Decentering Ir:Excavating Stories of International
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DECENTERING IR: EXCAVATING STORIES OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS Zeynep Gulsah Capan urn:nbn:de:gbv:547-201400709 Dissertation zur Erlangung des Grads einer Doktorin der Sozialwissenschaft (Dr. rer. pol.) der Universität Erfurt, Staatswissenschaftliche Fakultät 1 ABSTRACT: The thesis aims to underline the Eurocentrism of the field of international relations and the way in which the conceptualizations and writings of history contribute to the reproduction of specific narratives of international relations. The thesis argues that the ‘decentering’ of the field should not only focus on questioning the narratives produced in the center but also focus on the reproduction of Eurocentrism in the ‘periphery’. The thesis through the example of the ‘Cold War’ discusses the way in which the ‘Cold War’ has been written and the presuppositions about international relations that has been produced and reproduced in the center and in the periphery. KEYWORDS: Eurocentrism, Historiography, Cold War, Decentering, International Relations 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION.............................................................................3 I. DECENTERING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS......................................4 II. SITUATING TURKEY.................................................................................7 III. ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY.........................................................10 SECTION I: HISTORIOGRAPHICAL OPERATIONS ON THE COLD WAR............12 SECTION II: STORIES OF SILENCES...........................................................................13 CHAPTER I: PROBLEMATIZING HISTORY.............................15 I. INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................15 II. STORIES OF THE PAST..........................................................................19 III. TRANSFORMATION OF THE PAST......................................................24 IV. CONSTRUCTING HISTORIES...............................................................29 V. HISTORY AS HISTORIOGRAPHY...........................................................34 VI. DECENTERING HISTORY.....................................................................37 CHAPTER II: STORIES OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS..39 I. INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................39 II. STORIES OF THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM......................................44 III. STORIES OF STATE AND SOVEREIGNTY...........................................51 IV. STORIES OF SECURITY........................................................................56 V. EMBEDDING NON-WESTERN STORIES...............................................62 SECTION I: HISTORIOGRAPHICAL OPERATIONS ON THE COLD WAR........................................................67 CHAPTER III: DISCUSSING THE ORIGINS..............................75 I. INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................75 II. TRADITIONALISTS – ORTHODOX........................................................78 III. REVISIONISTS........................................................................................84 IV. POST-REVISIONISM..............................................................................89 V. THE “NEW” COLD WAR HISTORY?.....................................................96 VI. CONCLUDING REMARKS...................................................................109 CHAPTER IV: RE/PRODUCING THE ‘COLD WAR’..............111 3 I. INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................111 II. CONTEXTUALIZING ‘TURKEY’..........................................................112 III. NARRATIONS OF TURKISH FOREIGN POLICY...............................119 IV. RELATIONS WITH THE UNITED STATES..........................................131 V. STRAITS “ISSUE”..................................................................................137 VI. “COLD WAR”.......................................................................................139 VII. CONCLUDING REMARKS.................................................................143 SECTION II: STORIES OF SILENCES.......................145 CHAPTER V: TRANSITIONING - 1945-1947...........................149 I. INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................149 II. ‘TRANSITION’ TO DEMOCRACY........................................................153 III. REDEFINING THREATS TO NATIONAL SECURITY.........................157 IV. SILENCING, CO-OPTING, REDEFINING..........................................162 DECEMBER 4 EVENTS................................................................................................166 V. CONCLUDING REMARKS....................................................................168 CHAPTER VI: SOLIDIFICATION..............................................170 I. INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................170 II. ‘SOLIDIFYING’ DEMOCRACY.............................................................171 III. INTERNATIONALIZING FOREIGN POLICY......................................177 IV. SILENCING, CO-OPTING, REDEFINING..........................................184 MARKOPASA CASES...................................................................................................185 SOKMENSUER SPEECH...............................................................................................187 27 DECEMBER DEMONSTRATIONS.........................................................................188 V. CONCLUDING REMARKS....................................................................190 CHAPTER VII - CLOSURES......................................................192 I. INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................192 II. “CLOSURES” OF DEMOCRACY.........................................................193 III. INTERNATIONALIZING FOREIGN POLICY......................................195 IV. SILENCING, CO-OPTING, REDEFINING..........................................199 V. CONCLUDING REMARKS....................................................................201 CONCLUSION.............................................................................203 LOOKING BACK AT THE ARGUMENTS..................................................204 LOOKING AT THE FUTURE OF THE MAIN ARGUMENTS...................208 4 BIBLIOGRAPHY.........................................................................214 INTRODUCTION “When I began going to school and learned to read, I encountered stories of other people and other lands. In one of my essays, I remember the kind of things that fascinated me. Weird things, even, about a wizard who lived in Africa and went to China to find a lamp . Fascinating to me because they were about things remote, and almost ethereal. Then I grew older and began to read about adventures in which I didn’t know that I was supposed to be on the side of those savages who were encountered by the good white man. I instinctively took sides with the white people. They were fine! They were excellent. They were intelligent. The others were not . they were stupid and ugly. That was the way I was introduced to the danger of not having your own stories. There is that great proverb—that until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter. That did not come to me until much later. Once I realized that, I had to be a writer. I had to be that historian. It’s not one man’s job. It’s not one person’s job. But it is something we have to do, so that the story of the hunt will also reflect the agony, the travail—the bravery, even, of the lions”.1 The aim of this thesis is to discuss the ways in which one can tell the story of the hunt without glorifying the hunter and “also reflect the agony, the travail – the bravery, even of the lions”. The focus of the thesis is the debates surrounding ‘decentering IR’, and the underlying argument is that one of the most important steps in decentering IR is questioning the ‘history’ upon which it is built. In reference to Dipesh Chakrabarty’s Provincializing Europe2, Cooper ponders the question, “can one really provincialize Europe” and answers by stating that “one way to do is to dig more deeply into European history itself”.3 Whereas Cooper focuses on the myth of “narrating European history around the triumph of the nation-state4” this thesis focuses on the period entitled as the ‘Cold War’ and the historiographical boundaries drawn around it that silence, edit out, naturalize concepts, identities and events. Furthermore, the thesis aims to discuss the ways in 1 Jerome Brooks, “Interviews: Chinua Achebe, The Art of Fiction No.139”, The Paris Review 133, Winter (1994) 2 Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe : Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference (Princeton : Princeton University Press, 2000). 3 Frederick Cooper, Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005), 22 4 Ibid. 5 which these historiographical boundaries are re/produced within the Turkish context and how these boundaries and silences, edited out and naturalized concepts, identities and events can be used to destabilize and disrupt the story imposed by the historiographical operations on the Cold War. I. DECENTERING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS International Relations “as a body of knowledge and set of discourses, as a discipline/field