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March 21, 2011 at 6:30pm in Pugh Hall Ocora.
Agenda
| Time | Topic / Event |
| 6:30pm | Introductions Paul D’Anieri, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences |
| “Double Veto Players on Transatlantic Security Relations: Turkey as an Outside Veto Player on the CSDP and Cyprus as an Outside Veto Player on NATO” Oya Dursun-Özkanca, Department of Political Science, Elizabethtown College, PA |
|
| “Divergence and Convergence in the Transatlantic Security Relationship” Zachary Selden, Department of Political Science, University of Florida |
|
| “Concepts of Border Security in the EU and the US: A Comparative View” Peter Hobbing, The Centre for European Policy Studies |
Abstracts
Double Veto Players on Transatlantic Security Relations:
Turkey as an Outside Veto Player on the CSDP and Cyprus as an
Outside Veto Player on NATO
Oya Dursun-Özkanca, Department of Political Science, Elizabethtown College, PA
We are at a crossroads as regards the future focus and capabilities of the European Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP), NATO, and transatlantic security relations. While NATO is increasingly emphasizing CIMIC operations, the EU is aiming at improving its CSDP. Both institutions are operating with similar missions, around the same geographical areas, and with an increasingly overlapping membership.
With the end of the Cold War, questions regarding the role of the US in the European continent, the relevance of NATO, the EU’s goal to establish an autonomous CSDP, and the future of the transatlantic relations have frequently made the headlines. In this context, a very significant topic – the roles played by Turkey and Cyprus in NATO-EU relations – is left relatively understudied. What roles do Turkey and Cyprus play in the evolving European security structures and in the future of NATO-CSDP relations?
While there have been few academic works focusing on the pre-2003 impasse in the EU-NATO security relationship due to a diplomatic row between Turkey and Greece (Tocci and Houben 2001; Bağcı 2001; Missiroli 2002; Bilgin 2003); the ongoing impasse in EU-NATO security relationship resulting from the diplomatic tensions between Turkey and Cyprus did not receive the due attention it deserves from the academic community (for exceptions, see Keohane 2006; Ülgen 2008; Hofmann 2009).
This topic not only fosters theoretical debate, but also holds policy relevance. While Turkey refuses to allow Cyprus to participate in CSDP missions involving NATO intelligence and resources, and threatens to veto the Partnership for Peace (PfP) application of Cyprus with NATO; Cyprus refuses to allow Turkey to engage in the overall development of CSDP to an extent commensurate with Turkey’s military weight and strategic importance to Europe, and vetoes the association of Turkey with the European Defense Agency (EDA).
This article posits that analyzing the strategic preferences of Turkey and Cyprus vis-à-vis the evolving transatlantic security infrastructures is essential for both drawing a complete picture of the current state of the transatlantic relationship and making healthy projections on its future.
Divergence and Convergence in the
Transatlantic Security Relationship
Zachary Selden, Department of Political Science, University of Florida
NATO produced a new Strategic Concept in November 2010 designed to set the broad policy outline for the alliance. It was agreed to by all members, but the debate and discussion leading up to the new Strategic Concept demonstrated that there are points of divergence and convergence between different groups of members that revolve around two major points: the relationship with Russia and the future of the Alliance in out-of-area missions. How those tensions are ultimately resolved in practice will set the stage for the transatlantic security relationship for the foreseeable future.
Concepts of Border Security in the EU and the US: A Comparative View
Peter Hobbing, The Centre for European Policy Studies
Looking at the US and the EU as major players not only in the Transatlantic Region but also as economic superpowers and preferred immigration destinations world-wide, we would find at first sight, that both stand out by very similar features. The US has Mexico and the rest of Latin America to its south, for the EU it is the eastern neighbours with the entire Asian continent behind, while further migratory pressure starts to emerge from the Mediterranean south. A long land border of approximately 7,000 miles and a still longer sea border to take care of, which several hundred million regular travelers keep crossing year by year.
With all this superficial harmony, it is easy to forget the rest and ignore the striking differences. While terrorism represents the main concern for United States entry controls, it is illegal migration for the Europeans; while the US can rely on 200+ years of tradition, including stable borders and a single border protection agency providing service “from coast to coast”, the EU is still in full evolution in terms of members, borders, neighbors (practically with every enlargement, the Union gets a new guardian of its borders!). Despite growing coherence, the EU external border still consists of a patchwork of national segments, each with its own staff, strategies and equipment, all painstakingly coordinated by the border agency FRONTEX. It is with some consolation that the Europeans noticed the unexpected problems the US encountered with the completion of its “Mexican fence” as well as the ultimate completion of US-VISIT. It is all the more surprising that Europe still considers to build its eastern and southern defences along the lines of the US model, which includes strategy, technology… and possibly fences, as we can see from the current Greek-Turkish example.
This raises some questions as to the sense of Transatlantic learning: is it really wise to learn from each other? Probably yes, but not in the sense of a 1:1 copy of approaches.
Participants
Oya Dursun-Özkanca
Oya Dursun-Özkanca, Department of Political Science, Elizabethtown College, PA
Oya Dursun-Özkanca is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Elizabethtown College since August 2007 and is a native of Turkey. She received her Ph.D. in Government from the University of Texas at Austin, specializing in International Relations, European Politics, and American Politics. Her research interests include Turkish foreign policy, transatlantic security relations, NATO, peacebuilding operations, European Union enlargement and the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), comparative political communication, and counter-terrorism.
She is the author of a number of scholarly articles in a number of academic journals and edited volumes. She also published short articles and op-eds for Prishtina Insight, Juristi, Enduring America, Atlantic Community, and Hürriyet Daily News, on transatlantic relations, Turkish foreign policy, and Balkan politics. Her Hürriyet Daily News op-ed was cited in NATO’s online bibliography on the New Strategic Concept. She is currently preparing a special volume for Civil Wars Journal as a guest editor, with Stefan Wolff. She is also co-authoring a book manuscript, Changing Balance of Power Dynamics within EU-NATO Security Relations: Comparing the Foreign Policies of the United States, France, and Turkey, with Colette Mazzucelli.
Dr. Dursun-Özkanca has extensive teaching experience internationally. She has taught at various universities in the US, Turkey, Poland, Ukraine, and Kosovo. She has received grants from the European Commission (multiple grants), the University of Texas at Austin (multiple fellowships), Deutscher Academischer Austausch Dienst (DAAD), the European Union Studies Association, and the Elizabethtown College (multiple grants). She currently serves on the Editorial Boards of Ethnopolitics and Public Communication Review.
Zachary Selden
Zachary Selden, Department of Political Science, University of Florida
Dr. Selden is an Assistant Professor at the University of Florida Department of Political Science. He recently left a position as the Deputy Secretary General of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, where he oversaw the General Policy unit. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1996. He is the author of Economic Sanctions as Instruments of American Foreign Policy (Praeger, 1999). Until December 2006, Zachary Selden was the Director of the Defence and Security Committee of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly based in Brussels, Belgium. From 2000 to 2003 he was the International Affairs Analyst in the National Security Division of the Congressional Budget Office. Prior to that, he was the Research Director for Emerging Threats at Business Executives for National Security, a non-profit organizations based in Washington, D.C.
Peter Hobbing
Peter Hobbing, The Centre for European Policy Studies
Peter Hobbing is an ex-official of the European Commission (retired). He is Senior Associate Fellow of CEPS (Centre for European Policy Studies), Brussels and a member of DCAF Think Tank, Geneva. He has held various consulting assignments in border security, police and EU matters for governments and international organizations, in particular European Parliament (Civil Liberties Committee). Dr. Hobbing has provided assistance to projects in border matters for Poland, former Yugoslav and ex-USSR states on behalf of DCAF, CESS, ERA, NATO. He is a lecturer at Wilton Park (UK) and is Course Director (Colloquium “Views from the Inside”) at the annual University of Washington Summer Program in Brussels, since 2006.