Turkey is a longstanding ally of the United States and Europe. After the demise of the Soviet empire, Turkey's strategic importance has changed but not diminished. Today Turkey is facing a completely different foreign and security policy environment. However, Turkey is also undergoing extraordinary internal change. Many established political truths of the Republic's seventy-five-year-long tradition are increasingly questioned by a growing part of its people. Above all, there is the rise of political Islam and the ensuing clash of ideologies between "secularists" and "Islamists" as well as the...

Elections have been used as a mechanism to institutionalize a new political order following internal conflict in Cambodia, El Salvador, Angola, Mozambique, Bosnia, and now Liberia. This book analyzes the Liberian transition and the July 1997 elections in order to better understand the relationship between war termination and transitions to democracy and the role post-conflict elections play in promoting both of these goals. The Liberian elections represented the final stage of a seven-year, West African-led peace process. An overwhelming majority voted for former factional leader Charles...