Archive for the ‘Global Studies’ Category

Turkey and the Arab Spring

February 8, 2012

Demonstrations in Al Bayda, LibyaErcan Balcı
When Turkey is mentioned in relation to the Arab Spring, there are two major points of view: 1. Turkey is a great model for Arab countries as a secular democracy with a majority muslim population. 2. Turkey is not a good model since it has its own problems with minority rights, freedom of speech/press and human rights, and recently Turkey has become more conservative moving away from Western values. I claim that a combination of these two perspectives seems to be emerging in the region.

Atatürk and the Founding of the Turkish Republic

After the World War I, the Ottoman Empire lost most of its land either through invasion or through the independence of different ethnic groups. With Ataturk’s leadership, Turkish people won the war of independence and established the Turkish Rebublic in 1923. Shortly after the establishment of the republic, in 1924 the Caliphate was abolished, which was a symbolic end to the relations between Turkey and other Muslim countries. Between 1925-38 Atatürk’s program of reforms transformed the country into a secular, democratic and western society. Some the major reforms were adopting a new Civil Law code in 1926, introducing the Latin alphabet in 1928, and in 1934 women became eligible to vote in elections and become members of Parliament. After Atatürk’s death in 1938, the single-party system continued till 1950. Turkey became a charter member of the UN in 1946 and joined the NATO in 1952. Because of space restrictions, I will not detail the military coups and economic and social problems in Turkey between 1950 and 2000.

Recent History of Turkey and the Justice and Development Party

The Justice and Development Party (a.k.a. AKP) entered the Turkish political scene in 2001 under the leadership of Erdoğan. The AKP can be classified as a hybrid political group that represents a synthesis of reformism and conservatism that crosses class boundaries. On November 3, 2002, the AKP emerged as the predominant political party: it defeated all other established parties, winning 34% of the vote. In early general elections in 2007, the AKP got 47% of the votes. In 2011 general elections, the AKP won a historic 49.9% of the votes.

The AKP’s politics of reform paved the way to European Union (EU) accession negotiations and furthered the democratization of Turkey. The intellectual evolution in the conservative religious camp since the end of the 1990s is exemplified in this turn toward the EU, and the corresponding turn away from the strong nation-state and the Islamic world. The AKP was able to pass additional reform packages and to achieve the beginning of EU accession negotiations on October 3, 2005. Under AKP rule, the Turkish economy improved tremendously and became more stable with record high growth rates and lowest inflation rates in the history of Turkish republic.

Egypt and Turkey

Before the Arab Spring started, there was competition between Egypt and Turkey as to which country was the leader in the region, but now there is more cooperation, with investments jumping from $3.7 billion to $10 billion. During Prime Minister Erdoğan’s recent tour of Arab countries, he was welcomed by the Egyptians, and the main theme was “Egypt and Turkey are hand-in-hand.” The focus these days is on solid Turkish-Arab unity both politically and economically. The Turkish government has stated its support for the Muslim Brotherhood and calls for a secular state.

Libya and Turkey

Unlike the competitive relationship with Egypt’s Mubarak administration, Turkey had strong economic and personal ties with Libya during the rule of Gaddafi. Over 25,000 Turkish people worked in Libya, and there were $18 billion worth of contracts when the uprisings started. Turkey’s initial reaction to the clashes in Libya was slow since the priority was to get Turkish citizens out of the country. However, Turkey suspended all its contracts and gradually tilted toward opposition forces. Turkey also supported NATO-backed intervention to remove Gaddafi by recognizing the Transitional National Council and providing assistance to rebel forces in Libya.

Syria and Turkey

The Turkish-Syria relationship gets a lot of attention recently since the atrocies committed by the Assad regime are still continuing, and Turkey has 900 km border with Syria. Before the uprisings started, Turkey and the Assad regime had a very close relationship. Between 2003 and 2011, the Turkish minister of foreign affairs Davutoğlu visited Syria 60 times. As a result of close relations between the two administrations, in 2009 visa requirements were dropped, and in 2010 a Free Trade agreement was signed. After the uprisings and the crack-down started, Turkey supported gradual democratization of Syria to avoid a civil war and sectarian conflict in a bordering country. The Turkish government tried to make use of their former relationship to pressure the Syrian regime for genuine reform, but when warnings didn’t work, Turkey harshly criticized and condemned the Syrian regime for killings and human rights violations. Turkey currently provides humanitarian assistance to Syrian refugees and opened channels of communication with opposition forces. Turkey also is working with the Arab League and the West on sanctions on Syria.

Conclusion

When the Arab Spring started, Turkish media and the public realized that they were not sufficiently informed about the region despite their proximity. Until very recently, the Arab world received very little coverage in Turkish media, and most was negative, and clouded with stereotypes. However, during the uprisings, Turkish media portrayed the Arab world more positively, and Turkish people started to view Arab countries in a new light. During 2011, relations with Israel worsened, which actually helped the image of Turkey in the Arab countries.

In conclusion, Turkey is a major political and economic player in the Middle East region, and it has strong historical, economical and cultural ties to the Arab countries. These close ties and the democratization efforts that started with the Arab Spring will bring Turkey and Arab countries closer. Although Turkey has its own issues to work on regarding human rights and democratic rights of minorities, it does constitute a viable example of a secular democratic republic with a Muslim population. Indeed, we recently have seen the “Turkish model” being adapted in the region, with Morocco’s “AKP” winning the elections and Tunisia’s Enhanda party being inspired by the AKP in Turkey.

Ercan Balcı is Lecturer and Coordinator of Turkish, Department of Linguistics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Tags:, , , , , ,
Posted in Global Studies | Leave a Comment »

Debt Crisis in Europe and the Limits of National Power in the Face of a Global Challenge

December 6, 2011
Kostas Kourtikakis  European Euros
Lecturer & Research Assistant Professor
Department of Political Science
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The European debt crisis has been at the top of the news in the United States and around the world since it fist broke out in 2009.  Citizens and businesses have been watching with great concern and fascination as this seemingly endless drama is escalating before their eyes.  What is not visible to the naked eye, however, is the deep change this crisis highlights in the ability of governments to pursue their preferred policies in a globalized economy.  This essay explores the nature and roots of this important change.The first signs of trouble appeared in Greece, a small European economy, which became unable to service its debt and therefore received international financial support in 2010.  Soon the crisis spread to other European countries, and it was not long before Ireland and Portugal also had to receive international assistance loans in order to support their troubled budgets.  With time, the economic health of large European countries such as Italy, France and, even Germany, was also at stake.  At an alarming rate, governments of small and big countries alike find themselves in an untenable position, as interest rates on their debts rise sharply and their borrowing costs increase exponentially.  Today we talk about a pan-European crisis, with potentially grave implications for the world economy.  The United States, the world’s largest economy and Europe’s biggest economic partner, is not immune to this crisis either.

What is more surprising than the speed by which the crisis spreads is the inability of political leaders in Europe and beyond to take measures that will either stop it or at the very least slow it down.  This inability definitely does not stem from a lack of effort.  The leaders of the Eurozone, the currency union that includes the countries in the eye of the storm, have announced several rounds of measures with the intention of assuring markets and making their union more resilient against the current economic turbulence.  In addition, the members of G20, a grouping of powerful world economies, have also tried to weigh in and suggest solutions.  And yet, with every set of new measures or recommendations announced to halt it, the debt crisis seems to come back with a vengeance.

To make matters worse, popular discontent is also on the rise.  One can detect two main trends, both of which are related to the distribution of economic resources.  On the one hand, citizens in economically robust countries object to the disposal of funds for assistance loans to economies in trouble.  German and Finnish citizens have expressed very vocal opposition to the “bailout” of Greece, for example.  On the other hand, the governments of all the countries that have already seen their borrowing costs rise or anticipate they will, have been undertaking painful austerity measures, which reduce household incomes dramatically and lead to significant social tensions.  Demonstrations and riots in Greece, Spain, Portugal, and most recently in Britain, are all examples of this trend.

The rapid spread of the debt crisis, the inability of political leaders to solve it, and the emergence of significant social instability are three distinct phenomena, which even the casual observer can link to each other.  But what are the underlying conditions that make these phenomena so intertwined?  And why do they reinforce each other, leading to a continuous deterioration of the crisis?  The answer to these questions is that we live in a world where economic processes are increasingly global, while political decision-making is fragmented into separate national arenas.  As a result, economic problems can easily spread across countries almost automatically, while the political solutions to these problems must still be negotiated among governments that answer to different national constituencies.

In the European debt crisis, one could identify international banking institutions and rating agencies as examples of economic actors that are involved in truly global processes.  These two types of institutions are entangled in a continuous cycle of mutually dependent decisions.  When a rating agency signals that a bond becomes a risky investment, banks will only agree to buy it at a higher interest rate.  But this rate hike will increase the cost of borrowing for the government that issues the bond, and it may compromise that government’s ability to pay back its loans.  This development will fuel additional concerns among rating agencies, which may lead to more rate increases, thus further compromising the country’s ability to borrow.  The ease and speed of transmitting information and making international transactions across borders in today’s world means that large amounts of money can move easily away from the bonds of a particular government, leaving it strapped for cash.

The news of a suddenly inflated Greek budget deficit is the event that triggered this automatic process that has engulfed all of Europe.  Because Greece is a member of the Eurozone, banks and rating agencies were concerned that the roots of the Greek problem lie in the design of the currency union and raised red flags about other countries as well, causing their borrowing costs to rise and the problem to spread.  Clearly then, this is a problem that many countries are confronting at the same time, and coordinated action is necessary to assuage market concerns.

But European governments have struggled unsuccessfully to coordinate a response.  Originally they even failed to realize the transnational nature of the problem, thinking that it affects only certain economies.  Since the full extent of the problem became known, however, conflicting national priorities and conditions have made finding a common solution elusive.  What is an acceptable response for Germany is not necessarily welcome in France, Italy or Greece.  Yet, because of the rapid spread of market uncertainty, governments are under immense pressure to bridge deep differences in very little time.  The resulting measures are therefore often a sloppy compromise, rather than an effective solution to the problem.  This makes international banks and rating agencies get even more suspicious and therefore the debt crisis continues to spiral downward.

At the same time, citizens see their countries and communities in trouble, and naturally expect their governments to come up with solutions.  But the complexities of international finance are far removed from most citizens’ daily lives.  In the absence of sufficient explanations from their leaders about the true global nature of the problem, they demand national solutions to what they perceive as their own nation’s problem.  Constituencies become thus more sensitive, which exacerbates the problem even more:  as democratically elected political leaders try to satisfy their enraged citizens, national positions harden and diverge during government negotiations for a coordinated solution, making international synchronized action even more difficult.

Granted, this crisis is, to an extent, a peculiar European phenomenon because there is no other currency union like the Eurozone.  But if we take a step back and look beyond the details of these specific events, we will find a problem that is deeply engrained in transnational processes.  As such, it requires an equally transnational remedy.  In the absence of a global government, coordination through international institutions seems like the only solution.  The difficulties faced by European governments today, even after 60 years of close integration, are therefore particularly indicative of the loss of control faced by governments in dealing with global crises, precisely because both leaders’ and citizens’ perceptions are still informed by a national mindset.

Recommended readings:
Martin Heipertz and Amy Verdun, Ruling Europe: the Politics of the Stability and Growth Pact, Cambridge University Press, 2010
Saskia Sassen, Losing Control: Sovereignty in an Age of Globalization, Columbia University Press, 1996

Posted in Global Studies | Leave a Comment »

There is an “app” for that: Mobile technologies and learning

November 7, 2011

Lynne M. Rudasill

From the adze maker to the Gutenberg Bible to Project Gutenberg to the mobile “app,” technological advances both impact and support human society. The revolution in communications and technology embodied by the internet and the World Wide Web has been felt in all but the most resistant or distant corners of the world. The hardware that many societies use to access the maze of information that has become part of our lives is becoming smaller and smaller, currently existing as a hand-held device that can easily be packed in a pocket. We have the world in our hands. The impact of these devices can be observed as we watch the evening news and the 24-hour cable programs on that olden technology – television. The news of the Arab Spring, the flash mob, and global demonstrations such as Occupy Wall Street are all evidence of the ease with which people empowered with mobile phones can communicate and organize. The mobile device can also support and improve access to scholarship as more applications are developed to provide access to information.

In a recent article in College and Research Libraries News, Lori Barile reviewed several free mobile phone applications that might be useful to researchers. These include resources in diverse areas: from classical literature at Spreadsong <http://spreadsong.com> ; to the high-resolution historical cartography of the 4th to the 20th centuries from Maps of the World <http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/history-maps-of-world/id303282377>; to the Social Science Research Network’s iSSRN that provides access to 250,000 papers from its repository <http://ssrnblog.com/2009/11/19/ssrns-iphone-app-issrn-is-available/>.

Science related information is offered by application resources such as the Periodic Table Explorer http://freshney.org/apps/pte.htm, and the Planets http://www.qcontinuum.org/planets/ from Q Continuum. Factual data to support researchers’ arguments is available through the OECD Factbook 2010 http://www.oecd.org/publications/factbook and the USA Factbook <http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/usa-factbook-free/id305888083>.

Although most of these apps are developed for the i-device environment (IPhone, IPad, or IPod), many are now being created for the Android operating system and others. Sites that provide access to newly developed applications include AppBrain (Android) http://www.appbrain.com/, Appolicious (Android and iPhone) http://www.appolicious.com/, AppStore at iTunes http://itunes.apple.com/us/genre/mobile-software-applications/, Getjar (Android, Blackberry, iPhone and Windows Mobile) http://www.getjar.com , and Mimvi (Android, Blackberry and iPhone) http://www.mimvi.com . (Barile 2011)

Mobile technologies are readily available in academic libraries. There is an affinity between the collections and the users of libraries that support the use of the mobile phone and its applications. The university libraries at institutions that subscribe to global-e all provide some sort of access to mobile applications including such resources as online catalogs, tours, access to databases, and a host of other information providers and learning tools. Usually, it is as simple as searching for “library mobile” to pull up app resources available on any campus. At the time of this writing, the Digital Library Federation is in phase two of a competition of ideas for developing more applications for libraries, including easy to access tables of contents, citation finders, a journal abbreviation translator, a journal and conference identifier, and others.

Beyond the academic library, applications have been developed that provide support for fieldwork in the social sciences as well as the hard sciences. Global positioning applications are used for much more than geo-caching competitions and finding the nearest Starbucks. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) provides a fascinating look at the many applications of this technology at the GPS Application Exchange  http://gpshome.ssc.nasa.gov/, including submissions of projects from around the world. Mobile applications are useful in the areas of healthcare, environmental screening, recording anthropological field notes, as well as taking attendance in the classroom. Useful tools both in and out of the classroom include DropBox http://blog.dropbox.com/, the built-in camera, and the voice recorder.

Although the use of mobile application technology in learning is still new, there is a developing literature on the subject. Initially, the majority of research revolved around issues of how the technology might be applied, and by whom. The Horizon Report 2011 identifies key trends in technology and education and echoes a long-held tenet of the academic library: “People expect to be able to work, learn, and study wherever and whenever they want.” (Johnson 2011, p. 3) This report also looks at emerging technologies and predicts increased emphasis on this technology which has moved from the “near horizon” to the “one-year or less” category. “Mobiles embody the convergence of several technologies that lend themselves to educational use, including electronic book readers, annotation tools, applications for creation and composition, and social networking tools,” according to the authors of the report. (Johnson 2011, p. 13)

Further, a developing body of research being published specifically targets mobile devices and mobile learning. Theoretical work from the socio-constructivist and continuity pattern in education was done by Caron and Caronia as early as 2008 regarding the use of iPods in the classroom. (Caron 2008)  About that same time the use of mobile technology in the education of underserved students in Latin America suggested its efficacy in meeting the literacy needs of indigenous children. (Kim 2008)  A review of the impact of mobile applications in learning appeared in 2010. (Jeng 2010)  Most recently, a study comparing the usefulness of mobile technology between students near the Mexico-US border indicated the use of mobile devices increased the learning of students in more rural, less-developed communities. (Kim, et al, 2011)  What is needed now is more research regarding the applications found in mobile technology, including phones and tablets, to ascertain the best practices and most efficacious use of these programs in the classroom.

Lynne Rudasill is Global Studies Librarian and Associate Professor of Library Administration at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

References

Barile, Lori. (2011) Mobile technologies for libraries: A list of mobile applications and resources for development. College & Research Libraries News 72 no4 222-5, 228.

Caron, A. and Caronia, L. (2008). Mobile instruction technologies and the culture of education: An empirical study on the appropriation of iPods. Conference Papers — International Communication Association, 1-27.

Johnson, L., Smith, R., Willis, H., Levine, A., and Haywood K., (2011). The 2011 Horizon Report. Austin,  Texas:  The New Media Consortium. http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/HR2011.pdf

Jeng, Y., Wu, T., Huang, Y., Tan, Q., & Yang, S. J. H. (2010). The add-on impact of mobile applications in learning strategies: A review study. Journal of Educational Technology & Society, 13(3), 3-11.

Kim, P., Hagashi, T., Carillo, L., Gonzales, I., Makany, T., Lee, B., & Gàrate, A. (2011). Socioeconomic strata, mobile technology, and education: A comparative analysis. Educational Technology Research & Development, 59(4), 465-486. doi:10.1007/s11423-010-9172-3

Kim, P., Miranda, T., & Olaciregui, C. (2008). Pocket school: Exploring mobile technology as a sustainable literacy education option for underserved indigenous children in latin america. International   Journal of Educational Development, 28(4), 435-445. doi:10.1016/j.ijedudev.2007.11.002

 

Posted in Global Studies | 1 Comment »

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 129 other followers