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Paper short abstract:

This article offers an original analysis of Central Asia’s engagement with China, framed by the theory of ‘hedging’ and enriched by granular analyses of individual Central Asian countries, which are supportive of the BRI but have also selectively resisted a deepening of relations with China.

Paper long abstract:

Central Asia is a key pillar of China’s ‘belt and road initiative’ (BRI) and in particular the overland portion known as the ‘silk road economic belt’ (SREB). Although the region’s leaders are supportive of the SREB, they have occasionally and selectively resisted a deepening of their asymmetrical relations with China. Building upon a theoretically-driven foreign policy approach known as ‘hedging’, this article suggests that hedging arises not just from structural and exogenous conditions but is also facilitated by endogenous considerations within Central Asian states. In distinguishing between the region’s ‘heavy’ and ‘light’ hedgers, the article also analyses the determinants of success or failure of hedging. This article argues that some Central Asian states possess the resources and capabilities to exercise agency vis-à-vis their relations with China more often than is generally recognised in the extant literature. These states have and will continue to pose challenges to the SREB and to the development of Central Asia–China relations more generally. What resources are available to them, which tool of statecraft they deploy, and how effective these efforts are comprise focusing questions in our research. Ultimately, this article argues that the ability of leaders in Central Asia to selectively manage, balance, bandwagon, and negotiate their relations with China is a significant, but often under-appreciated, part of the narrative about Central Asia–China relations. Central Asian countries are not the equals of China, but neither are they mere policy-takers.

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Paper short abstract:

Because of the rapid and significant changes occurring in the international system, there is an ever-increasing need for discussions about the topic of Turkish diaspora; however, the basic questions regarding this issue do not receive the attention it deserves from the bureaucracy and the academia.

Paper long abstract:

Because of the rapid and significant changes occurring in the international system, there is an ever-increasing need for studies and discussions about the topic of Turkish diaspora; however, the basic questions regarding this issue do not receive the attention it actually deserves from the bureaucracy and the academia.

Despite its thousands of years of migration culture resulting in a population dispersed within a geography from the Central Asia to the Balkans, from the Middle East to the Caucasus; and especially considering its last sixty years during which it turned into a country which has now millions of citizens scattered around the world from European countries (Austria, Germany, Netherlands, Denmark, etc.) to the USA, from Canada to Australia, Turkey -against her qualitatively, quantitatively and historically deep-rooted migration history- has scarcely any background information, knowledge, experience, legal regulation, academic research or policy regarding the migration phenomenon and its natural consequence i.e. diaspora. However, this unique experience in migration that Turkey possesses has the potential to bear a value and meaning for the theoretical and conceptual discussions globally. One of the primary intentions of this study is to attract attention to this potential and to constitute a source for new discussions and researches.

In addition to these discussions, Turkey tries to implement new diaspora policies with recently established national and regional institutions such as (i) Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Communities (2010), (ii) Turkic Speaking Council (2009).

This study rejects the extensive interpretation that maintains that Turkish Diaspora is so large that it covers nearly everyone on earth, as well as the approaches that explain the diaspora, based on aforementioned terms.

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Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the recent confrontation between Iran and Turkey in the Caucasus region from a political economy perspective within the framework of a new Eurasian economic paradigm encapsulating the region.

Paper long abstract:

Turkish-Iranian relations have been historically characterized by intermittent periods of cooperation and competition short of military conflict, which is a reflection of their traditional omni-balancing tendencies. The initial, albeit subtle, signs of departure from this pattern were observed with the post-2011 transformations in the Middle East. What is remarkably puzzling though is that the two countries never approximated a direct military and diplomatic confrontation in the Middle East as much as they did in the Caucasus after the eruption of the 2020 Karabakh War. This paper thus examines why Turkish-Iranian relations have been peculiarly uneasy in the Caucasus region. I argue that the shift in global economic balances upon the gradual emergence of a new Eurasian economic paradigm has redefined the relevance of the Caucasus region in the Eurasian context, which led Iran and Turkey to recalibrate their own positions and interests regarding the region. I analyze both states’ positions vis-a-vis China’s Belt and Road Initiative, EAEU-Iran preferential trade agreement, and Iran’s recent membership to Shanghai Cooperation Organization as factors greatly informing the new political-economic context within which they operate. Apart from contributing to the literature on the Caucasus crisis by adopting a political economy perspective, the study also provides policy-oriented insights as to the possible areas of cooperation between two states. The study methodologically rests on multiple qualitative methods including historical analysis, process tracing, and discourse analysis of Iranian and Turkish political elites’ statements on the Caucasus crisis and the greater Eurasian integration.