Contemporary Turkish Politics Research Articles

Turkey forever balances between East and West

When looking at contemporary Turkish politics, an incorrect notion is often circulated that Turkey has only in recent years, as far back as under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, begun a policy of balancing between East and West. The purpose of this article is to analyze Turkey’s posture – in terms of balancing between spheres of influence – after the end of World War II until Turkey joined NATO and then compare it with Turkey’s stance during the Justice and Development Party government in the context of relations with the United States and Russia. This will help answer the question: to what extent is Ankara’s current balkanizing attitude something surprising? Aren’t specific patterns of the 1945–1952 period similar to those of the 21st century, and the differences are the attitudes of Washington and Moscow rather than Ankara?

Understanding the 'New Turkey' through Max Weber's category of Caesarism

This article aims to expand upon our understanding of the historical dynamics of Weber's central but relatively underexplored category of Caesarism by showcasing its operation within contemporary Turkish politics. We illustrate how the shift from a parliamentarian to a presidential system, bestowing Turkish premier Erdoğan with unrestrained executive powers, has manifested a type of 'pure', unrestrained Caesarism that Weber associated with and criticized in Otto von Bismarck. Yet, reflecting Weber's optimism that strong parliamentarism could remedy the threats of authoritarianism, we also argue that it is possible to reverse today's negative politics in Turkey towards re-democratization. Deploying the Weberian concept of Caesarism and other related notions drawn from Weber's thought, such as parliamentarism, charisma, and plebiscitary democracy and politics, demonstrates the relevance of this category today, helps us better understand the contemporary Turkish climate, and offers pathways for its future political revitalization.

Süslüman: on class and gender issues in contemporary Turkish political Islam

ABSTRACT This article argues that class divisions within Islamist community are an emerging aspect of contemporary Turkish politics. Nearly two decades of rule by an Islamist party enabled the Islamic capital to become a distinct capital fraction without improving the living conditions of the devout masses substantially. This fault line appears in the increasingly discernible criticism of the everyday lifestyles of rich Muslim women from within. Controversy over the extravagance of veiled women appears as a proxy class struggle between the new Islamic middle class and the devout poor, as well as the continued polarization between the Islamists and the secularists.

Distributive politics and electoral competition for the Kurdish vote

ABSTRACT Competition for the Kurdish vote has been important in contemporary Turkish politics. Focusing on the non-contributory health insurance program in the early period of AKP rule, this article shows that this competition also affected the distribution of benefits. Kurdish citizens’ likelihood of holding a Green Card increased with the competitiveness of the district between the AKP and Kurdish-oriented parties. The number of Green Cards and social spending were also higher when a Kurdish-oriented party posed an electoral challenge. These findings reveal the electoral calculation behind AKP’s strategy of favoring Kurdish voters as well as the importance of political organization for the minority group’s access to benefits.

The aftermath of Turkey’s July 15th coup attempt: normalizing the exceptional through legitimation, narrativization and ritualization

ABSTRACT The coup attempt of 2016 constitutes a major incision in contemporary Turkish politics. Focusing on the symbolic aspects of the AKP’s authoritarian rule in the direct aftermath of the coup attempt, this article offers a new conceptual framework to analyze three symbolic and discursive strategies that the government employed with the aim to normalize its exceptional and transformative measures: legitimation, narrativization and ritualization. It argues that these strategies contribute to the deepening of the AKP’s authoritarian regime formation and contends that the government’s actions are a reflection of the power struggle between the AKP and the Gülen movement.

Review of Tahir Abbas, Contemporary Turkey in Conflict: Ethnicity, Islam and Politics

Since the rise of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) to power in 2002, the country has been at the forefront of events in the region and beyond, even more so in the wake of the 15 July 2016 failed coup attempt. The party’s initial pro-EU, pro-democratic posture has given way to an illiberal authoritarianism since 2010, a process that has yet to reach its denouement. Tahir Abbas’ worthy ambition in Contemporary Turkey in Conflict: Ethnicity, Islam and Politics is to chart the path of sociopolitical transformation Turkey has undergone over the last decade or so, by surveying some of the key ideas and actors shaping contemporary Turkish politics...

On the construction of identities: An autoethnography from Turkey

In this article I analyze, on the basis of my personal experience, the discontents of contemporary Turkish politics; more specifically, neoliberal conservative hegemony, and its three manifestations: stability of instability; a religio-conservative gender regime; and anti-intellectualism. I illustrate how these manifestations are intertwined in the process of identity construction: how an individual’s identity as a citizen, as a woman, as an academic is being constantly constructed/de-constructed/reconstructed in a manner integral to the social and political context. The contribution of this article is threefold: it shows how personal experiences are a legitimate source of knowledge; it enables an understanding of how political identities are in a constant state of making; it challenges dominant conceptions of politics and the political through challenging binaries such as individual/social, personal/political, and emotional/rational.

Party regulation in Turkey: a comparison with modern Europe

ABSTRACTThe Turkish party law (TPL) has thus far been studied only in isolation. We do not have any knowledge of where it stands compared to other party laws. This study fills this gap by comparing the TPL with other European party laws. It codes the TPL according to the categories of party regulation that exists in the current literature and finds that the TPL is the third-most heavily regulated party law in Europe. While it is particularly keen on regulating the ‘activity and behavior’ and ‘programmatic identity’ of parties similar to Ukrainian and Spanish party laws, it is significantly behind in regulating the ‘party finance’ and ‘external oversight’ compared to other European countries. This article discusses the implications of these findings on contemporary Turkish politics, arguing that the TPL's thick definition of an ‘anti-system party’ contributes to the current democratic recession in Turkey.

Understanding Turkish secularism in the 21th century: a contextual roadmap

ABSTRACTThis paper asserts that Turkish secularism and Islamism represent two faces of one coin – contemporary Turkish politics – when one considers their goals and strategies. The two ideological movements have shaped one another and each now seeks to impose itself as superior. This article unpacks these differences and similarities in the following steps: (a) it defines the socio-historic modes of Turkish secularism and (b) examines its social and political origins; (c) it then explores Islam’s return to the public domain as an oppositional Turkish identity; (d) and thereafter considers the diverse understandings of secularism resulting from neoliberal policies that relaxed state control over Islam, which then prompted socially-acceptable reinterpretations of Islam; and finally (e) describes how the AKP’s has re-imagined secularism while (mis)using Islam as a political instrument. The comparison highlights such commonalties as a collectivist character, a desire for state control as a vehicle to realize an ideology, intolerance of diversity and criminalization of other perspectives, and the differentiation of religion as morality in the private sphere versus its cultural role in the public sphere. It concludes that, under the AKP government, Islam is used as a tool to consolidate the power of Erdoğan’s kleptocratic regime.

Glorification of the Past as a Political Tool: Ottoman history in contemporary Turkish politics

ABSTRACTTurkey’s radical transformation of state and society under Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s republican rule (1923–1938) has been subject to a gradual revision under the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government since 2002. The creation of a new state identity has been buttressed with Islamic and Ottoman discourses, which entail a reinterpretation of Ottoman history. This study analyzes the changes in modern Turkey in the last sixteen years within the context of the use of the Ottoman past in the formation of a new national identity by the AKP government.

“Democracy Happens Where the People Are”

The turmoil in Turkey’s domestic politics has been exacerbating at an unforeseen pace since the Gezi protests in 2013. What made this protest period particularly remarkable was the multiplicity and diversity of youth discourses, that crossed the borders of a single issue-based opposition. The Gezi period and its aftermath in this sense can be understood as a tipping point in contemporary Turkish politics. Hence, in an attempt to understand the converging and diverging viewpoints of the young people who were the protagonists of the Gezi protests, this study utilizes Q-methodology and deciphers diverging and converging narratives of urban, secular, educated young people, who are said to have constituted the main body of protestors. Following the analysis of the primary data, the author observes three emerging discourses dominant among 21 young people (aged 20–30). The results hint at shared viewpoints on the Gezi protests as an “apolitical movement”, a “violent movement” and a “Jacobin movement”. The author argues that this divergence points at the exacerbating social polarization among youth groups in Turkey, which reached dangerous heights after the putsch on 15 July 2016.

Space, Society, and Self

Space, Society, and Self

Seventh Son of the East: Sezai Karakoç and His Doctrine of Revival

Although Sezai Karakoç has been a prominent figure in the Turkish intellectual life for almost five decades, nothing scholarly has appeared so far to introduce him to the Western academia. Aside from his being considered to be one of the greatest Turkish poets in the twentieth century, for many, he is also an influential intellectual who has put his mark on Turkish Islamism and affected the Islamic community as deep as Mehmet Akif Ersoy and Necip Fazıl Kısakürek. Mainly because of his deliberate choice of being low profile and his distanced attitude towards media, he is not a widely known figure in the popular political arena. His ideas, however, have influenced many politicians in the contemporary Turkish Politics, particularly the elite cadres of currently running the Justice and Development Party (JDP). It is appealing to notice that a great number of policies he formulated in 1980s and 1990s have been developed and implemented by the JDP government. To elucidate Sezai Karakoç's intellectual depth and cultural vision, this study, first, introduces him, then opens up his conceptualization of civilization the grasp of which seems to constitute a fertile ground for the JDP's political rhetoric both for domestic and regional audiences, and lastly reveals his “doctrine of revival.”

Did Secularism Fail? The Rise of Religion in Turkish Politics

AbstractReligious movements have long been challenging the modernist and secularist ideas around the world. Within the last decade or so, pro-religious parties made significant electoral advances in various countries, including India, Sudan, Algeria, and the Palestinian territories. In this article, we focus on the rise of the pro-religious Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi- AKP) to power in the 2002 elections in Turkey. Using the Turkish experience with political Islam, we evaluate the explanatory value of Mark Juergensmeyer's rise of religious nationalism theory, with a special emphasis on the “failed secularism” argument. Our analysis indicates that the theoretical approach formulated by Juergensmeyer has a great deal of explanatory power; however, it does not provide a complete explanation for the success of the AKP. The rise of religion in Turkish politics is the result of a complex process over long years of encounter and confrontation between two frameworks of order, starting with the sudden imposition of secularism from above, when the republic was established. Hence, to understand the rise of religion in contemporary Turkish politics, an in-depth understanding of history, politics, and the sources of tension between secularists and Islamists is essential. The findings of this article have important implications for other countries, especially those that are experiencing a resurgence of religion in politics, and are struggling to integrate religious parties into a democratic system.

White Turks, Black Turks? Faultlines beyond Islamism versus secularism

According to popular views, contemporary Turkish politics is defined by the ideological conflict between Islamist and secularist parties. However, the focus on the Islamism versus secularism dichotomy, a common bias in the studies of Muslim countries, disguises a deeper faultline between the old urban elites and the newly rising provincial actors. This article highlights the need to see beyond the ‘Islamism–secularism’ divide and to consider the complex relations of power between alienated social groups in Turkey. It analyses the intricate and multi-layered forms of ‘othering’ in the urban secularist discourse, which perpetuates the inequalities and contention in society. Instead of taking the ‘Islamism–secularism’ divide as given, the article analyses the construction of secularist and Islamic identities and considers how this dichotomous discourse has empowered the urban parties to control the provincial. Finally, implications for the reconciliation of antagonised social groups are presented.

The Sèvres Syndrome and “Komplo” Theories in the Islamist and Secular Press

Through an analysis of the interpretation of three events by the secular and Islamist press, this essay shows how widespread the “Sèvres Syndrome” is in Turkey, tracing the reasons for and origins of this “siege paranoia.” The premise of the study is that the Sèvres Syndrome inevitably compromises Turkish intellectuals’ perception of reality and influences their ontological understanding of politics and world affairs. This paranoia also inevitably leads to irrational overreactions and apparently irrational behaviors by the masses and by politicians. Failing to understand this paranoia prevents a full comprehension of contemporary Turkish politics.

Tales of past, present, and future: mythmaking and nationalist discourse in Turkish politics

This paper analyzes the representations of the past and the use of symbolic forms of legitimization as modes of power and domination in contemporary Turkish politics. It examines the ways through which histories are socially constructed, and the relationships forged between this construction and the ideological beliefs of agents. The paper also address issues of identity and underlines the critical need for an awareness of a living past. The first part of this paper deals with the motivations and behaviors of the elite and focuses especially on nationalist discourse, seeing it as the motor driving the larger political discourse, i.e. modernization. Thus, Turkish nationalism is examined here as a modernizing and secularizing project. In the second half of the paper, the cultural theory of Bakhtin is applied to show how rhetoric, symbols, and myth can be used not only to create new identities or to legitimize the existing system but also to subvert hegemonic discourse and resist change in terms of identity. This leads to the conclusion that identities are discursive and that there is a dynamic process generated in the ongoing struggles between different groups and discourses. Finally, it is concluded that even though discourses are always historically and socially positioned and constituted, nevertheless, specific contextual examples help promote understanding of similar cases in other contexts. Writing history is as important as making history. (Kemal Ataturk)

Cultural politics and vocational religious education: the case of Turkey

The ‘project of modernity’ that has transformed every aspect of Turkish society since the founding of the new republic in 1923 has been increasingly questioned and scrutinized in recent decades. Meanwhile, Islam has reasserted itself to become a real force in contemporary Turkish politics with ambiguous implications for long‐term social integration and political stability. Controversies surrounding religious education in general, and the Imam‐Hatip (prayer‐leader/preacher) schools in particular, exemplify the ‘cultural politics’ that has been going on between the secularists and the Islamists in Turkey. This article examines whether the Imam‐Hatip schools in the long run can play a positive role in the promotion of a broader educated Muslim base enabling the secular and the Islamic domains to cohabit successfully, or a negative role in which the schools are viewed as producing a new generation of Islamists resisting the secular establishment, thereby deepening the secularist‐Islamist divide.

Turgut Özal and his Economic Legacy: Turkish Neo-Liberalism in Critical Perspective

Turgut Ozal was a critical figure in Turkey's transition to a neo-liberal development model in the 1980s. Arguably, he was also the most influential political leader in Turkey since the time of Kem...

Review: Contemporary Turkish Politics: Challenges to Democratic Consolidation

Review: Contemporary Turkish Politics: Challenges to Democratic Consolidation