An Insightful interview with Ayhan Aktar

An extensive interview that covers virtually all one would like to know about today's Turkey by one of the best Turkish social scientists.

Sociologist Ayhan Aktar: Polarization is among elite, not men in street

Sociologist Ayhan Aktar says the division in Turkish politics is mostly in regards to the elite, not ordinary people, considering the tension in society in recent years when the country’s agenda has been full of weighty issues such as an ongoing investigation into a clandestine organization known as Ergenekon, the government’s efforts to settle the Kurdish issue and a hotly debated constitutional amendment package.

Read more in Today's Zaman (3 May 2010)

Comments

Spyros Sofos: Bulgaria’s Blackmail is Unfair

INTERVIEW 13.09.23 19 ПРЕГЛЕДИ At a time when Macedonia is under strong international pressure concerning the constitutional changes, and the region is waiting to see whether it will be coupled to the European locomotive, external views become a dire need for the country to position itself on the right coordinates during the geopolitical developments that will not leave us unaffected. After the interview with the German journalist and specialist on the Balkans Michael Martens, we present to you another conversation, this time with Spyros Sofos, whose research at the London School of Economics and Political Science has focused, among other things, on social insecurity, identity and collective action, as well as populism in Southeast Europe. He says that Bulgarian elites playing the nationalist card poses the...

Тиха вода брег рони

"As a future NATO member and as a country that is very close to EU membership, Croatia will give full support to its neighbours" Ivo Sanader, Croatian Prime Minister Last week, in a rather brief statement, Croatia's Prime Minister effectively pledged to support Serbia's bid to join the European Union and other European institutions. Given the bitter and turbulent relationship between Croatia and Serbia over the past couple of decades this extension of a friendly hand towards the latter was, for many, surprising. There is a lot that has been dividing the two countries: the bitter memory of the war of Croatia's independence, the mass exodu s of the Serbs of the Krajina, the still outst anding suit -originally filed by Croatia in 1999 - against Serbia for genocide before the International Court of Justice and the public disapproval within Serbia of Croatia's recognition of the independence of Kosovo in 2008. And although Croatia's own EU bid has been delayed ...

The Greek-Macedonian dispute – time to return to the drawing board? | Transform, Transcend, Translate | TransConflict Serbia

Premised on the view that facilitating a compromise between the respective parties to the name issue requires a better understanding of the multi-layered character of the dispute, the historically conditioned perspectives of the parties, and the main actors and their perceived interests, my article in Transconflict attempts to suggest a way forward. After almost two decades since Macedonia declared its independence, one of the major obstacles to Macedonian aspirations of integration into Europe remains the notorious ‘name dispute’ between Macedonia and Greece. The most frequently rehearsed rendition of this stresses that Greece is concerned about the use of the name ‘Macedonia’ constituting an act of usurpation of its history and a misnomer for irredentist plans to bring about a Greater Macedonia at its expense. On the other hand, Macedonians argue that this is the name in which the majority of the young republic recognize themselves, their language, their land and their ...

southeastern europe

Search This Blog