Session 3b: Ethics, Politics, Policy I

2nd Global Conference

Friday 12th March – Sunday 14th March 2010
Salzburg, Austria

The Contemporary Kurdish Question of Turkey
Nazli Sila Cesur
Political Theory, University of Essex, United Kingdom

Today, In Turkey, there is an ongoing debate on the Kurdish cultural rights especially relating on language. Kurds cannot gain their cultural rights for along time period. The ignorance of the Turkish State about the issue also caused the ignorance of the cultural diversity of Turkey. In this respect, the aim of this paper is to provide a critical analysis of the contemporary Kurdish Question of Turkey, particularly regarding the period after the European Union (EU) candidacy in 1999. Since the process of the building the Turkish national identity in early 1920s, the Turkish State Discourse (TSD) has claimed the national unity that ignored the Kurdish identity. Over the 30 years of the Kurdish struggle against to Turkish State nationalism through the discourse of national liberation, the Kurdish Question was far from a possible democratic solution. However, from early 1990s the Kurdish political Struggle has managed to show itself as a main condition of deepening democracy in Turkey and reaching the full EU membership status. In order to understand the articulation of the Kurdish rights within the discourse of democracy, the research offers the examination of the interaction between three main actors carrying out the Kurdish Question into the heart of the consolidation of liberal pluralistic democracy in Turkey. These political actors are: the pro- Kurdish political Parties, the European Union and the ruling party of Turkey, AKP (Justice and Development Party). Regarding the Kurdish Question, the European Union is pointing out the Kurdish rights as an essential condition of the membership; while the AKP is challenging TSD as the Islamic subject position, the party evaluates the implementing of Kurdish demands as a condition of the EU membership and also practicing of pluralist democracy in Turkey; meanwhile the pro- Kurdish political parities are participating in elections and following a political processes to increase the demands for Kurdish rights. To this context, this paper claims that the accession process of Turkey to the EU allows these three different political actors to create chain of equivalence by using the discourse of liberal democracy against to the TSD of national unity. This will let to understand the contemporary Kurdish question of Turkey which highly related the recognition of the Turkey’s cultural diversity.

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Irish-America, Memory and Ethics: The Northern Ireland Peace Process and Lesson Learning for U.S. Foreign Policy
Martin Russell
Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences Scholar, Clinton Institute for American Studies, University College Dublin, Ireland

This paper will examine how the role of Irish-America in the Northern Ireland peace process represents a transformational paradigm for the current production and implementation of U.S. foreign policy. The paper will assess how Irish-American activism produced an ethics driven model of diplomacy which challenged historical perspective. Furthermore, I will provide a detailed analysis of the theoretical evolution of this process. This will form part of a reproduction of the cultural formats which informed the decision making process in relation to Irish-American transformation within the Northern Ireland context. This will include evaluation of the role cultural productions such as media and memory had in such a process. In doing so, the paper will offer innovative discourse in the current relationship between domestic and foreign policy in the political and cultural domains, primarily in terms of the U.S. but also examining the wider theoretical and political implications. The paper will culminate in an appraisal of the possible lessons which may be learnt from this episode in U.S. foreign policy studies and an investigation as to why these lessons may have or may not have been learnt. Ultimately the paper is designed to contribute to the evolving discussions of how culture has come to redefine our concepts of political process, not only in the U.S. but the wider political community.

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NPT as a Social Contract: Challenges and Options for 2010 RevCon
Salma Shaheen
Pakistan

Nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) is facing serious challenges from within and NPT Review Conference (RevCon) 2010 is going to be decisive moment in history of the Treaty, especially after 2005 RevCon’s failure. The disappointment at RevCon 2005 indicated towards the unraveling of the Treaty, which is not a sign of optimism. However, the success rate of NPT has been estimated by different scholars in diverse ways. In this respect, the success in terms of wider membership is diminutive against the Treaty’s failure to address the issues of non-compliance (Iran), withdrawal (DPRK), and three nuclear weapon states (N3) i.e., India, Pakistan, Israel that are not party to NPT. These problems are discussed from different approaches but this paper aims to explore and assess the NPT’s value from social contract framework – a contract between nuclear haves (five nuclear weapon states (NWS) i.e., US, UK, Russia, France, and China) and haves-not (non nuclear weapon states NNWS). The social contract theory is selected in order to understand contemporary challenges to NPT from ethical viewpoint. This will also help international system to think or evaluate the Treaty from social contract perspective in order to understand the emanating challenges and ways to mitigate these challenges. The focus of study is on three pillars of NPT – nuclear non-proliferation, peaceful uses of nuclear energy and nuclear disarmament.

The essence of social contract theory is the ruler-subject relationship in which weak and powerful entities come closer to undertake rights and obligations, and form contract which serve their respective interests. There are two interpretations of the ruler-subject relationship: one is agent-principal interpretation that argues that subjects lend their powers to rulers with a condition that this act will satisfy certain important needs of subjects; other is master-slave interpretation which assumes that subjects alienate or give up their powers to rulers with a hope that this will satisfy their important needs. The basic assumption of the study is to assess nature of the social contract underlying NPT according to agent-principal or master-slave interpretations. Undergoing a contract also demands from both parties to forgo their few privileges and behave according to rules established under the contract. These rules or arrangements are of normative value; behaving according to these arrangements will have certain reward and non-compliance will incur price to pay. Entities have common interest of security or maintaining status-quo in undergoing a contract. The inalienable right to peaceful nuclear energy and obligation of NWS of nuclear disarmament under NPT need to be revisited under ethical discourse.