Hilmi Ulas

One might expect that the close alliance between the USA and Bahrain and the new focus of American engagement with the MENA region would prompt the Bahraini regime to adopt more democratic and human rights norms. However, the American approach to the region is unlikely to translate into the potential for the USA to play a proactive role in achieving democratization in Bahrain. Instead, the USA may focus on promoting regime stability due to the two countries sharing aligned strategic interests, thus contributing to authoritarian entrenchment. This chapter will attempt to answer why the USA’s involvement with Bahrain has been unfruitful towards democratization
and human rights in Bahrain thus far, and why American engagement with Bahrain is likely to prove insufficient for these goals – and why it may yet prove detrimental towards Bahraini democratization and human rights instead.

In the political realm, our world is currently experiencing both a massive decline in democracies as well as the quality of democratic regimes in all geographical regions, and a rise in pro-democracy social change movements. Meanwhile, extant scholarly research emphasizes that social movements can contribute to changes in political regimes, such as the undermining of authoritarian ones or simply causing a circulation of the elite. Nevertheless, there is a gap in the scholarly knowledge regarding when political activism becomes effective or can even take place without total annihilation in the context of unrecognized states. To address this gap, studying cases of pro-democracy movements in unrecognized states through a comparative schema is the most effective methodology. In these cases, some variables that affect movement outcomes, such as international diplomatic relations, NGO activity, multinational company pressures, etc. are more restricted due to these states lacking official diplomatic capacity. Therefore, in unrecognized states, domestic political-economic factors are primal and their effects can be observed much more easily, which then lends some tentatively generalizable insights as well. For the purposes of this paper, I will consider the emergence and ultimate outcomes of pro-democracy movements in three unrecognized states: North Cyprus, Abkhazia, and Taiwan. All three cases in comparative perspective can shed light on the dynamics of how nonviolent, pro-democracy movements unfold under the authoritarian-leaning settings of unrecognized states with minimal international interaction or oversight.

The question of how rising atavistic nationalism will affect democracies worldwide is an essential one of our time. In this paper, I focus instead on conducting a comparative historical analysis of atavistic nationalism in two unrecognized states: North Cyprus and Taiwan. I argue that the democratic crisis of our times is, in its essence, economic and has been precipitated by the failure of democracies to build domestic capacities to support democratic values. Furthermore, I posit that engaging populaces at the local political level will prove essential to preserving democracies around the world. I conclude by underlining that atavistic nationalism is indeed a significant threat to regional and global peace and requires further cooperation on trade and governance, and should be engaged at the local level. Lastly, I suggest that co-creating local cultures that will act to soften atavistic nationalism, which feeds off the perception of threats and fear.

The international community has time and again committed to never let genocide occur again – however, multiple bouts of genocide have occurred since the Holocaust. This, in addition to the current quandaries surrounding the Uyghurs of China, points to the fact that the international laws and institutions have loopholes that allow for genocides – especially those that enact structural and cultural violence without necessarily employing direct violence – to ‘slip through’. This has been the case in spite of R2P policies being in place. In this paper, I examine the inability of international systems to capture ‘cultural genocide’ or intervene in it through a case study of Northern Cyprus. This study will shed light on the shortcomings of the system, which may also illuminate why the international community is likely to fail to protect the Uyghurs and many others in the future – unless the current understandings of and approaches to atrocities change.

Two largely debated questions in the realm of international relations are the roles of post-Cold War Russia and China within the current global context. However, the debates in the literature fails to take into account the fact that both superpowers employ the same tactic: the asymmetrical conquest of new territory as promoted by historical claims, retroactively justified through population displacement. Subsequently, debates on the topic mistakenly focus on elite motivations rather than what can be controlled: the responses of the international community to the abovementioned tactics. I will document why mainly Russia but also China have opted to use the tactic of territorial conquest and demonstrate how the international community has tacitly promoted the use of this tactic. I will ultimately argue that there is a need to create international standards for sovereignty and that a move from inactive conflict avoidance to active conflict resolution is necessary.

The issue of unrecognition has been an important point of debate from legal and international relations perspectives. Unfortunately, the literature on this topic fails to observe the long-term effects of the unrecognition policy. Nevertheless, evidence points to the fact that unrecognition causes: a) bilateral peace talks between unrecognized states and their recognized parent states to fail due to asymmetricality (inequality of status); b) human rights violations and corruption within unrecognized states (inequality of law enforcement); and lastly c) a spillover of the conflict in the form of transnational crime (inequality of economic opportunities). Due to these inequalities, negotiations fail, the conflictual status quo is strengthened, and resolution efforts which unfortunately ignore the inequalities inherent in the conflict system inevitably fail. My paper will firstly discuss the link between unrecognition as a policy and its role in undermining development and security – and, ultimately, peace – in the regions where it is utilized. I will subsequently address the linkage between the aforementioned inequalities and the dynamics regarding the length and intensity of conflicts and their potential resolution in contexts where unrecognized states are involved. For this purpose, I will conduct a comparative study, with an emphasis on the Somaliland, North Cyprus, and Transnistria. This study, then, will problematize the assumed success of unrecognition as a tool of conflict management. Instead, I will be arguing that there is not only an immediate need to study the effects of unrecognition on conflicts, but also that a more proactive policy than freezing would better serve the goals of development, security, and peace.

The realm of international relations widely accepts that the interaction between states and non-state actors will be a definitive security challenge of the 21st century; however, there is considerable debate on the policy tools available to address this issue. One of these non-state actors are unrecognized states, which are perpetually in conflict with the states from which they declared independence. My paper will demonstrate that unrecognized states are not benign through a comparative study of Somaliland and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). Indeed, my paper will argue that unrecognized states are inexorably linked to the occurrence of transnational crimes and thus policies which perpetuate their existence indirectly cause deaths, human suffering, and ultimately an increase in regional instability. This paper will subsequently shed light on the neglected possibility of tackling transnational crime through constructively engaging unrecognized states in order to achieve regional stability.
Keywords: Unrecognized States; Somaliland; TRNC; Transnational Crime; Trafficking

In this paper, which is based on and therefore borrows largely from my dissertation, I aim to reconceptualize unrecognition as a policy such that the policy's goals and ideology are independent from its execution. Subsequently, I argue that the isolationist execution of this policy is detrimental to the conflict resolution efforts directed at Unrecognized breakaway states (UBSs) due to its unexpected consequences with regards to the psychosocial, political, and economic growth of the said UBSs (which are not evaluated), and should therefore be treated as problematic. Therefore, I use Dynamic Systems Theory (DST)'s metaphorical devices to capture the complex and distinct dynamics inherent in both the UBSs themselves and the conflicts in which they are involved and discuss the model's applicability. I then proceed to map out the said dynamics and demonstrate their link to isolationism. Ultimately, I hypothesize on and provide some possible alternatives to the isolationism associated with unrecognition that would render a resolution of conflicts involving UBSs more plausible.

In this study, I compare and contrast the structures and fates of three other unrecognized states – Abkhazia, Northern Cyprus, and the NKR. Following this, I hypothesize on the possible futures for the NKR as an independent republic and on the multiparty conflict it symbolizes, as well as the implications of such possibilities on the people of Nagorno-Karabakh.

""Gender Studies (GS) is a relatively young field of academic inquiry that needs to address certain 'deadly myths', à Nordstorm. One of these challenges stems from the field's perceived over-reliance on feminist literature (Lindberg) and the latter's fear of 'male- or gay-centric' scholars encroaching on and obscuring 'feminism' (Braidotti). This myth is further flavored by a fear of male contributors to the field of being labeled as “sexist” (per Freud's and Lacan's cases). Subsequently, despite the fact that GS includes 'men's studies' and 'queer studies' as sub-fields, potential contributors who do not see gender as a social construct and/or those who distance themselves from the 'political baggage' of feminism are discouraged from being engaged in GS. Similarly, those who wish to explore male- or gay-centric topics might not feel welcome in GS. A second myth of GS stems from feminism's perceived ignorance of non-Western concerns as well as those of women of color (see the works of Mohanty and Lorde).

We believe that the first item on the agenda of leveraging passion for and commitment to studying 'gender' in the context of conflict analysis and resolution must deal with such “deadly” (read: alienating) myths by demonstrating the relevance of GS to alternate contexts and minority concerns. We aim to bridge this gap between GS and conflict studies in non-Western contexts by using Murat Kanatli’s struggle for conscientious objection and subsequent incarceration in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus as a case study, where we will pursue a feminist critique of Turkish Cypriot definitions of militarized masculinity. Ultimately, this case will help us assert the field's pertinence to not only women's but also men's and, albeit peripherally, LGBTQ studies.""