Muhterem Akgüden Muhterem Akgüden İKTİSADİ VE İDARİ BİLİMLER FAKÜLTESİ ULUSLARARASI İLİŞKİLER BÖLÜMÜ SİYASİ TARİH ANABİLİM DALI
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The Roots of the Soviet-Syrian Alliance: A Neo-Gramscian Perspective

Akgüden, Muhterem & Atmaca, Ayşe Ömür

The Soviet and Baath regimes enjoyed a consensual relationship between the 1940s and the 1980s. The nature of this relationship was shaped both by the need for an alliance in a period of Cold War bipolarity and by shared common ideological worldviews such as anti-imperialism and socialism. These relations were not free from pragmatism to a certain extent, as the degree of commitment to socialism and Pan-Arabism within the Baath Party sometimes fluctuated. Nevertheless, the generally close relationship between Syria and the USSR cannot be seen as a purely pragmatic strategy; rather, this relationship's ideational, institutional, and material dimensions must be considered as a whole. In this context, this article examines Soviet-Syrian relations from the perspective of neo-Gramscian hegemony to develop a framework for understanding these three key factors behind this alliance.

Tearing Down Propaganda: A Case Study on the “What You Should Know About the Wall” Brochure

Akgüden, Muhterem

Contemporary history is full of remarkable Cold War resources which were not given considerable attention at their times due to the perception of them as ridiculous words of enemy. Although they were not classified documents in the depths of national archives, they were not considered important or serious to be studied alongside more popular materials. This study supports the re-discovery of such propaganda materials with a general belief that international propaganda studies can realize their historical significance, when the ideas that once labelled them as products of enemy have disappeared. With this aim, this study presents a qualitative case study on the What You Should Know About the Wall brochure, which was an early example of the official East German brochures on the Berlin Wall in English. It was written to inform the citizens of other countries about the situation in Berlin after the construction of the wall from the East German perspective. Nevertheless, it was not possible for this brochure to create a popular understanding among the English-speaking target groups who live in the Western countries. Even though the brochure had potential of persuading its target groups in favor of the East German causes through its well-prepared turn of expression or responses to crit...

The 2015 Russian Military Intervention in Syria: A Neo-Gramscian Hegemony Approach

Akgüden, Muhterem

The International Relations (IR) literature on the 2015 Russian military intervention in Syria is mainly based on the interpretations of the mainstream IR theories and tends to see this intervention in the context of economic or military concerns. Nevertheless, these interpretations ignore the non-material aspects of the Russian intervention and the historic depth of the Russian-Syrian relations. Instead, approaching the same intervention from the perspective of the neo-Gramscian hegemony provides the finding of these missing pieces. For this reason, the major purpose of this study is to analyze the 2015 Russian military intervention in Syria from the perspective of the neo-Gramscian hegemony. In order to achieve its purpose, this study benefits not only from the concept of hegemony but also other Gramscian and neo-Gramscian concepts such as domination, intellectual and moral leadership, political society, civil society, historic bloc, organic intellectuals, crisis of authority, cultural leadership, material capabilities, and international institutions that are accepted as subsidiary to the concept of hegemony. Through this terminology, it becomes possible to analyze the Soviet-Syrian relations, the bourgeois social forces inside the Russian Federation, and the pos...