{"title":"Turkey’s Play with Its Military: Civil-Military Relations before and after the 2016 Coup","authors":"H. Şahin","doi":"10.1215/10474552-7345439","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/10474552-7345439","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This essay attempts to elucidate the transformation of civil-military relations in Turkey since the failed coup of 15 July 2016. After presenting an overview of these relations prior to the coup, the essay focuses on emerging aspects of them in the postcoup environment and attempts to analyze a pattern. It argues that while a harsh domination has been established over the military by civilian politicians through massive efforts in structural, educational, and legislative domains, those efforts are far from being overarching. Whether it has produced a democratic form of civil-military relations and an irreversible transformation in the mindsets of officer corps is dubious.","PeriodicalId":298924,"journal":{"name":"Mediterranean Quarterly","volume":"462 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132871913","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Orthodox Christian Perspectives on War ed. by Perry T. Hamalis and Valerie A. Karras (review)","authors":"Victor Roudometof","doi":"10.1215/10474552-7345499","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/10474552-7345499","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":298924,"journal":{"name":"Mediterranean Quarterly","volume":"51 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125703447","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Paved with Good Intentions","authors":"T. G. Carpenter","doi":"10.1215/10474552-7345427","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/10474552-7345427","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:When the United States and its NATO allies helped insurgents overthrow Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, the belief was that the intervention prevented a humanitarian catastrophe and that a post-Gaddafi Libya would be stable and democratic. Instead, Libya became a cauldron of chaos and human suffering. Rival, mostly Islamist militias vie for power in a multisided civil war. There is a vast flow of desperate refugees trying to get across the Mediterranean to Europe, many of whom perish in the attempt. Libya is a case study in how good intentions are not enough in foreign policy.","PeriodicalId":298924,"journal":{"name":"Mediterranean Quarterly","volume":"34 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125418977","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"American Foreign Policy towards the Colonels’ Greece: Uncertain Allies and the 1967 Coup d’État by Neovi M. Karakatsanis and Jonathan Swarts (review)","authors":"K. Gardikas","doi":"10.1215/10474552-7345511","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/10474552-7345511","url":null,"abstract":"Over the past few decades there have been numerous opportunities for political scientists, political historians, and other scholars to memorialize in conferences, edited volumes, monographs, and doctoral theses both the demise of democracy in Greece in April 1967 and its restoration in July 1974. One such occasion came, for instance, last year, 2017, which marked fifty years since the military coup of 21 April. The increased interest in the period when the Colonels’ oppressive regime ruled Greece has been enhanced by the frequent release of new documentation and has produced an abundance of works, ranging in perspective from international relations, regional affairs, the Cyprus issue, human rights violations, ideological controversies, resistance movements, and youth movements to, more recently, memory studies. American Foreign Policy towards the Colonels’ Greece: Uncertain Allies and the 1967 Coup d’État by Neovi Karakatsanis and Jonathan Swarts is one of the latest additions to the growing literature. It benefits from the recent declassification of US State Department documents and seeks to investigate the role the United States played in setting up, and then helping, the regime survive in power for seven full years. Greek public opinion has generally blamed the US government for being behind the Colonels’ seizing power in 1967 and has assumed that the Greek Colonels had been nothing but Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) puppets. Tellingly, the book cover displays a photograph of the US embassy in Athens, a Walter Gropius building that celebrates modern architectural style. The building still remains a target of Greek antiAmerican sentiments — sentiments that feed on these deeply held assumptions — and marks the destination of antiAmerican political demonstrations in Athens. Interestingly, however, the authors challenge longheld perceptions of GreekUS tensions. They choose to deal with the origins and longevity of the military regime as an open question, examine available evidence for convincing proof of US support for the Colonels, and discover the ambiguities of US policies toward the dictators and the power strategies devised by the protagonists of the Greek military coup. Without precluding the possibility that, in the future, new declassified archival material such as CIA papers or other intelligence sources might provide documentation that substantiates the view that the Greek dictatorship was indeed of US making, the authors argue that currently available material suggests a more nuanced reality,","PeriodicalId":298924,"journal":{"name":"Mediterranean Quarterly","volume":"72 5","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"120841438","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The End of Middle Class Politics? by Sotiris Rizas (review)","authors":"Konstantinos S. Skandalis","doi":"10.1215/10474552-7345487","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/10474552-7345487","url":null,"abstract":"The 2008 economic nearmeltdown confirmed what has been in the offing since the advent of neoliberalism and globalization more than three decades ago: universal, adult, franchisepropelled, entitlementbased middleclass prosperity — one of the most visible achievements of the Western economic way of life — was no longer sustainable. For instance, the percentage of Americans who considered themselves middle class declined from 61 percent in 2008 to 51 percent in 2016. Similar trends appeared in Europe as well. The weakened position of the middle class was one of the main issues addressed in the 2016 US presidential election. Fearful of being accused of invoking class warfare, the various candidates avoided the term middle class and instead employed more innocuous expressions, such as “working families,” “hardworking men and women,” or “people working full time.” Donald Trump concentrated his appeal to the middleclass sectors that had suffered the most damage — including industrial workers, fixedincome earners, and those living in rural areas — and promised to restore their sagging fortunes. Not only was he able to accomplish a hostile takeover of the Republican Party, but, to the dismay of most prognosticators, he went on to win the presidency. Sotiris Rizas’s The End of Middle Class Politics? is a serious and muchneeded attempt to shed light on the role and nature of the middle class, identify the underpinnings of its relative economic affluence, and understand the recent and ongoing erosion that has created an environment that no longer “connotes aspirations, but uncertainty and distress since it is identified with a way of life which is not sustainable.” The book seeks to pinpoint the causes and key characteristics as well as the evolution of the middle classes in the Western economic way of life, which began in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, by concentrating on five important Western countries: France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The author considers these countries as the most important in the Western world, for they “set the stage for the most widespread affluence in modern history during the postwar period.” Differences notwithstanding, the key ingredients permeating this success story included universal and expanding adult suffrage, private enterprise, entitlements, and a level of income that “afforded housing and consumer durables, education, health, and a comfortable life in general.”","PeriodicalId":298924,"journal":{"name":"Mediterranean Quarterly","volume":"359 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115894763","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Modern Greece and the Diaspora Greeks in the United States by George Kaloudis (review)","authors":"C. Danopoulos","doi":"10.1215/10474552-7345475","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/10474552-7345475","url":null,"abstract":"Poor economic conditions, instability within the country and the region, and a unique geographic location explain Greece’s intimate connection with migration, mostly as a sender and less frequently as receiver of refugees or returnees. In Modern Greece and Diaspora Greeks in the United States, George Kaloudis, a native of Greece and a USeducated academic, has tackled an important and, in view of the rising tides of antiimmigrant sentiments in Europe and the United States, increasingly relevant subject. The author recognizes that dealing with the Greek diaspora throughout the ecumene would be an enormous task and instead focuses the book on the causes and evolution of Greek immigration to the United States as well as the standing of and issues facing Americans of Greek ancestry in the “New World.” Kaloudis traces the trajectory of Greek immigration to the United States by identifying and examining “major episodes in domestic and foreign policy developments” in the mother country’s turbulent history. The author sees a close and conspicuous relationship between domestic economic, political, and social developments and the peaks and valleys in the history and nature of Greek diaspora. He identifies four fairly distinct periods. The first occurred before Greece achieved independence in 1830 and encompasses the nearly four centuries of Ottoman subjugation. In fact, aristocrats and intellectuals left the crumbling Byzantine Empire even before the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453. The subjugated people suffered from all sorts of restrictions and were subjected to heavy taxation by the Ottomans. Taxes became harsher as the empire lost the ability to expand and descended into poverty and decay. Oppressed Christian","PeriodicalId":298924,"journal":{"name":"Mediterranean Quarterly","volume":"16 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122925403","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Why Greeks Perceive Refugee Flows as a Security Threat","authors":"Nikolaos Lampas","doi":"10.1215/10474552-7345463","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/10474552-7345463","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Since 2013, Greece, along with the rest of Europe, has experienced a rapid increase in refugee flows. The sudden influx of refugees has had a negative impact on the perception of Greek society regarding their potential threat. According to a 2016 survey, 55 percent of Greeks believe that the influx of refugee flows can increase the likelihood of terrorist attacks. Furthermore, 65 percent of Greeks have a negative review of Muslims. Because Greece has not been the victim of Muslim terrorist attacks and historically has had strong ties with the Arab world, these perceptions represent a puzzle. Adopting a qualitative methodological approach, this essay analyzes the causes of negative Greek attitudes toward refugees. It finds that the negative perceptions among Greek society stem from two factors: the perceived negative economic impact and the perceived cultural impact of refugees.","PeriodicalId":298924,"journal":{"name":"Mediterranean Quarterly","volume":"2010 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123921332","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Macedonian Question: An Identity-Based Conflict","authors":"George Koukoudakis","doi":"10.1215/10474552-7345415","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/10474552-7345415","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:The issue of the constitutional name of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, or FYROM, involves a question of identity that dates back at least to the early twentieth century. Athens and Skopje are seeking a mutually acceptable resolution not only for their own benefit but for the benefit of regional peace and stability. The relationship between the parties has passed through distinctive phases. The current phase seems to encompass a great amount of optimism and political realism from both sides. It remains to be seen whether this optimism will lead to a political result.","PeriodicalId":298924,"journal":{"name":"Mediterranean Quarterly","volume":"25 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116141376","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Islamic Populism and Creating Desirable Citizens in Erdogan’s New Turkey","authors":"Ihsan Yilmaz","doi":"10.1215/10474552-7345451","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/10474552-7345451","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) governments have managed to remove Kemalism only to replace it with an Islamist nation-building and social-engineering project that is as, if not more, authoritarian, conservative, and regressive than the Kemalist one. The Turkish education system has been transformed into a political tool to manipulate youth and mold them into cadres of a peculiar Islamist ideology supported by the Recep Tayyip Erdogan regime. This essay discusses four sets of educational tools that have been redesigned to enable Erdogan and his entourage to shape the worldview of younger generations of Turkish citizens.","PeriodicalId":298924,"journal":{"name":"Mediterranean Quarterly","volume":"29 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129378763","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Revising the Culture of Political Protest after the Gezi Uprising in Turkey: Radical Imagination, Affirmative Resistance, and the New Politics of Desire and Dignity","authors":"Zafer Yilmaz","doi":"10.1215/10474552-7003168","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/10474552-7003168","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:The Gezi uprising can be considered a crucial turning in Turkish politics. As a response to countrywide democratic protests, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government revived the security state, escalated authoritarian tendencies, and started to organize a nationalist, Islamist, and conservative backlash. This essay argues that the Gezi Park protests revealed both the fragility of the AKP's hegemony and the limits of the dominant political group habitus, which were promoted by the party to consolidate political polarization in favor of the party's hegemony. Moreover, it is argued that the Gezi uprising transformed the culture of political protests in the country and paved the way for the emergence of affirmative resistance, radical imagination, and a new politics of desire and dignity against authoritarian and neoliberal policies.","PeriodicalId":298924,"journal":{"name":"Mediterranean Quarterly","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125279258","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}