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Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
  • Article
    Citation - WoS: 1
    From Partners To Rivals: Normative Power Europe Meets Normative Power China
    (International Relations Council of Turkey, 2025) Sahin, Gözde Yilmaz
    The European Union (EU) has been promoting its norms, values, and rules for decades. However, in the current international environment, the EU’s normative power is not being received well outside the EU, particularly in reference to the growing power of illiberal states. Within that context, this study explores EU-China relations across time and unpacks the position of normative power Europe towards China and the Chinese response. The study foregrounds the fruitless attempts of the EU to project its transformative power onto China and the growing resistance by China against this, which it expresses by presenting itself to the West as an alternative power with an alternative understanding of international politics.
  • Article
    Contesting the EU? China's Engagement With Türkiye and the Western Balkans
    (Routledge Journals, Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2025) Yilmaz, Gozde
    The EU has been challenged as a norm exporter both internally and externally in recent years. However, studies focused on the external dimensions of this contestation, such as the rise of China, have remained limited in the literature to date. This article accordingly explores the external dimensions of EU contestation by examining the case of Chinese engagement with T & uuml;rkiye and the Western Balkan countries in the 2010s and 2020s. It is argued that despite the EU's long engagement as a norm exporter in the aforementioned countries, its hesitant approach to enlargement opened the gates to China as an alternative gravity centre for these countries. China filled the space left empty by the EU and increased its cooperation with T & uuml;rkiye and the Western Balkan countries. As a result, Chinese influence has become a reality, contesting the EU as a norm exporter in its own neighbourhood.
  • Article
    Citation - WoS: 7
    Citation - Scopus: 5
    Use/Misuse of Chinese Bri Investment? Bri-Related Crony Capitalism in Turkey
    (Routledge Journals, Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2023) Yildirim, Nilgun Elikucuk; Yilmaz, Gozde
    Crony capitalism as a type of capitalism entailing the close relations of political authorities and business circles based on mutual profit maximization is not a new phenomenon in Turkey. However, crony relations have accelerated with the Justice and Development Party (Adalet Kalkinma Partisi - AKP) rule. Despite growing scholarly work on crony relations in the AKP era, the literature remains inward-oriented without analysing the external dimension of crony capitalism, which this article intends to alleviate by providing an analysis of crony capitalism and bringing back the external dimension through an analysis of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)-related crony relations. It argues that the case of Turkey demonstrates how the BRI is used to feed instrumental cronyism without the promotion of China and how recipient countries use and misuse Chinese BRI investments to create alternative resources for the government's cronies.
  • Article
    Citation - WoS: 21
    Citation - Scopus: 20
    Authoritarian Diffusion or Cooperation? Turkey's Emerging Engagement With China
    (Routledge Journals, Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2020) Yilmaz, Gozde; Elikucuk Yildirim, Nilgun
    With the recent trend of autocratization in the world, scholars have begun to focus on authoritarian diffusion, cooperation, and autocracy promotion. Despite still being at an early stage theoretically and empirically, this expansion of diffusion literature has informed us about the possibilities of authoritarian diffusion and cooperation. In contrast to the recent focus on regional patterns of authoritarian diffusion and cooperation, this article explores a global process of authoritarian cooperation between Turkey and China. Focusing on the growing economic and political linkages between Turkey and China, we argue that, rather than authoritarian diffusion or autocracy promotion from China to Turkey, the increasing pragmatic cooperation among authoritarian states is the new game in town, shaped by interest-driven calculations to bolster power internally and internationally.
  • Article
    Alternative Consensuses on Development and the Role of the State in Large Emerging Economies: the Case of China and India
    (CAIRN Belgique, 2019) Sönmez,S.
    The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of the Washington Consensus on development experiences in China and India. In spite of the differences between the development policies in each country, the market-driven reforms and the economic role of the state in these economies could offer an opportunity to search for a denominator among the development models. © 2019 CAIRN Belgique. All rights reserved.
  • Article
    Citation - WoS: 8
    Citation - Scopus: 10
    'aid With Chinese Characteristics': Competitive And/Or Complementary?
    (Routledge Journals, Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2021) Gulseven, Yahya
    China's growing foreign aid program in recent years has sparked many debates on alternative development cooperation approaches and practices. 'Aid with Chinese characteristics' is often approached with skepticism in the West and considered as posing challenges to the traditional aid architecture. The more optimistic perspectives see China's emergence as a major donor in a more positive light because it offers an alternative development cooperation model for aid recipient countries, contesting the hegemony of the neoliberal development model. While analysts have mostly focused on whether 'aid with Chinese characteristics' is a good or bad alternative, few have questioned its novelty and its actual potential as an alternative development cooperation model. From a neo-Gramscian perspective, this study investigates to what extend China, as a major donor, differs from the traditional donors and in how far that its aid model can be understood as representing a counter-hegemonic alternative. The core argument of this study is that 'aid with Chinese characteristics' serves the overall objectives and interests of the neoliberal historical bloc, while at the same time it also plays a role in the increasing tensions and competitions within it, between China and the Western countries in the context of the global financial crisis.
  • Article
    Citation - WoS: 4
    Citation - Scopus: 3
    Turkey in Between the Eu and China: From Europeanization To Cooperation With China
    (Routledge Journals, Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2023) Yilmaz, Gozde; Yildirim, Nilgun Elikucuk
    Turkey has been on the path of EU membership since the 2000s, and the democratization process was well underway during the initial years of its candidacy. However, this trend was reversed substantially, with Turkey growing increasingly authoritarian during the 2010s. This substantial democratic backsliding has led to increasing authoritarian cooperation with the authoritarian powers on the rise, one of which is China, whose increasing engagement and cooperation with Turkey marked an alternative gravity centre for Turkey to be pulled by. This article argues that Turkey, in line with the worsening domestic authoritarianism, has been engaging with the authoritarian powers for survival rather than engaging with the EU, which provided legitimacy to the rule of the AKP during the initial years of its rule.