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Presents summaries of papers presented by members of the Middle East Working Group at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association on August 31, 2002. Relationship between the U.S. and Egypt; Information on the Iranian foreign policy; Secularism in Turkey.

The article focuses on the geopolitical importance of Turkey for its neighboring regions. Geographically it is located between large energy markets like Europe and the West, and energy producers like the Middle East, Russia, and Caucasus. It is believed that Turkey can become the strongest energy hub and transit corridor in its region. It is also said that the European Union and the U.S. can use Turkey to increase the diversification of its energy suppliers.

This research examines propositions of international image theory in the context of Turkey-U.S. relations. Study 1 derives and tests hypotheses regarding the interrelationships among theory components—perceived strategic relations, images, and behavioral tendencies. In addition, it extends image theory research by examining (1) the role of emotions, as well as (2) how variations in the strength of ingroup identifications (national and religious identity) inform our understanding of international images. Study 2 extends the findings of Study 1 by considering different dimensions of cultural status (cultural heritage vs. modernity) and by differentiating two targets of emotion: the U.S. government versus American citizens. Evidence is provided regarding the need for incorporation of emotions and group identifications onto the image theory framework. The results point to the need for more investigation of images and their relationships with other components of the theory in various intergroup contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the various new policies of Turkey's ruling political party Justice and Development Party in order to develop a better relations with its developing countries. It mentions that the increased concern about Turkey's security and economic development has caused the Turkish government to formulate new and better economic and political policies. The Turkish government is not only working on its foreign policies and relations but is working on its regional policies. It further discusses the relationship of Turkish government with European Union leaders and the U.S. government and the challenges to be faced by Turkey in order to implement its policies.

In this article, the direct role of the state in industrial relations is scrutinized by focusing on the political basis of decisions regarding the minimum wage. We argue that in order to ensure stability and growth, any state must balance the interests of capital and labour when taking this kind of distributional decision. This idea is operationalized using O'Connor's concepts of accumulation and legitimation as the basis for an analytical model. Application to Turkey and comparison with the USA reveals that in Turkey, governments take account of legitimacy concerns in their minimum wage decisions due to the large number of workers directly dependent on minimum wages and weak collective bargaining institutions. In the USA, despite rather similar industrial relations conditions, this tendency is not present, probably due to the much smaller number of minimum wage earners and their weakness in the political process. However, in the USA, too, we observe that there is a difference between political parties and historical periods in the way in which the minimum wage is determined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) livestock production forecasts are evaluated for their information content across multiple forecast horizons using the direct test developed by Vuchelen and Gutierrez (2005). Forecasts are explicitly tested for rationality (unbiased and efficient) as well as for incremental information out to three-quarters ahead. The results suggest that although the forecasts are often not rational, they typically do provide the forecast user with unique information at each horizon. Turkey and milk production forecasts are found to provide the most consistent performance, while beef production forecasts provide little information beyond the two-quarter horizon. [C53, Q13] © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the geostrategic significance of Turkey to the United States (U.S.) in the post-Cold War era. Overview of the U.S. policy toward Turkey; Security issues threatened in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War; Future implications of the relations.