Unpacking Coalitions: Explaining International Commitment in European Governments

A central debate in the Comparative Foreign Policy literature concerns the role of government composition on the international behavior of parliamentary democracies. For the past two decades, a multitude of studies have discussed whether single-party governments were more or less constrained than multiparty coalitions in their international behavior, yet they have failed to reach conclusive empirical findings. This dissertation responds to this puzzle by unpacking coalitions: as it captures the variation among coalition governments along mathematical and ideological dimensions, the dissertation introduces a nuanced \u27government composition\u27 approach to explain the international commitments of European parliamentary regimes during the post-Cold War period. To undertake this project, the dissertation utilizes the Comparative Politics literature on coalition theories, legislative politics and economic voting. Specifically, it introduces the veto players and clarity of government responsibility theories to frame the debate and to demonstrate that both theories remain inadequate in explaining commitment intensity unless two key variables are accounted for: (a) the types of multiparty governments that emerge in parliamentary systems and (b) the extent of ideological differences inside these coalitions, or their \u27policy incongruence.\u27 Furthermore, the dissertation challenges the existing understanding regarding the constrained nature of minority coalitions by bringing in the policy viability and fragmented opposition explanations into the analysis of foreign policy behavior. The dissertation employs a multi-method research strategy to comprehensively evaluate the analytical capacity of the \u27government composition\u27 explanation by (a) revealing the statistical relationships between government composition and international commitments, (b) uncovering the mechanisms that link the composition of governments to international commitments, and (c) testing the explanatory power of the \u27government composition\u27 approach against a series of alternative explanations at the individual, domestic and international levels. To these ends, the dissertation first utilizes a post-Cold War foreign policy events dataset to test the effects of government type and ideological cohesion by using multilevel regression techniques. Next, it complements these analyses with structured-focused case studies of the Danish decisions to join the 1990 Gulf and 2003 Iraq wars and the Dutch decision to support the 2003 Iraq war. The case studies evaluate a series of alternative explanations including public opinion, logrolling dynamics among political parties, threats to national survival and the role of political leadership as well as the domestic and international political contexts of these states to explain how they have decided to provide political and material support for these international military operations. The project firmly concludes that the dichotomous understanding of government composition that has long prevailed in the foreign policy literature is not only inadequate but misleading to explain the international commitments of parliamentary democracies. Quantitative and qualitative tests suggest that the type of multiparty governments and their ideological diversity together affect commitment intensity in different directions, through diverse mechanisms. Specifically, oversized coalitions engage in more intense commitments compared to single-party majority governments through responsibility diffusion. Minority coalitions engage in stronger commitments so long as their ideological setup leaves the parliamentary opposition fragmented, through policy viability. Finally, minimum winning coalitions can overcome their ideological fragility and increase their international commitments when the political parties engage in logrolling relationships with each other. The dissertation situates these findings within the context of factors that pertain to the motivations of key political leaders, domestic political norms and public opinion, as well as the broader historical foreign policy orientations of the states. With the conclusions of the statistical and case analyses, the dissertation ultimately offers a \u27coalition politics framework\u27 to explain foreign policy behavior in parliamentary regimes. In the end, the dissertation contributes to the literature on foreign policy analysis as the first study to introduce a multilevel, multicausal framework to evaluate the international behavior of parliamentary democracies

Usefulness Of Derivative Instruments In Emerging Markets: Turkish Experience

This article presents an overview of derivative markets, definitions of derivative investment instruments, development of global derivative markets and the applicability of derivative markets in Turkey, given their economic value added to the Turkish economy. Readers will acquire insight into investing in various investment instruments and hedging against risk. Turkish derivative markets will be described, supportive statistical data will be presented, and readers will be introduced to the development and current status of these derivative markets in the Turkish emerging market. Finally, the contribution of derivative instruments and derivative markets to the Turkish economy will be discussed

A Study of Secondary School Students’ Perceptions of Fictional Characters

Fictional characters give literary works a sense of reality. The actions of fictional characters play a crucial role in children's personality development. Young readers who lack critical reading skills are more likely to incorporate fictional characters into their lives because they have a hard time telling reality from fiction. Therefore, we should determine how children perceive fictional characters and teach them that they are imaginary figures. In this way, we can help them approach those characters' actions from an external and critical perspective. This study adopted a qualitative research design (case study) to investigate secondary school students' perceptions of fictional characters. The sample consisted of 45 secondary school students (28 female and 17 male). Data were collected through interviews and document review techniques. Data were analyzed using content analysis. Results showed that participants were more likely to be interested in and identify with characters with appealing personality traits. They had four types of approaches to fictional characters: (1) Wanting to change the storyline depending on what the fictional character goes through, (2) being influenced by them, (3) seeing them as role models, or (4) ignoring them. They wanted to change the storyline, especially when the villain got what he wanted or when the hero or the victim was unhappy, suggesting that they mostly took the protagonist's side (the good guy). While most participants attributed an ontological meaning to anthropomorphic characters, the symbolic meaning became of secondary importance. They were more interested in and identified more with characters with good living conditions and no death experiences

Turkey's Role in Energy Diplomacy from Competition to Cooperation: Theoretical and Factual Projections

This study aims to build up a conceptual framework for energy diplomacy together with examining the development of this concept in world politics. By using these, it attempts to analyse Turkey’s energy diplomacy practice. The study argues that energy diplomacy is an amalgamation of diplomatic methods for utilizing energy (reserves or transfer routes) for maximizing national energy interests in bilateral, multilateral, regional and global relations of energy demand and supply. In this respect, the variables for the formation and the implementation of energy diplomacy are analysed in worldwide historical basis and then with a particular focus on Turkey. Finally, the research focuses on the conditions that Turkey can utilize its energy diplomacy for collaboration, cooperation, and stability rather than struggle, confrontation or conflict. Keywords: Energy diplomacy; energy politics; energy competition JEL Classifications: F53; F55; N40; Q48

Production of flavor compounds from olive mill waste by Rhizopus oryzae and Candida tropicalis

AbstractThe purpose of this study was to investigate the production of flavor compounds from olive mill waste by microbial fermentation of Rhizopus oryzae and Candida tropicalis. Olive mill waste fermentations were performed in shake and bioreactor cultures. Production of flavor compounds from olive mill waste was followed by Gas Chromatography–Mass spectrometry, Gas chromatography- olfactometry and Spectrum Sensory Analysis®. As a result, 1.73-log and 3.23-log cfu/mL increases were observed in the microbial populations of R. oryzae and C. tropicalis during shake cultures, respectively. C. tropicalis can produce a higher concentration of d-limonene from olive mill waste than R. oryzae in shake cultures. The concentration of d-limonene was determined as 185.56 and 249.54μg/kg in the fermented olive mill waste by R. oryzae and C. tropicalis in shake cultures respectively. In contrast, R. oryzae can produce a higher concentration of d-limonene (87.73μg/kg) d-limonene than C. tropicalis (11.95μg/kg) in bioreactor cultures. Based on sensory analysis, unripe olive, wet towel, sweet aromatic, fermented aromas were determined at high intensity in olive mill waste fermented with R. oryzae meanwhile olive mill waste fermented with C. tropicalis had only a high intensity of unripe olive and oily aroma