ULUSLARARASI POLİTİKA - Deneme Sınavı - 10

Hoshiro defines regionalization “as an increase in the cross-border flow of capital, goods, and people within a specific geographical area.

Some concepts which explain a locally union or unity such as region, regionalism, regionalization, and integration are confused with each other. It can be showed some differences between these concepts despite small nuances. While region refers to a defined and clear area in one geographic space where boundries are lined, regionalism expresses a political movement which is based on awareness of and loyalty to a region, combined with dedication to a region-wide agenda of some kind in the second phase. The suffix in the word of regionalism suggests a conscious set of related ideas or ideology that is capable of forming the basis of a political movement or an intellectual trend. It implies a coordinated action on the part of governments based on some vision or set of ideas. Regionalization can be defined as the formation or realignment of transactions and attitudes along regional lines. It is in some way a manifestation of globalization.

The Amnesty International is a non-governmental organization

Theoretical approaches to international organizations are classified under two main categories: Traditional Approaches to International Organizations and Revisionist Approaches to International Organizations. Traditional approaches include Realism and Liberalism. They have a state-centric approach to the analysis of international organizations. For them, states are both principal actors of international system and also rational actors making cost-benefit analysis of every alternative and select the ones that maximize their benefits. Revisionist approaches, including Functionalism, Neo-functionalism and Transactionalism go beyond the state-centric approach and examine international organizations as significant actors beside states. These are mostly known as international integration theories.

It would be valid to argue that structural factors (push factors) and individual ones (pull factors) can accompany each other in an individual’s journey to radicalization. The table below summarizes these factors:

Enabling factors:

Extremist mentors (extremist religious figures, right or left-wing charismatic leaders), access to extremist online communities, social networks with VE associations, access to weaponry or other relevant items, lack of state influence, an absence of family support.

The line between radicalization and violent extremism, and terrorism needs to be drawn in order to avoid interchangeable use of the terms. Once radical actors engage in violent acts, the ideational transformation is already completed and these acts fall under the heading of “violent extremism”.

The Jewish  movement is regarded as the first terrorist organization and thus, predecessor of all the terror groups. It emerged as a reaction to the Roman Empire’s rule in Palestine during its Imperial period, and its increasingly oppressive measures against the Jews and gradual loss of their autonomy within the Empire. The movement is also known as the Sicarii –due to their use of daggers or sicae in Roman in assassinations- whereas some other accounts argue that Sicarii is a splinter group previously part of the broader Zealots which had limited political goals and a more decentralized organizational structure, more of an “angry mob” movement.

The Reign of Terror

The Reign of Terror was a response to the rise of oppositional groups especially in Vandée resulting in a civil war and rising threat of being surrounded by enemies. The famous “September decree” of 1793 officially declared that the Reign of Terror is “the order of the day” and thus the republic would use terror against its “enemies” in order to preserve the republic and the achievements of the revolution.

The anarcho-terrorism in Russia in the 19th century is widely regarded as the predecessor of many modern terrorist organizations. Their “success” in assassinating quite high level officials, even including a tsar himself, namely Alexander II, and even more importantly their use of dynamites which opened up a new page within the context of the methods of terrorism made them a very important case in the history of terrorism.

As stated before, radicalization, and terrorism cannot be attributed to a particular religion, ideology, nationality, sect, or any other sort of identity and/ or mindset. Both rightist and leftist ideologies, at their extremes, can lead to radicalization and even terrorism. Several groups, such as DHKP-C in Turkey, Baader Meinhof in Germany, and Red Brigades in Italy can be mentioned under this category.

However, it should be noted that neither primarily ideologically-motivated terror groups can be limited to these groups, nor the groups which are not clearly designated as terrorist groups internationally, such as Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi movements that can be identified as extreme-right groups occasionally resorting to violence (and thus can be classified as violent extremists, too, if not full-fledged terrorist organizations) do not carry out ruthless terror attacks against people coming from different ideological, ethnic, and religious backgrounds, including assaults, murders, burning homes and refugee camps etc.

Terrorism with religious motivations, sometimes mixed with ethnic feelings, too, is a form of terrorism which can be regarded as the oldest form of the phenomenon. As mentioned earlier, the Zealots had a political goal (destroying the Roman rule in the Palestine), had an organization, and committed violent acts, thus, complying with all classical three components of a terrorist organization. The Assassins also had a strong religious motivation derived from the Shi’a’s Ismailiyya interpretation. Putting aside these religiously motivated terror groups in the history which were already covered, other terror groups and terrorist tactics adopted by states with religious motivations will be discussed in this section. The link argued to be exist between terrorism with religious motivations and Islam and Muslims will also be challenged after having a brief overview of different terror groups with different religious motivations sometimes attacking their co-religionists due to sectarian differences, bombing people with chemicals in order to “bring the apocalypse earlier” or “purify the world”, and killing people just because of their different religious identity.

The tragic incident of the 9/11 attacks carried out by Al-Qaeda and subsequent declaration of a “Global War on Terror” by the then US President George W. Bush resulted in a higher attention to the subject more than ever. Even though Al-Qaeda and ISIS/ISIL/DAESH are the two most “famous” examples of this category, various groups with different religious motivations resorted to terrorism over centuries.

UNSC Resolution 2242 emphasizes the important roles that women can play against violent extremism, it directly refers to violent extremism for the first time, calls for more active participation of women into both struggle against it and for preventing the negative effects of terrorism on women. Thus, with UNSC Resolution 2242 women have not been only regarded as the victim of radicalization and violent extremism, it also attributed such an active role for the first time as an important actor within the context of radicalization and violent extremism.

Three levels of analysis in foreign policy: Kenneth Waltz was the first scholar to use the three-level analysis methodology in foreign policy analysis. He has defined the three levels as images. According to his classification, foreign policy can be analyzed at three levels: the system referring to the structure and the interaction of the states, the state referring to the internal affairs of the states and the individual referring to the foreign policy decision makers.

Culture comprises a variety of factors associated with a community such as shared language, shared belief systems, ethical codes, worldview, lifesytle and traditions. These factors shape the group identity and they mark a resemblance within the thoughts and behaviours of the members of a community and differentiate them from non- members.

The word worldview in English is a translation of the German word Weltanschauung. The term was first used by Immanuel Kant in his Critique of Judgement (1790) and has been widely discussed by German intellectuals since the 19th century. Worldview is closely associated with perception and is briefly defined as “a particular philosophy or view of life; a concept of the world held by an individual or a group”

Civilization, in its general definition, is “the stage of human social development and organization which is considered most advanced”

During the second half of the 20th century, various communist or developing countries tried to overcome their social, political and economic problems by establishing repressive regimes under single party governments, dictatorships or military governments. These repressive regimes combined the ambitious goals of development with repressive politics on social and political life. Their developmental planning policies resulted in implementations of forced labour, internal displacement, expropriation and nationalization of foreign investments. In close connection with the developmental goals, these countries tried to construct their populations as members of a single communal identity adopted by the state authorities. Certainly, this approach resulted in violent repression against parts of the populations from various ethnic groups, religious communities or ideological affinities.

Numerous examples of repressive identity politics can be given as they were implied in the Second World during the Cold War such as the USSR under the presidency of Stalin.

The third and the last wave, as mentioned above, was the result of the dissolution of the bipolar world system of the Cold War during the 1990s.