced as people to be pitied, rescued, and saved. On the other hand, they are feared, despised, and left to die. The article explores this ambivalence from a gender perspective and asks how sovereign masculinities are produced through emotional performances in the politics of migration control and management. It will be argued that emotions such as fear, disgust, and compassion are performed in the biopolitical security governance of irregular migration by producing a “socially abject” life as its object. This is a life that is to be killed, despised, and saved. Encounters between the irregular migrant and a European border security actor constitute a neo-colonial masculinity. During the moment of the encounter with the other’s life, sovereignty is produced through emotional performances of border security actors. The discussion concludes with illustrations of how racialized bodies and lives are produced as objects of fear, disgust, and compassion through European neo-colonial masculinity. The article speaks to the debates in the literature on masculinities in global politics, emotions and politics, and critical border studies.

A Gender View of the Arab Uprisings

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Mediterranean Politics on 4th January 2016, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/13629395.2015.1128671.

Echoes of empire: memory, identity and colonial legacies

foundations of the existing international system should have been included in the overall analysis to offer a comprehensive account on the future of world politics. Overall, despite certain limitations, combining theory with practice and reflecting both western and eastern perspectives to world politics since 1945, the book proves to be more than just another textbook of International Relations. Besides, in comparison to previous editions, the seventh edition includes some of the last decade’s developments such as the Arab Spring to make the book up-to-date and even more comprehensive. It also introduces “the literature” section that puts forward a recommended reading list for each chapter. Yet, except for Chapters 2 and 6, the book may be criticized for lacking in-depth analysis. Nevertheless, it is recommendable to beginner students of International Relations, International Development and International History, as well as academics looking for a concise reference book on the Cold War and beyond.