Switzerland and the United Nations
Despite the approaching universality of the United Nations, Switzerland continues to be a non-member. Her traditional policy of permanent neutrality, which is theoretically incompatible with the United Nations collective security system, and an unsatisfactory experience as a member of the League of Nations largely explain this absence. Ironically enough, however, Switzerland has played in effect as active a role in the United Nations as have many actual members. Switzerland belongs to most of the specialized agencies and many of the Organization's ancillary organs. She has even involved herself in numerous peacekeeping activities. Geneva serves as the Organization's European headquarters. Thus, the Swiss freely participate in what they refer to as the “technical,” as distinguished from the “political” United Nations. The increased prestige of neutrality and neutral Austria's successful membership, approaching universality, the waning of collective security, and a desire to participate fully in international relations are encouraging a gradual reorientation towards the United Nations which may some day lead to formal Swiss membership.
European Neutrality in Historical Perspective
This chapter places the neutrality policies of the established European neutral states—Austria, Finland, Ireland, Sweden and Switzerland—in historical context. It explores the origins of neutrality in the idea of non-belligerency in war and the history of neutrality in modern European international politics, highlighting the way in which quite a wide variety of states were or sought to be neutral at various points in the nineteenth century or the first half of the twentieth century. The chapter then shows how the Cold War division of Europe resulted in Austria, Finland, Ireland, Sweden and Switzerland (along with Yugoslavia) emerging as a distinctive neutral group of states between the two blocs. The chapter also reviews how the European neutral states’ foreign and security policies have adapted since the end of the Cold War. It finishes with some conclusions about neutrality in general and the neutrality of the established European neutral states in particular.
Turkish Political Culture and Civil Society : an Unsettling Coupling?
This paper attempts to analyze Turkish politics in the post-1980 period with a special reference to the relationship among the state elites, political elites and societal actors and its impact on the constitution of civil society in Turkey. After the 1980 military intervention, the political and economic realms of Turkey witnessed a relative degree of liberalization through Uzal's neo-liberal policies. The January 24 economic decisions paved the way for economic liberalization as well as letting new economic and societal actors emerge. These new economic actors were different from the prevailing economic actors which used to enjoy having a considerable amount of opportunity spaces in the economic sphere. Together with the Uzal governments, Islamic segments started to become powerful in both political and economic realms. This paper analyses the chief traits of Turkish politics and economics and their impact upon civil society aftermath the 1980 coup in general, and the relationship and/or interaction among the state elites, political elites and societal actors in particular. The engagements of newly-emerging societal and economic actors into Turkish political scene and the challenge of these actors against the so-called 'Kemalist-Republican' elites are also illustrated in the paper. Moreover, state-Islam interaction, politics-Islam interaction as well as Kemalism-newly-emerging societal and economic actors interaction will be studied with a special emphasis to the post-1980 period. The major argument of the paper is that, in Turkey, both civil society issues and political issues reveal outcomes which are primarily shaped by the nature of the relationship between state elites and political elites in general and by Turkish political culture in particular.