Information Package
baskent.edu.tr

Ph.D. on International Relations

PSIR635

THESIS COMPLETION

Course Code
PSIR635
Semester
-
Theory+Practice
3 + 0
ECTS
10
Course TypeElective Course
Course LevelDoctorate Of Science
Year of Study-
Semester-
ECTS10
Name of Lecturer(s)
Learning Outcomes

At the end of this course, the students;

  1. Develop an understanding about origins and development of international law, international norms and international community as a European phenomenon,
  2. Gain knowledge about the problems of acceptance to and recognition by "the international" of non-European states
  3. Develop analytical skills to assess the impact of cultural essentialism on international relations and international relations theory,
  4. Develop skills to discuss the evolution of the standard of civilization discourse and its concomitant graded sovereignty since the 19th century and throughout the various theories of international relations from a postcolonial perspective,
  5. Acquire knowledge and analytical skills to evaluate the attempts to overcome Eurocentricism from a universalist perspective.
Mode of DeliveryFace to face
PrerequisitesNo
Recommended Optional Programme ComponentsNone
Course DescriptionThis course will be completed in four stages. In the first stage, the European origins of the international community, law and norms will be studied and such practices as colonialism, mandate, capitulations and graded sovereignty that the ?standards of civilization discourse, the criteria defined by Europe for acceptance to the international community, entails will be discussed. In the second stage, the continuity of Eurocentricism in the changing standards of civilization discourse after the decolonization process will be discussed via the concepts of human rights and democracy. In the third stage, taking the negative impact of the 9/11 on the international as the background, the secular bias and cultural essentialism of the international relations theory, and their consequences like Islamophobia will be discussed. In the fourth and last stage, it will be claimed that the "nativist" and civilizationist" approaches that challenge Eurocentricism are as impediments to a common civilization based on universal values as Eurocentricism is.
Course Contents
WEEK TOPICS
1st Week Introduction
2nd Week Civilization, Sovereignty and the Emergence of the International I
3rd Week Civilization, Sovereignty and the Emergence of the International II
4th Week Decolonization and the International Politics of Human Rights
5th Week Europe as the New Empire
6th Week The Impact of 9/11 on the International
7th Week Secular Bias in the IR theory
8th Week Mid-term Exam
9th Week Cultural Essentialism in the IR theory
10th Week Islamophobia and Europhobia
11th Week The search for a non-Eurocentric IR theory
12th Week Islamist civilizational foreign policy
13th Week Impediments to a common civic civilization
14th Week Student Papers
Recommended or Required ReadingAlexander Murinson, "The Strategic Depth Doctrine of Turkish Foreign Policy," Middle Eastern Studies, 42, 6 (2006), pp. 945-964.
Ali Balcı, "İnsan Hakları Rejimi, Batı ve Yeni-Sömürgecilik: Evrensel İnsan Hakları Ne İşe Yarar," Türkiye Ortadoğu Çalışmaları Dergisi, 3, 2 (2016):.58-75
Ali Balcı, "Bringing the Ottoman Order Back into International Relations: A Distinct Internatio-nal Order or Part of an Islamic International Society," International Studies Review, 23, (2021): 2090 2107.
Andrew Phillips, "Civilising Missions and the Rise of International Hierarchies in Early Mo-dern Asia," Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 42,3 (2014): 697 717.
Ayşe Zarakol,.After defeat : how the East learned to live with the West, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2011.
Bassam Tibi, "Europeanizing Islam or the Islamization of Europe: political democracy vs. cultural difference," Religion in an Expanding Europe, ed. T. A. Byrnes and P. J. Katzenstein, Cambrigde University Press: Cambridge, 2006, chp. 8, pp. 204-224.
Brett Bowden, "To Rethink Standards of Civilisation, Start with the End," Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 42, 3 (2014): 614-631.
Brett Bowden, The Empire of Civilization: The Evolution of an Imperial Idea, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 2009.
Christina Schori Liang, "Europe for Europeans: The Foreign and Security Policy of the Populist Radical Right,"
D. Philpott and T. S. Shah, "Faith, Freedom, and Federation: The Role of Religious Ideas and Institutions in European Political Convergence," in Religion in an Expanding Europe, ed. T. A. Byrnes and P. J. Katzenstein, Cambrigde University Press: Cambridge, 2006, pp. 34-64.
Edward Keene, "The Standard of Civilisation, the Expansion Thesis and the 19th-century In-ternational Social Space," Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 42, 3 (2014): 651-673.
Elizabeth S. Hurd, The Politics of Secularism in International Relations, Princeton Univeristy Press, Princeton, 2008.
Gerry Simpson, Great Powers and Outlaw States: Unequal Sovereigns in the International Legal Order, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2004.
Hans Georg-Betz, "Against the 'Green Totalitarianism': Anti-İslamci Nativism in Contempo-rary Radical Right Wing Populism in Western Europe,"
Heiner Bielefeldt, "'Western' versus 'Islamic' Human Rights Conceptions A Critique of Cul-tural Essentialism in the Discussion of Human Rights," Political Theory, 28, 1 (2000), pp. 90-121.
Jacinta O Hagan, Conceptualizing the West in International Relations, Palgrave: NY, 2002.
Jan Zielonka, "Europe's New Civilizing Mission: The EU's Normative Power Discourse," Journal of Political Ideologies, 18, 1 (2013), pp. 35-55.
Jashua Walker, "Turkey's Imperial Legacy: Understanding Contemporary Turkey through its Ottoman Past," Perspectives on Global Development and Technology, 8 (2009), pp. 494-508.
John M. Hobson, "Is critical theory always for the white West and for Western imperialism Beyond Westphilian towards a post-racist critical IR," Review of International Studies, 33 (2007): 91 116.
John M. Hobson, "The Twin Self-Delusions of IR: Why 'Hierarchy' and Not 'Anarchy' Is the Core Concept of IR," Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 42, 3 (2014): 557 575
John M. Hobson, The Eurocentric Conception of World Politics: Western International Theory, 1760 2010, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2012.
Juliette Tolay, "Inadvertent reproduction of Eurocentrism in IR: The politics of critiquing Euro-centrism," Review of International Studies, 47, 5, (2021): 692 713
Kalypso Nicolaidis et.al., "From Metropolis to Microcosmos: The EU's New Standards of Ci-vilisation," Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 42, 3 (2014): 718-745.
Leigh Sarty, "East Rising, West Falling": Not So Fast, History Suggests,The Washington Quarterly, 44,3 (2021): 91-106.
Planned Learning Activities and Teaching Methods
  • Lecture
  • Discussion
  • Questions/Answers
Assessment Methods and Criteria
Quantity Percentage (%)
Mid-term 1 30
Assignment 7 15
Presentation of Case Study 1 15
Total(%) 60
Contribution of In-term Studies to Overall Grade(%) 60
Contribution of Final Examination to Overall Grade(%) 40
Total(%) 100
ECTS Allocated Based on Student Workload
Activities Quantity Duration (Hour) Total Workload (Hour)
Midterm exam 1 1.5 1.5
Preparation for Quiz
Individual or group work 14 4 56
Preparation for Final exam 1 60 60
Course hours 14 3 42
Preparation for Midterm exam 1 47 47
Laboratory (including preparation)
Final exam 1 1.5 1.5
Homework 7 11 77
Presentation (including preperation) 1 15 15
Total Work Load300
Total Work Load / 30 (h)10
ECTS Credit of the Course10
Language of InstructionTurkish
Work Placement(s)No

Programme Qualifications / Learning Outcomes

LO1 LO2 LO3 LO4 LO5
K1 X X X X
K2 X
K3 X
K4
K5 X
K6
K7 X X
K8 X
K9 X X
K10 X
K11 X X
K12 X X
K13