THE VISEGRÁD GROUP

The Visegrad Group was formed as the ‘Visegrad Three’ among three countries: Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia, on February 15, 1991. Later, due to the fact that Czechoslovakia was divided into two, as the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the number of members increased to four, and the group was called the ‘Visegrad Four’ or ‘V4’ from this period, since 1993 (Alpar, 2020). The group is named after the Hungarian city of ‘Visegrad’. The group’s founding purpose was based on friendly essentials such as creating a bridge between east and west, decontaminating from the effects of communism, and integrating into the European Union and NATO. However, in 2004, the Visegrad countries experienced adaptation problems and intransigence within Europe after full membership in the European Union (Erdem, 2011).

AN ATTEMPT TO DEMOCRATIZATION: THE PRAGUE SPRING

The year 1968 is one of the important years that have left their mark on history. Student movements that took place almost all over the world at that time were only one of the reasons that made this period important. For example, ‘The 68 Generation’ in Turkey and ‘May 68 Events’ in France are some of them. The important event which will be discussed in this research article is the “Prague Spring”, which took place in 1968, in Czechoslovakia, where the understanding of “friendly socialism” was tried to be adopted.

THE REFLECTIONS OF THE SYRIAN CRISIS ON EUROPE AND TURKEY WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF SECURITIZATION OF MIGRATION

Today, one of the important issues for many countries of the world is migration. Driving factors such as poverty, conflict, war, and attractive factors such as living opportunities in developed regions, education, health, and jobs cause thousands of people to move within and between countries every year. However, this mobility can lead to serious effects and problems in political, social, cultural, ethnic, and religious areas.

AN ANALYSIS ON BRITISH-TURKISH RELATIONS 1919-39

After the geographical discoveries and colonial movements that the British Empire gained a lot through, a power hegemony started to appear concretely on the British axis. It would not be correct to match the age of British power hegemony to US power hegemony after the post-soviet era due to the other actors’ existence such as France and Italy. Naturally, British influence on World politics affected Turkish-British relations too, and bilateral relations gained importance and continued until nowadays

HEAVY COST OF INVASION: AFGHANISTAN

The fact that Afghanistan is in intercontinental strategic geography has attracted the attention of many states to this region from time to time. After being completely occupied by the Russians in 1979, the region naturally attracted the attention of the USA. As a result of the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon in the USA on September 11, 2001, Osama Bin Laden and his organization Al Qaeda in Afghanistan were invaded by the USA with the allegation that this attack was carried out, and the USA started the war against terrorism. Although the Afghanistan construction process lasted for years and the hope of stabilization did not reach a solution, this process was examined in this study.

DIASPORAS IN POST-COMMUNIST WORLD

To begin with, this work focuses on the diaspora after the communist world and is a response to Maria Koinova’s article “diasporas and democratization in the post-communist world”. Mentioned this article (Koinova, 2009) describes post-communist diaspora activities based on the Ukrainian, Serbian, Albanian and Armenian diaspora. Despite the literature that the diaspora shows nationalist attitudes, in this article, the author claims that they really participate in the democratization of their country. Citizens in the diaspora are trying to reduce international pressure on post-communist society by using democratic means to promote nationalist feelings and goals that are still unresolved.

THE PLACE OF THE END OF THE ONE-PARTY PERIOD IN TURKISH DEMOCRACY

The DP could not confront the anti-democracy that it promised to be against during its rule, and experienced the gravity of holding power. For example, DP criticized the wrong and unfair proportional electoral system in Turkish democracy, but they did not change it. Because they could not afford not to use the advantage, when the majority was with themselves and they preferred the electoral system, which was on behalf of them, against democracy. In other words, while the DP had a great chance to change and democratize Turkey, they could not take advantage of it. The Turkish soldiers who took part in the Korean War, and the implementation of a policy that sided with the United States, and even in the coup d’etat, the emphasis on allegiance to NATO, has pushed Turkish politics to a great fear and reaction against the left. There was almost an allergy against communism and socialism in the society, and it was tried to be brought into the subconscious of the whole nation that these thoughts could not be accepted. This great reaction against the left caused both the left and the right to become more polarized and radicalized; therefore, Turkish politics has turned into a system which is coming close to fascism.

HOW TO ACHIEVE DEMOCRACY IN THE BACKYARD OF THE USA?

In the period between the early 1960s and the end of the 1980s, the strategic convergence required by the cold war for both the USA and the Western world and the Soviets played a leading role in the development of the underdeveloped countries and especially the newly independent countries. For the Western world, preventing the global spread of Soviet influence was of utmost importance, as the underdeveloped countries did not shift to socialism.

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