Brent E. Sasley

Affective attachments and foreign policy: Israel and the 1993 Oslo Accords

Although the important role of emotions in decision-making has been highlighted in the psychology, neural science, and decision research literatures, this conclusion has not been widely adopted in foreign policy analysis and International Relations (IR). Of the work that has been done, much of it has been focused on public perceptions and the impact on foreign policy, but not on elites and the actual decisions of foreign policy. This article seeks to address this imbalance by examining the role of one element of emotion — affect — on key foreign policy decision-makers. It argues that the greater the emotional attachment a leader has to an object, the less flexible she is in foreign policy toward that object. The model is used to explain a critical puzzle in IR: Israel’s decision to pursue and sign the 1993 Oslo Accords.

Redefining security in the Middle East

1. Introduction: Redefining Security in the Middle East - Tami Amanda Jacoby and Brent Sasley 2. Conceptualizing Security in the Middle East: Israel and a Palestinian State - Lenore G. Martin 3. Between Militarism and Moderation in Israel: Constructing Security in Historical Perspective - Jonathan B. Isacoff 4. Between Islam and Islamism: A Dialogue with Islam as a Pattern of Conflict Resolution and Security Approach vis-a-vis Islamism - Bassam Tibi 5. Gender Relations and National Security in Israel - Tami Amanda Jacoby 6. Understanding Environmental Security: Water Scarcity, the 1980s Palestinian Uprising, and Implications for Peace - Jeffrey Sosland 7. Political Islam and the Middle East Peace Process: A Veiled Threat - Thomas Butko 8. The Effects of Political Liberalization on Security - Brent E. Sasley

Blogging identities on israel/palestine: Public intellectuals and their audiences

Drawing on our research and blogging on Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we make three claims about the role of scholar-bloggers in the social media age. First, as scholar-bloggers with some degree of ethno-national attachments related to our area of expertise, we contend that we are well positioned to issue the kinds of critiques that may resonate more deeply due to the very subjectivity that some perceive as a liability. Second, through the melding of scholarly arguments with popular writing forms, scholar-bloggers are uniquely poised to be at the forefront of public engagement and political literacy both with social media publics and with students. Third, the subjectivity hazard is an intrinsic part of any type of research and writing, whether that writing is aimed at a scholarly audience or any other, and should not be used as an argument against academic involvement in social media. Ultimately, subjectivities of both consumers and producers can evolve through these highly interactive media, a dynamic that deserves further examination. The explosion of social media in the last half decade has raised a number of questions about the place of academics in the digital sphere, especially those engaged in the fields of politics and international affairs. For many active citizens, academics included, social media—including blogs, Twitter, and even Facebook—is now the default channel for consuming, discussing, and analyzing news and current events. Increasingly, scholars active in these arenas contend that they are an effective means of teaching, research, and dissemination of knowledge (Carpenter and Drezner 2010; Pressman 2012; Sides 2011). Similarly, surveys of the discipline indicate that academics are coming to believe that blogging should count toward tenure and promotion decisions alongside traditional publications (Long et al. 2012, 64, 69).1 Writing in PS as a response to John Sides (2011), Robert Farley (2013) has reflected on the growing acceptance of blogging as legitimate political science. While he agrees that the discipline should provide “incentives” for faculty members who blog (e.g., tenure and promotion), Farley argues that trying to fold blogging too much into the discipline’s existing structures runs the risk of imposing rigid conditions and qualifications on bloggers that undermine the very benefits inherent in the nature of blogging (and, in our view, by extension tweeting, writing op-eds, and other social media engagement). We share Farley’s view. But including blogging and other social media activity as “legitimate” political science scholarship opens the door to another possible concern, which, while it is has always been present in more traditional publishing venues, may be intensified by these nontraditional activities: the intrusion of a scholar’s own nonacademic identity (whether ethnic, religious, racial, gender, or simply ideological leanings) into the give-and-take that marks social media activity. Whereas some people might argue that blogging and other social media engagement may challenge the roles and duties of academics (Tribble 2005), we contend that blogging and other types of social media activity paired with reflexive awareness of the kind of subjectivity that guides one’s endeavors may actually enhance the scholarly and teaching enterprise. What’s more, the traditional role of scholar-teacher as sage-on-a-stage may be well worth challenging. Drawing on the issue-areas that guide our own particular research and blogging agenda—Israel, Jewish affairs, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—we make three claims in this essay. First, as scholar-bloggers with some ethno-national attachments surrounding our area of expertise, we contend that we are well positioned to issue the kinds of critiques that may resonate more deeply within our communities because of our status as individuals with significant group attachments. This, despite the Mira Sucharov is associate professor of political science at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. She can be reached at mira.sucharov@carleton.ca. Brent E. Sasley is associate professor of political science at the University ofTexas at Arlington. He can be reached at bsasley@uta.edu. T h e P r o f e s s i o n ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. doi:10.1017/S1049096513001571

History, Rationality, Narrative, Imagery: A Four-Way Conversation on Teaching the Arab-Israeli Conflict.

The Arab-Israeli conflict can be a difficult topic to teach, for a variety of reasons. As such, this article represents a conversation by four scholar-teachers of the Middle East and the conflict about our approaches to teaching it. We discuss our motivations for the manner in which we teach the conflict and some of the specific tools we use to do so, including the use of history, role-playing and simulations, emphasis on narratives, and active learning instruments (such as movies and music). We also engage with each other, interspersing our own suggestions and reactions to each others discussion. By doing so, we aim to provide an open atmosphere for others to consider how we teach the conflict, in the hopes of better understanding it.

The effects of political liberalization on security

The end of bipolarity brought to light the difficulty inherent in using Cold War concepts of security to explain international relations in the developing world. As well, it has often been argued that international relations is basically an American (with some British input) enterprise (Azar and Moon, 1988b: 1; Hoffman, 1977), with the consequences that only threats that concerned American interests (i.e. military threats from the Soviet Union) were considered security threats. In the contemporary international system, however, issues of security are now much more than superpower competition and interests, and these raise questions as to the nature and practice of security (Dalby, 1997: 4). As Brian Job notes, ‘it is increasingly taken for granted that the world is a secure place for First World [i.e. developed] states and their citizens’, while the same is not true for developing world countries (Job, 1992: 11). This chapter’s purpose is to broaden the definition of security by including regimes and societies as essential referent objects of security. Demands for social, economic and political rights across the Middle East have threatened the positions, indeed the very safety and perhaps even the survival, of regimes that have been in power for many years. Focusing on the Arab world, these demands are the result of declining socio-economic conditions within the region. Efforts to placate such appeals, previously effected by focusing attention on foreign policy agendas, through political reforms are perceived by these regimes as undermining their security. In response, regimes have engaged in repression, which in turn undermines the security of their societies not only through violence and ill-treatment, but by not allowing the requisite reforms to take place – thus ignoring the socio-economic plight of their citizens. As a vicious circle, this has the effect of angering populations even more, so that demands for change become more strident, more common and, perhaps eventually increasingly violent. This contributes to increased regime insecurity. Thus, the sense of threat that prevails in the developing world (within the state) is to and from the regime in power. 8

Turkish Leaders and Foreign Policy Decision-Making: Lobbying for European Union Membership

This article seeks to contribute to our understanding of Turkish foreign policymaking, which is an under-developed area of study. It does so by examining the role of individual leaders in the foreign policymaking process. It compares two Islamist prime ministers – Necmettin Erbakan and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan – and the difference in their levels of emotional attachment to Islam and their pragmatism. The findings are also relevant for a more informed understanding of the potential outcomes of the revolutions in the Arab world, where attention to Islamist groups and their preferences have become paramount.