A freshly provocative look at the nexus linking EU security, trans-Turkey energy supply routes to Europe and Turkey's EU membership negotiations, this book argues that Europe's collective energy security prospects have become increasingly tied to Turkey's progress towards joining the EU.
This book advances our understanding of security and its intricate interactions with geopolitics and the environment in Eurasia. Norman A. Graham and Şuhnaz Yılmaz focus on Eurasia, where the energy-water-food nexus has emerged as a vital aspect of political economy and increasinglyas a decisive factor for human security. As clearly revealed during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, this nexus rests on a precarious balance. Graham and Yilmaz argue that Central Eurasia is currently “Running on Empty” and highlight the key environmental challenges, including water quantity and quality and food security. The authors draw on their extensive fieldwork in countries including Azerbaijan, China, Georgia, Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation, Turkey, and Uzbekistan to assess the interests and impact of pivotal actors and evaluate the competition and complementarities of these actors regarding water, energy, food security, and foreign policy imperatives. They also examine the broader interaction and implications of security at multiple levels by analyzing the local, national, and international factors in light of geopolitical and environmental challenges. Taking a novel and highly interdisciplinary approach, this book will be an important resource for students and scholars of energy and food security, political economy, international conflict and cooperation, and natural resource politics.
This book presents the theoretical-historical-comparative political framework needed to fully grasp the truly dynamic nature of 21st century global affairs. The author provides a realistic assessment of the shift from U.S predominance to a new mix of counterbalancing rival middle-tier and assertive regional powers, while highlighting those geopolitical zones of contention most critical for future international stability. The book will appeal to scholars and policy makers interested in understanding the contours of the emerging world order, and in identifying its principal shapers and leading political actors.
The dominant powers in world energy geopolitics have radically changed in last couple of decades due to the increased demand for natural energy resources (i.e., coal and oil). Because of these power shifts, the economics of energy has become much more entangled in international relations. Economic Dynamics of Global Energy Geopolitics provides emerging research exploring the theoretical and practical aspects of the geo-economics of energy resources and how this affects countries’ economies. It also explores the implementation of energy supply and demand in world markets. Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics such as socio-economics, supply/demand fluctuations, and foreign direct investment, this book is ideally designed for engineers, economists, academicians, researchers, policymakers, and graduate-level students seeking current research on the role of economics and policy in energy geopolitics.
China’s need for energy has become a driving factor in contemporary world politics and a precondition for sustaining China’s continuing high economic growth. Accordingly, Chinese energy policy has been a political and strategic rather than market-driven policy. This book focuses on the need of a stable and secure investment environment which is necessary for the energy provision of China from the Central Asian states. The author argues that the institutionalization of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (S.C.O.), the Friendship and Cooperation Treaty between Russia and China and Chinese bilateral agreements with individual Central Asian states present an avenue and a framework of stability in which pipeline construction can commence. With the backing of the US in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Chinese involvement in the region has now been expanding. However, in order to stabilize the region for Chinese investment in energy resources, the author states that the US needs to be present in the region and that a strategic framework of cooperation between Russia, China and the US has to be developed. The book will be of interest to academics working in the field of International Security, International Relations and Central Asian and Chinese politics.
The volume discusses what the Turkish Model, or Turkish Development Alternative, was and why it was promoted in the Central Asian republics immediately following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. It argues that the Turkish Model was a myth that transferred the ideal of a ''secular, democratic, liberal society'' as a model for the post Soviet Turkic world and in the process encouraged a ''Turkic" rhetoric that emphasized connection between the two regions based on a common ancestry. The volume begins with an understanding of the reality of the Model from a Turkish perspective and then goes on to examine whether the Turkic world as a "cultural-civilizational alternative" makes sense both from a historical as well as contemporary perspective. It concludes by looking at the re-emergence of the Model in the wake of the events in West Asia in early 2011 and examines how in the light of a search for options the Turkish Model is once again projected as viable.
This timely collection offers fresh perspectives to the analysis of the 'New Great Game' – the fight for access to the Caspian Sea region's energy resources. To date, the export of the Caspian crude oil and natural gas has only been assessed geopolitically, which oversimplifies the political dynamics of the region and neglects to acknowledge the Caspian countries as actors in their own right.
Since the onset of the Second Industrial Revolution in the second half of the nineteenth century, energy has become a key axis of politics and international relations, particularly for the United States and Western Europe. In Energy and the Politics of the North Atlantic, George A. Gonzalez documents how the United States—thanks to its copious reserves of oil, coal, and natural gas—was able to assume a dominant position in the world system by the 1920s. This energy/economic imbalance was an important causal factor underlying the eruption of World War II. After 1945, and in the context of the Cold War with communism, the United States used its access to both fossil fuels and nuclear power as a means to defeat the Soviet Union and its allies. Driving American foreign policy, Gonzalez argues, is a domestic system of urban sprawl based on the automobile and the energy reserves necessary to maintain it. The massive consumer demand created by urban sprawl underpins US foreign policy in the Middle East, while concerns over access to energy drive the European Union project.
Turkey’s candidacy for membership of the European Union has had mixed effects on its public policies. The initial degree of cohesion between EU and Turkish national policies, practices and institutions has varied by the policy field in question, leading to a complex amalgam of fit and misfit between the two actors. Their interaction in different policy areas has had direct influence both on Turkey’s accession to the EU and its own national reform process. With accession negotiations stalled and Turkey’s relationship with the EU increasingly tenuous, it is vital to take stock of the extent to which Turkey and the EU are aligned in key policy areas. The Europeanization of Turkish Public Policies: A Scorecard is the first comprehensive work focusing on the impact of the EU accession process upon Turkey’s public policies between 1999 and 2014. Complementing the authors’ earlier volume Europeanization of Turkey: Polity and Politics, it brings together leading specialists to provide key analyses of the impact of Europeanization on specific areas of Turkey’s public policy. Each chapter applies a core analytical framework to examine a separate policy field, resulting in a consistent and comprehensive volume on Turkey-EU relations. With its focused structure and extensive coverage, concluding with a scorecard enabling informed assessment of the impact of Europeanization on Turkey’s public policy areas, this book provides a one-stop resource for scholars and students alike. A timely and informed assessment of the dynamics and outcome of the Europeanization of an EU candidate country’s major public policy areas, this book represents an essential resource for those interested in EU-Turkey relations, the effects of Europeanization on Turkey, and Turkish politics.