Politics In Turkey Research Articles

Auf den Schultern des EU-Projektes gegen den „Status Quo“

The article discusses the rise of authoritarian populism in the context of Turkeys neoliberalisation experience since 1980. For long time, populist politics in Turkey successfully claimed to be the voice of the suppressed against the ruling. In fact, they used an oppositional political language meanwhile processing the material interests of the hegemonic forces. Despite receiving considerable support, particularly from the European public, authoritarian populism fell into an deep crises throughout the recent years – the result is it radicalisation which is often mistakenly debated as the start of populism in Turkey.

Museum Politics in Turkey Under the Islamic Justice and Development Party (AKP): the Case of the Istanbul Museum of the History of Science and Technology in Islam

Under the Justice and Development Party (AKP) led by its leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish State and society at large have been subject to significant changes. Besides the recent increasing authoritarianism of the government, Islam made its way through politics like never before, and a new national ideology promoted by the AKP, Turkish Muslim Nationalism, laid the cultural foundations for a new Turkey and new Turks. In this paper, I put forward the claim that new national museums play a relevant role in shaping this new Turkey. In particular, they function as performative cabinets exhibiting the national ideology of the ruling party. I have looked into one of these museums, the Istanbul Museum of the Science and Technology in Islam, researching the links between the AKP, which promotes Turkish Muslim nationalism, and new museums, which exhibit it. The outcome of this study suggests that the IMSTI functioned as the resource and the host of national symbols manufactured by and within the ruling class to be supplied to the masses. The political class, represented here by the AKP, commissioned the museum, whereas cultural agents that shared the party’s political ideology were appointed to make it. This collaboration benefited both parts, so much so that profit seems to have been a crucial ingredient in the making of this museum.

The 15 July abortive coup and post-truth politics in Turkey

Contemporary developments throughout the world have been marked by post-truth politics. Epitomized by a disregard for truth coupled with a reliance on emotive arguments, the term ‘post-truth politics’ has not yet been adequately reflected upon by political or social theory. This article uses Turkey’s 15 July (2016) abortive coup as an entry point to address this gap and argues that the post-truth has altered both the grammar and vocabulary of politics. The term denotes the contemporary shift from a ‘regime of truth’ to a ‘regime of common sense’, which also operates as the discursive ground of new populisms. While treating three contending narratives of 15 July – ‘kamikaze coup’, ‘staged coup’ and ‘controlled coup’ – this article focuses on the post-truth elements in the government’s narrative performance that obstructed the pursuit of truth and set the conditions for a particular interpretation of the events of 15 July.

Inter-imperial Dimensions of Turkish Literary Modernity

Calling for a historiographical shift in literary criticism, this essay stresses the expansionist vision of the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire, approaches its literature as a corpus of representation for imperial subjectivities, and thereby supplements the critique of the narrative of literary modernity identified with the orientalist E. J. W. Gibb. This essay argues that the tension between imperial expansionism and national indigenization constitutes a shaping force in Turkish literary modernity, urging scholars to investigate how the epistemology of the empire–influenced by the inter-imperial landscape of the nineteenth century–infiltrates the modern national literature and politics of Turkey.

Introduction: Theatre and Politics in Turkey and Its Diasporas

Introduction: Theatre and Politics in Turkey and Its Diasporas

Water in the Middle East: Making Room for Informal Problem Solving

Abstract The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is considered one of the most water scarce in the world. Two new books look closely at the prospects for water policy reform in two MENA countries. In Water Politics in Turkey: Structural Change and EU Accession, Vakur Sumer assesses the impacts that harmonizing Turkey's water-management efforts with broader EU legal standards might have on the country's water management. In her new book, Social Capital and Local Water Management in Egypt, Dalia M. Gouda emphasizes the importance of water-management reforms undertaken at the village level. One offers a look at top-down efforts to reform water policy and water management, while the other emphasizes the need for bottom-up efforts that rely on nongovernmental organizations. Presumably, the two together would be sufficient. This review suggests they are not.

The Political Dynamics of R&D Policy in Turkey: Party Differences and Executive Interference during the AKP Period

This article examines the political dynamics of R&D policy in Turkey during the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) period. Drawing on interviews and other sources, the article argues that R&D policy is not above politics in Turkey—this contrasts with the dominant understanding in the literature. First, although opposition parties have significantly different views on R&D policy, they support the AKP on key legislation since innovation is perceived to be a phenomenon that cannot be opposed in any circumstances. Innovation is thought to fuel modernization, sustain a nation’s independence, and reflect national dignity. Second, the executive’s interference in key innovation agencies, specifically the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (Türkiye Bilimsel ve Teknolojik Araştırma Kurumu, TÜBİTAK), leads to shifts in organizations’ policy stance and enables the AKP to pursue the policy as it sees fit. The AKP has preferred a predominantly horizontal policy design (no sectoral focus) and promoted relaxation in resource allocation criteria. The article demonstrates how politics influences innovation policy in Turkey, highlighting opposition parties’ role in policy-making by showing how the opposition’s ideational stance and weak institutional capacity hindered the deliberation of policy alternatives.

Online political trolling in the context of post-Gezi social media in Turkey

Abstract Drawing on the approach suggesting that the analysis of social media in relation to democracy should be provided within its own social context, we outline the social media activities adopted by the ruling populist political party in Turkey, namely, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), aimed at reinforcing its political ideology. We also unpack the ‘political online trolling’ as a manifestation of online practices driving the post-truth politics in Turkey. Following the Gezi protests, when social media and, in particular, Twitter gained trust and popularity as a news source due to severe censorship and polarization in the traditional mass media, the AKP adopted an aggressive strategy to attack and destroy all opposition as well as to manipulate public opinion through their political trolling activities. Employing the approach of digital ethnography and drawing on the archive of mass media outputs about the trolling events, we discuss how the ruling party has adopted online political trolling as a strategy, one that is deeply embedded in the political system, politicians and mainstream media. We also explain how trolling practices are facilitated by the coordinated work of these institutions to silence all critical opposing voices, in particular journalists and how they stifle public debate that is grounded in truth and evidence. We have also concluded that the chilling effects of political trolling lead to quitting social media, self-censorship and less participation in public debate of unprotected citizens who are the most vulnerable targets for the trolls. The trolls have targeted the dissent voices not only for criticizing the government publicly, but also to brand them as terrorists and traitors through increasingly polarizing and discriminating language based on nationalist and religious perspectives, which peaked in the aftermath of the 15 July coup attempt and the debates on the presidential regime. Far from condemnation of the trolling activities along with their polarizing and hateful rhetoric, the mainstream culture and public discourse seem to have been taken over by an increasing trolling subculture, which inhibits public debate, discredits the sources of truth, fosters fanaticism and encourages a hate discourse and violence, all of which are undermining democracy.

Questioning the ‘immortal state’: the Gezi protests and the short-lived human security moment in Turkey

This article has three interrelated objectives: firstly, it challenges monolithic depictions of the 2013 Gezi protests and conceptualizes the so-called ‘Spirit of Gezi’ as a highly influential—albeit temporary—power in the politics of Turkey. Secondly, it traces the success of the HDP (Peoples’ Democratic Party) in the 7 June 2015 parliamentary election back to Gezi while acknowledging the roots of the party within the Kurdish political movement. Thirdly, it examines the manifestation and subsequent decline of what is termed the human security moment in Turkey. The arguments of the work are mostly based on interviews with Gezi activists. It is argued that Gezi produced a discursive challenge to the national security-oriented understanding of the ‘Kurdish question’. Yet, even though the human security-oriented Gezi discourse had brought the Kurdish political movement and the Turkish left together, it ultimately failed to permanently transform Turkish politics due to the collapse of the peace process in June 2015. In addition to contributing to the literature on Gezi, the article also draws insights for security studies. It concludes that alternative discourses to the state-centric securitization approach to conflicts such as the Kurdish question can only have a lasting effect under conditions of ceasefire.

The effects of the military in politics on the inbound tourism: evidence from Turkey

ABSTRACTIn this paper, we analyze the effects of the military in politics on the number of tourist inflows from 71 countries to Turkey for the period from 1984 to 2014. We use the fixed-effects and the random-effects as well as the dynamic generalized methods of moments estimations. We find that a lower level of the relative military in politics (the difference between the source country and Turkey) positively affects the tourism inflows to Turkey. Specifically, one standard deviation reduction in the index of the relative military intervention in politics in Turkey leads to almost 7% increase in the tourism inflows.

TÜRKİYE’DE KADINLARIN SİYASETTE EKSİK TEMSİLİNİN SOSYOLOJİK BOYUTLARI

The political or state institution is usually shaped by the social structure. From time to time Even if is experienced practices contrary to the social structure, they are often unsuccessful. It is a fact that today women in Turkey are underrepresented in politics. This has originated the structure of the Turkish society which has formed in the historical process to a great extent. In the ancient Turks of Central Asia women are considered to be relatively more visible in politics than in later periods. At least, it is known that all the assumptions of the kagan are also with his wife. However, during migration from Central Asia to Anatolia at the end relation to many cultures and civilizations, it is thought to be a contraction woman in social life and accordingly the political appearance. Aside from this discussion available to be assessed differently f rom t he p oint o f v iew o f t he t opic, i n t hat p eriod, it is certain that there is a decline in women's political activities throughout the World. This issue can be handled economically, educationally, religiously and culturally. On the other hand, it can be explained only by knowing the nature of the social structure. In the Ottoman Empire Beginning women's rights movements that are Western influenced. Hawever, women were able to obtain the right to vote and to be elected in the first period of the Republic. On the other hand, they have never reached the desired level of representation due to the reasons caused by the traditional structure of Turkish society. More economic freedom achieved by women entering business life and the increase in education level of women, although it did provide a partial improvement in this regard, the characteristic of the Turkish society structure that has formed in the long history process continues to constitute the central and obstacle point of concern. This study, which will be discussed in this sense, it will focus on the relationship between women's representation in politics in Turkey and Turkish society structure.

TÜRK SİYASAL HAYATINDA AŞİRETLERİN BELİRLEYİCİLİĞİ

The aim of this work is to study the tribal system particularly in the Eastern and Southeastern regions of Turkey and its reflection in Turkey's political system. The tribal system under scrutiny rests on socioeconomic, historic and political background. The study takes note of the tribes' predominance in these regions, and their effect in social life, economy and politics.Taking into account the structure of the tribes, the study meticulously touches on those that support and desire to maintain the inherited feudal system as well.It could be put forth that an understanding of the tribal system would contribute to efforts to settle some of today's major problems. The tribal system is the part of a social fabric transmitted from Ottoman Empire to the Republic of Turkey. At the base of this social fabric exist the themes of politics, economics, military and population. The tribal system therefore needs to be taken up from a sociohistoric perspective. One of the main themes of this work is also to reflect on the relation between the concepts of tribe and politics through a detailed analysis on the role of the tribes in the politics of Turkey. For this, the 1950-2003 period in Sanliurfa will be examined as a case.The link between the tribes and the politics has continued up until now, especially following the nomination of so many chieftains of the tribes from Democrat Party and their election as the representatives after the 1950 General Elections.Even though having gone through intermittent breakups, such a relation in its perpetuity has proved significantly successful. This research will help better examine the developments in Turkish political history.

"Tesettür" as an Islamist anti-fashion ideology in the Turkish Republic (1960s-1990s)

The aim of this article is the examination of the historical development of as an Islamist anti-fashion ideology against the secular Kemalist fashion politics in Turkey and its relationship to other forms of fashion/dress within the context of a Turkish multi-fashion system. For this purpose, the paper will conduct a discourse analysis of monographs, journal articles and newspaper columns of female Islamic writers from different eras of political Islam, who have dominated the formulation of the tesettur ideology. The article states first that the emergence and change of the tesettur ideology and of its outlook mirrors the development of political Islam in Turkey, like the transition from islamism to post-islamism. Second, the article asserts that the emergence of tesettur as a practice and ideology is also a result of the genuine state centered and authoritarian nature of Turkish modernization. As a consequence the paper hopes to provide a valuable contribution about the role of dress as a site of political struggle in a specific historical political context.

A Religious Party Takes Hold: Turkey

A Religious Party Takes Hold:Turkey Svante Cornell (bio) Turkey has a unique position in the Muslim world as a country that held the Caliphate for several hundred years but then turned into a secular republic. Over the past ninety years, Islam has coexisted uneasily with the Turkish state, which has tried both to co-opt and suppress a powerful political Islamic movement that began gathering force in the 1960s. Turkey is unique in the fact that a movement rooted in political Islam managed not only to come to power in democratic elections, but proved able to stay in power and continue to win elections for over a decade. Whereas this aspect of the Turkish experience is widely lauded by Western observers, there is nevertheless another side to the coin. As the power of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) grew, they also turned increasingly authoritarian and Islamist. Turkey's experience is indicative of the broader nature of "moderate" political Islam, and its relationship with democracy; it suggests that "moderate Islamism" has embraced the mechanics of electoral democracy but not its fundamental values. The Scene: Turkey's Political System Since the introduction of multi-party democracy in 1950, Turkey has with brief exceptions been ruled by center-right parties that tried to court religious voters while maintaining a commitment to the secular character of the Turkish state. Importantly, this took place in a Cold War context where the main existential concern was perceived to be the threat from the left. To counter that threat, Turkish governments began to actively support nationalist and Islamic sentiments that were believed to constitute a counter-balance to leftist ideologies. The U.S. government saw little problem with this strategy which would come to consume its creators. In this context, the 1980 military coup was a decisive event in both a political and ideological sense. Politically, the coup dealt a severe blow to Turkish politics, banning all active political parties. Since the coup was a reaction to the growth of the urban left in Turkey, it hit the Turkish left hard, destroying the foundation of what could have been a social democratic movement in the country. It also created divisions within the center-left and center-right political [End Page S-21] camps that would contribute to the decade of weak coalition governments in the 1990s—in turn creating the opening in which the AKP would emerge. The 1982 Constitution returned power to civilian rule, but decidedly placed the interests of the state ahead of those of the citizens. The coup and its aftermath were also of tremendous importance in an intellectual sense. The military junta viewed the left and the Kurdish nationalists, both supported by the Soviet Union, as the main threats to Turkey. In search of an antidote, the military regime supported the rise of what came to be termed the Turkish-Islamic synthesis. This was essentially an attempt to wed right-wing nationalism and Islam in order to build a dominant ideology that would withstand and roll back leftist ideas. The coup leader and subsequent president, General Kenan Evren, delivered public speeches with the Koran in one hand. The new constitution made education in the tenets of Sunni Islam compulsory in elementary schools (it was already compulsory at the high school level). The expansion of the imam hatip schools (government-financed and operated clerical training schools), which began in the 1970s, accelerated. The government oversaw a frenzy of mosquebuilding; with 85,000 state-operated mosques, nominally secular Turkey has more mosques than any other country. While the imam hatip schools were created to educate prayer leaders in mosques, enrollment rapidly came to vastly exceed the need for prayer leaders. For example, girls, who are barred by the rules of Islam from serving as prayer leaders, make up the majority of students in these schools, as religious conservative families prefer to send their daughters to them. As a result of the surplus of graduates from religious schools, a new Islamic intelligentsia was born, which gradually came to occupy positions of power within the bureaucracy, academic world, and media. As the left disappeared, Islamism—understood here as "a form...

Youth participation in local politics: city councils and youth assemblies in Turkey

The focus of this study is political participation of youth in local politics in Turkey. Since local politics includes elements from both macro politics and mundane affairs, it proves to be a fertile ground to analyse how youth experience politics. Youth participation in local politics became an important issue in Turkey with the Agenda 21. The Agenda 21 that was launched with the UN Rio Summit was transferred to Turkey in the form of Local Agenda 21 leading to the establishment of city councils and youth assemblies under the umbrella of the councils. We treat city councils and youth assemblies as ‘a lost opportunity’ for now, and we ask why the youth cannot be integrated into local politics, despite the fact that they are willing to participate. Based on the interviews conducted with the members of assemblies, we try to understand the factors that lead to young people’s engagement in political life.

Property, Dispossession, and Citizenship in Turkey; Or, the History of the Gezi Uprising Starts in the Surp Hagop Armenian Cemetery

This article focuses on the state confiscation of the Surp Hagop Armenian cemetery as more than just another fact about the famous 2013 protests in Gezi Park in Istanbul. In addition to coming to terms with the limits of the Gezi uprising in relation to its claims of inclusiveness, such a focus unravels the key tension between, on the one hand, progressive and left-wing calls to promote the allegedly equal, universal citizen in Turkey through protest movements and, on the other hand, the differential property regime on which the Turkish nation-state is founded, the denial of which continues to erode the possibility of equal citizenship. The article demonstrates how the systematic confiscation of Armenian property is normalized in everyday discourse and politics in Turkey in the service of the broader legal governance of minority difference.

Discussing women's representation in local politics in Turkey: The case of female mayorship

The purpose of this article is to explicate women's political representation in female mayorship in Turkey's local politics on the basis of the empirical data gathered from in-depth interviews with female mayors elected in 2004 and 2009 local elections. The objective is to construe women's representation in local politics with the concern that due to the “positional power” of a female mayor, women's representation in a municipality is not congenial to women's representation in the parliament. The contention of the article is that women's representation in female mayorship can be explicated by symbolic, accessible, and just representation.

“All Dominion Belongs to Allah… Capital Get Out”: The Issue of Social Justice and Muslim Anti‐Capitalists in Turkey

“All Dominion Belongs to Allah… Capital Get Out”: The Issue of Social Justice and Muslim Anti‐Capitalists in Turkey Güldem Baykal Büyüksaraç Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of spiritless conditions. It is the opium of the people. Karl Marx, Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Law Humanity is devastated. […] Money is a totem, property a taboo for the monster with only one tooth left that is called Civilization. Humanity has fallen into the hands of usurers. […] We search for the heart of the age. We seek the heaven; we seek the land of peace, with its boundless and classless justice. […] To break the chains and to cry out ‘Freedom to Slaves!’ […] United with all the oppressed people, we are founding the Anti‐Capitalist Muslims Movement to claim our rights granted by Allah. There is another world in our heart. […] All dominion belongs to Allah! Manifesto of the Anti‐Capitalist Muslims (Istanbul, ) On the first Saturday of Ramadan 2011, a group of young Muslim activists known as the Labor and Justice Platform (Emek ve Adalet Platformu) organized an alternative iftar event right in front of an international five‐star hotel in Istanbul. They wanted to draw attention to extravagant Ramadan meals organized by the government. Protestors sat on the pavement to break their fast in a crowd of friends and strangers that included several public figures as well as street children and African migrants. As a gesture to express their yearning for social solidarity and altruistic reciprocity, everyone brought in food to share with others. The event indicated a deepening discontent with the evils of global capitalism and neoliberalism, from the commodification and commercialization of religion to the inequitable distribution of wealth and public services. The slogans required no further explanation: “Do not break your fast with capitalism,” “We are hungry for humanity,” “Yes to fairness, no to extravagance,” “We are here to spoil your enjoyment”… This very first iftar protest paved the way for a Ramadan tradition of street dining in Turkey, known as “Earth Tables” (Yeryüzü Sofraları). Every Ramadan since then, larger groups of anti‐capitalists—both religious and non‐religious—continue the tradition, gathering on streets and at parks, sitting on the ground to share their iftar meals with the unemployed, the homeless, and the displaced. It is May 1, 2012. A group of around 200 demonstrators captures the public's eye as they proceed from the Fatih Mosque to Taksim Square where they merge with workers’ unions, the usual Labor Day marchers. They are mostly young men and headscarved women, with those in the front line carrying a black‐and‐white banner that reads “All dominion belongs to Allah.” They are chanting, “Allah, bread, freedom”… In the morning, the men performed a symbolic funeral prayer at the mosque for the eleven workers who had lately been killed in the fire that broke out at an Istanbul construction site. They commemorated all others as well who had perished in frequent workplace accidents that had occurred in recent years. The group's meeting at the Fatih Mosque on that day implied more than a protest of unsafe working conditions in Turkey. They gathered at a mosque in the conservative district of Fatih, where a right‐wing mob, a bunch of die‐hard anti‐communists, had assembled on a winter day of 1969, preparing to attack the leftists who had organized an anti‐imperialist rally at Taksim during the visit of the U.S. Sixth Fleet. These new marchers of Labor Day call themselves Anti‐Capitalist Muslims (Antikapitalist Müslümanlar), and their presence at the rally today indicates a will for breaking with a particular history. Muslim politics in Turkey, as it seems, is evolving from a struggle with communism to one with capitalism. It is June 7, 2013, the eleventh day of the Gezi resistance in Istanbul. It all started, one could say, with a hashtag on twitter: #occupygezi. Prior to that, however, an urban advocacy group called Taksim Solidarity had been campaigning for more than a year against plans to redesign Taksim in the guise...

Islamist politics in migrant cities: local identity cleavages and intra-party politics in Turkey

This article explores how the local party organizations of the Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi (Justice and Development Party—AKP) interact with complex social structures in migrant-receiving cities in Turkey. Islamist movements are widely viewed as uniquely capable of appealing to working-class migrants. However, the support for Islamist parties varies across migrant-receiving cities. This article argues that local party organizations face two potential sources of discord that they have to resolve in order to build support in migrant neighbourhoods. They have to bridge the regional identity cleavages among different migrant communities while surmounting intra-party conflicts. In pursuing this argument, this article opens up the black box of local identity politics in the industrial heartland of Turkey and provides an ethnographic account of intra-party conflicts and political survival within the AKP.

The conundrum of coalition politics in Turkey

ABSTRACTTurkey has had a long track record of coalition governments, yet when the June 7, 2015 general elections produced a hung parliament attempts at establishing a new coalition government failed. Why was this so? This paper argues that the non-compromising attitude of the AKP and the MHP, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the recalcitrance of the President, who perceived any government he had no firm control over as a threat to his political career, undermined any effort at establishing a coalition government. The terror campaign of the PKK and efforts by the AKP and the MHP to demonize the HDP as the party of terror also undermined the chances of the CHP to form a coalition that included the HDP. Hence, Turkey's chances of establishing a democratic government through compromise failed and the country went back to polarizing politics of competitive authoritarianism under the hegemony of the one-party government of the AKP.