“Turkey and Thailand: Unlikely Twins Revisited”
Ayse Zarakol, University Lecturer in International Relations, University of Cambridge
Moderated by Jack L. Snyder, Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of International Relations, Columbia University
Thursday, March 1, 2018
12:00 PM – 1:30 PM
International Affairs Building, Room 918
No registration required
In 2012, Duncan McCargo (Columbia) and Ayse Zarakol (Cambridge) published an article in the Journal of Democracy entitled “Turkey and Thailand: Unlikely Twins.” The article highlighted striking similarities in the history and politics of two nations at opposite ends of ‘Asia’ (broadly imagined), and raised critical questions about issues such urban-rural divides, national myths, the role of the military, and trends towards authoritarianism. Since then, much has happened to confirm and to qualify their arguments: Thailand experienced a military coup in May 2014, while there was an unsuccessful coup attempt in Turkey two years later. In this seminar, the two authors will revisit their analysis and debate the significance of subsequent developments for understanding this apparent parallelism.
