Recent Rapprochement Research Articles

The Gulf States’ Decade

ABSTRACT The books by Dina Esfandiary, Cinzia Bianco, and Tobias Borck delve into the shift in Gulf politics over the past decade. This change saw in particular Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar playing a more prominent role in regional affairs, which was influenced by the Arab Spring uprisings and Gulf states’ concerns over American commitments to regional security. The books also highlight the diverging foreign policies of Gulf states, challenging the notion of a unified Gulf entity, as reflected by the 2017 boycott of Qatar. The dynamics of Gulf assertiveness is a central theme in these analyses, with the UAE exemplifying a more proactive and interventionist foreign policy approach. However, recent developments suggest a recalibration of foreign policies by Gulf states, with a renewed focus on economic cooperation and regional de-escalation. The once tense relations between Gulf states have thawed, hinting at a period of optimism and reduced regional tensions. However, as the authors point out, one needs to be cautious on the long-term implications of this recent rapprochement.

Türkiye-China relations revisited: a neo-Gramscian perspective

ABSTRACT A considerable number of studies have attempted to analyse changes in Turkish foreign policy under the Justice and Development Party administration. These changes triggered the debate about whether Turkish foreign policy shifted its Western orientation. Departing from rising anti-West rhetoric in Turkish foreign policy, this study sets out to explain the recent rapprochement between Türkiye and the People’s Republic of China. From a critical perspective, it proposed a new way of viewing Türkiye’s relations with China as a counter-hegemonic rapprochement reshaped by internal/external dynamics in the post-western world order. Consequently, it shows which ideas, material capabilities, and institutions have played roles in the Erdogan administration’s challenge to Western hegemony by utilizing relations with China.

Meaning-Adequacy and Social Critique: Toward a Phenomenological Critical Theory

AbstractIn the present paper, I analyze the complex relationship of tension between Critical Theory and phenomenology from a sociological-theoretical perspective. I start from two theses. The first one is that one of the primary reasons for the antagonism between these two paradigms lies in their ideal-typically opposed assessments of the role of ‘meaning-adequacy’ in social research. The second one is that in recent years, there has been a strong rapprochement of Critical Theory with (social) phenomenology. This shift, fundamentally embodied in Hartmut Rosa’s work, can be understood as the culminating point of a progressive turn towards meaning-adequacy within the Frankfurt School. In order to unfold these two theses, I will proceed in three steps. First (1), I will present the main outlines of the relationship of tension between the two traditions from both a historico-intellectual and a systematic perspective. Second (2), I will focus on the contemporary readings of the Schutzian notion of ‘meaning-adequacy’ and discuss their value for better understanding the historical opposition between the two paradigms, as well as their recent rapprochement. Third (3), I will sketch the key features of Rosa’s sociology of world-relations, understood as a phenomenological Critical Theory that shows a strong commitment to a radicalized version of the meaning-adequacy postulate.

A Fragile Convergence: The US–Japan–South Korea Camp David Summit

The US–Japan–South Korea summit was historic, not least because it was the first stand-alone summit between the three countries. The severe deterioration in the security environment in East Asia, in particular China’s menacing of Taiwan and North Korea’s continued nuclear-weapons programme, has been a significant driver of the recent rapprochement between Japan and South Korea. The warming of bilateral ties thus helps to buttress the United States’ separate, formal security alliances between Japan on the one hand and South Korea on the other. But previous thaws have failed, reflecting lingering differences between Japan and South Korea in areas such as their shared history and territorial claims. This convergence is therefore a fragile one.

A ‘Soft’ Balancing Ménage à Trois? China, Iran and Russia Strategic Triangle vis-à-vis US Hegemony

The recent rapprochement among China, Iran and Russia reveals the emergence of a new, unexpected, regional strategic triangle with the potential to balance the United States’ dominant position. By focusing on the evolution of this strategic triangle in the post-Cold War period, this article investigates the driving forces that bring the three states together, namely the US power and unilateralism as materialised in NATO’s eastward expansion, the sanctions on Russia after the annexation of Crimea and the war in Ukraine, the sanctions against Iran, the US trade war with China and the hostile US posture during the coronavirus disease-2019 pandemic. Drawing on soft balancing theory, this article provides an empirical assessment of China–Iran– Russia strategies in countering the US power. Thus, this article aims to fill a gap in the existing literature by investigating this triangular relationship and its balancing potential under the analytic construct of a strategic triangle. Finally, the analysis demonstrates that the three states have employed soft balancing mechanisms, primarily economic strengthening and entangling diplomacy in international institutions. At the same time, territorial denial was sought on various occasions due to the regional importance of this triangular relationship. In conclusion, the article also offers insights into potential hard-balancing behaviour in the long run.

The Impact of Türkiye and Israel’s Rapprochement on the Maritime Delimitation Dispute in the Eastern Mediterranean

Türkiye and Israel relations have recently improved with ambassadors’ mutual appointment to the respective countries. This recent rapprochement between the two essential states of the Middle East also influences the ongoing political disputes in the seas of this region. As is well known, Türkiye, Greece, and Cyprus (North and South) have been in conflict regarding the delimitation of maritime borders in the Eastern Mediterranean. In this conflict, Greece and Southern Cyprus have developed strong alliances with western countries, the most important ones being the U.S. and the EU. The recent rapprochement between Türkiye and Israel may change the game in the region and improve Türkiye’s hand with regard to the Eastern Mediterranean dispute.

SANKOFATIZATION AND DECOLONIZATION: The Rapprochement of German Museums and Government with Colonial Objects and Postcolonialism

ABSTRACTThis paper examines how node three national museums in Germany are dealing with colonial objects in their spaces. It also explores the German government’s recent rapprochement with scholars in its ex‐colonies on how to deal with its colonial past within a discourse of evidence and sankofatization. Sankofatization is defined as a Ghanaian‐Akan ideology that signifies the selection of past ideas for retention within a type of renaissance paradigm. In December 2015, the German Federal Foreign Office invited delegates from Togo, Ghana, Namibia, Tanzania, and Cameroon to take part in a unique program dubbed “A Themed Tour of German Colonial History.” Reporting on this tour, the paper assesses the activism of German civic organizations and museums in their ongoing attempts to decolonize colonial cityscapes, street names, and exhibits. But this discussion is much more than an ethnographic report. The implications of this rapprochement policy for discourses on the archaeology of German colonialism and the anthropology of colonial museums denote significant changes in transnational cooperation. Overall, the themed tour recalled that silencing of negative past experiences and past misdeeds is never permanent. Generational change often influences a renaissance, or sankofatization, of past realities to serve emerging postcolonial needs.

State fragility and conflict nexus: Contemporary security issues in the Horn of Africa

Although research on natural resource and ethnic identity-based conflict abounds, studies which critically examine how the state fragility–conflict nexus shapes the contemporary security of the Horn of Africa are rather limited. Qualitatively designed, this study attempts to explore and explain security implications of such a nexus. Analysis of the regional security complex (RSC) and empirical data from the field reveal that conflict dynamics feed and fuel state fragility in the Horn of Africa sub-region. The presence of extra-regional security actors, who are competing for military bases along the coast of Djibouti, the spill-over effects of violence in Yemen, and the Iran–Saudi power rivalry, together with incompetent regional political leadership, tend to shape the security of the Horn. Hence, a new and innovative approach to contemporary security and political commitment are sine qua non since the existing institutions and policies are not fully capable of coping with the need for a new security regionalism. It is hoped that the recent rapprochement between Eritrea and Ethiopia, albeit at an embryonic stage, is and will be a positive force capable of bringing about a paradigm shift in security structure, and inducing a viable and sustainable economic, political and security community in the Horn of Africa. Keywords : conflict dynamics, Horn of Africa, military bases, political community, regional security complex, state fragility

The recent rapprochement between Iran and Turkey: is it durable or is it a relationship of convenience?

ABSTRACTSince the coup attempt of 2016, bilateral ties between Ankara and Tehran have witnessed a significant boost. Using and refining Steven David’s framework of omni-balancing, which argues that the conduct of foreign policy in Third World settings also takes stock of domestic threats to the regime, this paper explains this emerging rapprochement. The article argues that after 2016, the AKP’s foreign policy became increasingly predicated on regime survival, which was also reflected in Ankara-Tehran ties. This rapprochement was strengthened by both countries’ intersecting positions on the following issues (1) A mutual pro-Qatar stance in the recent Saudi Arabia-Qatar spat, (2) Mutual opposition to a Kurdish state in northern Iraq, and (3) Increasingly troubled relations with the US. Through a careful analysis of Turkish and Persian sources along with official discourses, this paper will expand on these key aspects of these significantly improved bilateral relations between both countries and will conclude with discussion of its durability.

Borders and boundaries in the state-making of Eritrea: revisiting the importance of territorial integrity in the rapprochement between Eritrea and Ethiopia

ABSTRACTIn this article, the author analyses Eritrean state-making and its foreign policy as driven by the quest for territorial integrity. The article first demonstrates the importance of creating a territorial nation-state for Eritrean nationalism. It subsequently provides an interpretation of Eritrean foreign policy through the lens of the importance of territorial integrity. The article then reflects on how this has underpinned the recent rapprochement between Eritrea and Ethiopia. It ends with some thoughts on what these developments might mean for the future of Eritrea and the wider geopolitical environment of the Horn.

The Emerging China, Pakistan, and Russia Strategic Triangle: India’s New Gordian Knot

The primary cause for the emerging triple axis including China, Russia, and Pakistan in South Asia has been to curtail the Indo-US extended political, economic, and military connections. India in the post-Cold War era tilted significantly toward the West, the move which has been equally ostracized by the triumvirate. Hence, in reprisal, Russia’s recent rapprochement with the duo further solidified the Sino-Pak geostrategic bond. India’s wide-ranging collaboration with the US, primarily in the post-civil nuclear deal, led to the budding fusion of three atomic powers. Under such circumstances, the region has been enticing the major global powers and latterly various extra-regional players exhibited profound interests in the entire South Asia. Therefore, under the formation of power blocks, a new geopolitical great game has been emerging in the region. India, the leading South Asian player, therefore, has been facing an extremely problematic situation while making a balancing choice amongst the two hostile powers, China and the US. Against this backdrop, the study will primarily focus on the rise of South Asian Triple Axis and its possible consequences upon the rising Indo-US strategic leverage.

The KMT-CCP Forum: Securing Consent for Cross-Strait Rapprochement

The recent rapprochement between China and Taiwan cannot be understood if our conceptual apparatus is unable to cope with the distinctive new quality of cross-Strait relations. A critical framework provides a transnational account of cross-Strait dynamics. An analysis of the KMT-CCP Forum through the lens of the neo-Gramscian notion of hegemony sheds light on the Forum's strategies, mechanisms, practices and instruments to secure consent for cross-Strait rapprochement. While this mode of governance has broadened the KMT's strategic options, it has also compromised Taiwanese democracy.

What Can International Relations Learn from International Law?

International Relations has rediscovered the study of international law in recent years. And yet, this new “IL/IR” scholarship has been highly unbalanced, with political science scholars paying little or no attention to the potential contribution of international legal scholarship, which is seen as excessively formalist and blind to the realities of modern power politics. Ironically, by ignoring what lawyers know about how international law operates, IR scholars themselves unwittingly fall prey to a type of formalism that is insufficiently attentive to the practical realities of how the international legal order works. Happily, IR scholars can remedy these defects by drawing upon the theoretical frameworks and empirical analyses of their counterparts in law. To encourage such an engagement, this paper proceeds in three parts. Part I provides a thumbnail history of the relationship between the disciplines, including their post-war estrangement, the recent rapprochement, and the unbalanced terms of trade between the two disciplines today. Part II sets out a brief primer on the leading theoretical approaches to international law, demonstrating that the common image of international legal scholarship as overly formalistic and blind to political realities is simply incorrect, and that IL scholarship offers important insights into issues that political scientists care about. Part III turns more directly to how international legal thought can advance IR thinking. We identify several concepts – which we call process, power, pluralism, and normativity – that are central to legal analysis but often overlooked or treated differently in IR scholarship. Next, by way of example, we highlight three broad areas of inquiry – the making, interpretation, and enforcement of international law – where international law approaches can make a distinctive contribution to IR scholarship.

Queerness, Norms, Utopia

Extending the recent rapprochement among queer studies, Marxist theory, and political economy, this special issue of GLQ responds to the current crisis of capitalism. Contributors consider how methodologies of queer studies are specially poised to reveal the global, historical, and social dimensions of capitalist economic relations. Using queer hermeneutical tools in combination with globalization studies, secularization studies, and queer of color critique, contributors examine global economic history and the ideological collusion of capitalist production and biological reproduction. The Introduction explores the ways in which capitalism is only made possible by systems of racial, sexual, and national exploitation; further, we seek to interrupt the commonsensical presumption that recuperation from periods of crisis depends on the increasingly violent reassertion of these forms of exploitation. Turning our attention to the set of crises defining the period we understand as neoliberal capitalism—the long wave of recessions and dispossessions stretching from the 1970s to the present—we explore the shared queer and Marxist commitment to concepts of utopia and theories of totality as frameworks for strenuously negating and moving beyond current conditions. By providing an expansive theoretical perspective on current and historical economic patterns, we hope to illuminate and advance our understanding of the complex structures of global capitalism.

Resetting U.S.-Turkish Relations: Charting a New Way Forward

After nearly nine decades of benign neglect, Turkey has set about reestablishing its influence in the Middle East. Although most observers agree that the United States and Turkey share a number of overlapping goals in the Middle East, Turkey's recent rapprochement with Iran has drawn the ire of the United States. In tandem, Turkey's relations with Israel, Washington's closest ally in the region, have deteriorated rapidly following Israel's war in Gaza and the events aboard the Mavi Marmara. These coinciding events have further complicated U.S.-Turkish relations and have led a number of pundits in Washington to openly question Turkey's ideological orientation. If Ankara and Washington want to mend relations they should acknowledge that their disagreements are not about their overall vision or intention for the region, but over how to implement and carry out foreign policy. Both Ankara and Washington should do a better job of enumerating their long-term regional policy goals and engage in a broader dialogue to clearly transmit these ideas to each other, while working together to achieve them.

Fallacies of Virtualization

The recent rapprochement between Science and Technology Studies (STS) and Political Science (PS) is induced by the broadened understanding of political action. The debate concerning the nature of ``the political'' produces an important question concerning the possibilities of an issue- or object-oriented focus for understanding political action. The purpose of this article is to contribute to this debate through an analysis of how relations between material and social entities are continuously recontextualized and decontextualized in social and political interaction. The authors discuss established approaches to explain the concept of virtualization. Virtualization is then used in a case study on the implementation of manure regulation in East Fryslân, the Netherlands, to illustrate how cases or issues are virtualized in political decision making, which produces initial presumptions that carry conclusive weight. The authors conclude that a broad understanding of the political in both STS and PS can only be sustained through an understanding of how relations between social and material entities are continuously decontextualized and recontextualized in political and social interaction.

The Third Side? The Multipolar Strategic Triangle and the Sino-Indian Rapprochement

In a move aimed at balancing America's position in the unipolar international system, Russian Foreign Minister Primakov proposed the formation of a “strategic triangle” of Russia, China, and India to serve as the foundation of global multipolarity. Such plans were stymied by a number of factors. The most important of these was the poor relationship between India and China. Without closer ties between these two powers, the “third side” of the strategic triangle would be impossible. However, the recent rapprochement between India and China has resuscitated the possibilities of the strategic triangle. This article examines the future of the strategic triangle in light of improving Sino-Indian relations. India and China can together reshape the world order. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh1

2 Changing Greek Perspectives on Turkey: An Assessment of the post-Earthquake Rapprochement

This contribution discusses the recent rapprochement between Greece and Turkey, with a particular emphasis on the nature of the changes in Greek perceptions of Turkey. The changes in outlook as well as policy are considered against the historical background of Greek-Turkish relations. An attempt is made to project a realistic perspective on the basis of the progress achieved thus far in the process of rapprochement as well as the challenges that remain to be addressed.

Grudging Partner: South Korea

S outh Korea welcomes increased U.S. interest and commitment in East Asia. South Korea, like many other countries in Asia, has a vital interest in keeping close economic and security relations with the United States. The United States has been the largest market for the export-oriented South Korean economy and has provided South Korea with security, a critical contribution to its stable economic development. South Korea recognizes the importance of U.S. power and leadership in world politics and regards friendly relations with the United States as the backbone of its foreign and defense policies. The U.S. military presence is well accepted by South Korea for its own security interests. Both governments favor an American military presence on the Korean peninsula as a critical deterrent against communist North Korea. Under the armistice agreement ending the Korean War, the two Koreas remain technically at war, without a peace treaty, despite recent rapprochement efforts between the two archenemies. Whether through internal collapse or a desperate act of aggression, a failing North Korean regime armed with weapons of mass destruction poses a potent threat to the peninsula a decade after the end of the Cold War. About 37,000 U.S. soldiers are stationed in South Korea, the second largest U.S. Asian deployment. South Korea has worked closely with U.S. military forces in maintaining a strong alliance with the United States. Under the Combined Forces Command in Yongsan, South Korea's military forces are effectively integrated into the U.S. war strategy, which maintains readiness to meet any threat from North Korea. The extensive military cooperation with the United States includes combined defense planning, joint training exercises, intelligence integration and sharing, a sophisticated logistical interface, educational exchanges, and defense industry cooperation.

Trespass or symbiosis? Dissolving the boundaries between strategic marketing and strategic management

This article addresses the debate about the role of strategic marketing within the domain of firm competitive strategy. It begins by tracing the decline in the importance of marketing strategy in competitive strategy, especially after the emergence of the field of strategic management. It then describes the emergence of strategic marketing as a more integrative discipline than marketing strategy, and the recent rapprochement in research ideas around competitiveness in strategic marketing and strategic management. Shifting market boundaries, rapid technological change, shorter product lifecycles, and changing organizational forms have changed competitive rules and increased the holistic complexity of business problems. These changes call for a greater interdisciplinary approach and integration in teaching and research to mirror the practice of competitive strategy, which recognizes the importance of both an external focus rooted in market orientation and an internal focus on unique firm resources and capabilities.