Regime In Turkey Research Articles

The Establishment of Economic Dirigism In Maritime Trade of Turkey, 1923–1950

ABSTRACT In the aftermath of the establishment of the republican regime in Turkey in 1923, the policy of economic dirigisme began to dominate the markets step by step. This article aims to analyse the effects of economic dirigisme on maritime trade for a quarter of a century and furnishes an illustrative case delineating how the government’s favoured economic policy attenuated the developmental prospects of maritime commerce. Throughout this temporal span, endeavours advocating a laissez-faire market policy found themselves systematically marginalized, as the juggernaut of economic dirigisme unfolded. The corollary of this policy was a precipitous decline in the operational efficiency of maritime trade. The proclivity for deploying antiquated ships escalated the inherent risks of maritime accidents. Legislative initiatives, exemplified by the promulgation of cabotage laws and the imposition of onerous taxes, erected formidable impediments that curtailed the operability of foreign-flagged vessels in Turkish ports. Concurrently, the waning trade potential cast a pall over the developmental trajectory of Anatolian cities.

AKP’s electoral success: Populist communication and conservative welfare regime in Turkey

AKP’s electoral success: Populist communication and conservative welfare regime in Turkey

Intricate critical turn: changing geographical knowledge production in an authoritarian context

ABSTRACT This paper examines the critical shift in geographical knowledge production under the increasingly authoritarian political regime in Turkey, particularly in the aftermath of the unsuccessful 2016 coup attempt. In this context, semi-structured interviews were conducted with sixteen young geographers who experienced the authoritarian shift in the political regime during their graduate studies. The narratives of the interviewees indicate that the young geographers have undergone a critical transformation with two significant aspects: firstly, they reject the traditional style of geographical knowledge production and instead embrace approaches integrated with social theory, drawing from the extensive portfolio of contemporary geography. Secondly, they approach socio-spatial phenomena in a libertarian and critical manner, distinct from the lenses of the authoritarian system. However, due to their legitimate concerns, they often refrain from presenting such research on academic platforms. In this regard, under an authoritarian regime, the critical transformation consists of two dimensions: the arena where geographical products are shared, and the underground, where geographical ‘black boxes’ are held and kept hidden from public view.

Democratic Autocracy: a Populist Update to Fascism under Neoliberal Conditions

Abstract What are the social dynamics behind the rise and resilience of today’s authoritarian regimes? This paper seeks to answer this question by focusing on the longest lasting elected autocracy of our era, the AKP (Justice and Development Party) regime in Turkey. Building on the authoritarian neoliberalism literature’s criticism of the scholarship on competitive authoritarianism, I point out the seeds of authoritarianism in the pro-market reforms of the 1980s–2000s. However, both literatures fail to address the popular embrace of authoritarianism. In critical engagement with analyses of fascism, I develop the concept ‘democratic autocracy’: a parliamentarised, individualised, personalistic, and relatively more market-oriented, twenty-first century version of fascism. The democratic autocracy in Turkey organises and mobilises the people through parties, youth and aid associations, paramilitary organisations, and unions. However, both unresolved economic crises and democratic autocracy’s sociopolitical dynamics set limits to its resilience, as well as to the sustainability of its parliamentarism.

Repression and growth in the periphery of Europe: The politics of changing growth regime in Turkey

This study shows that in peripheral economies that are linked into circuits of global capital on unequal terms, attempts to change the core features of an existing growth regime without broader political support intensify externally induced conflict among the ruling coalition. Under these circumstances, a transition to a new demand regime within a short time frame is more likely to take place via authoritarian intervention when the political cost of repression is lower than the cost of redistribution. In developing these points, the analysis builds on evidence from Turkey: following the 2008 global credit crunch, the Justice and Development Party’s (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi, AKP) domestic demand-led and credit-fueled growth under dependent financialization has experienced a major crisis. However, the subsequent push to replace this regime with a profit-led model with an emphasis on exports worsened the conflict among the political coalition supporting the party as their preferences over monetary policy began to diverge. A temporary resolution of this deepening rift has been possible by way of an authoritarian intervention under R. T. Erdogan’s presidential bid in 2017–18. By situating the debate on the relationship between growth regimes and political institutions, the study further unpacks the nexus between democratic backsliding, dominant social blocs, and economic growth in the periphery of Europe.

The variety of anti-gender alliances and democratic backsliding in Turkey: fault lines around opposition to “gender ideology” and their political implications

ABSTRACT This article examines the politics of knowledge production and the affective politics of rising anti-genderism in civil society in contemporary Turkey with a focus on two main points: (1) the variety of actors and their different strategies opposing “gender ideology,” and (2) the effects of state–movement dynamics on the political efficacy of those strategies. The findings demonstrate that anti-gender alliances between state and civil society actors display a discursive plurality in Turkey in terms of how they manage the fluidity and heterogeneity of the opposition to “gender ideology” that links a wide range of concerns about feminist ideas, movements, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and intersex (LGBTI+) rights. Providing a typology of the different forms of opposition to “gender ideology,” the article concludes that in the recent era the right-wing populist regime in Turkey has redrawn its alliances in the gender policy field, accommodating illiberal actors’ anti-gender demands and anti-equality policy visions. This shift toward an aggressive performance of anti-genderism renders gender equality politics more contentious through a polarizing populist form of knowledge production and affective politics and even destabilizes gender equality policies that have already been accepted.

Pravoslavna crkva u raljama aktuelnih globalnih geopolitičkih promena - kanonska i socio-politička analiza

This paper points to processes that have been going on for a century and aim to change the modern image of the Orthodox Church. One patriarchy, the first in honour, is trying to impose itself as the supreme interpreter of traditions and theological narratives, as well as to change the canonical structure and ecclesial identity of all other autocephalous Orthodox Churches. The prehistory of the devastating processes starts with the restoration of national and church self-consciousness in the 19th century in the Balkans, which led to the emergence of the brainchild of restoring the autocephalous status of church communities in the liberated territories. The procedures for church independence were not initially approved by the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The leading patriarchate in honour, faced with the actual church situation on the Balkan Peninsula, confirmed the independence of the Athens Archdiocese and the Metropolitanate of Belgrade in the second half of the 19th century. However, the 20th century brought massive changes. The Balkan Wars, the Great War, the communist revolution in Russia, the disappearance of the Ottoman and Austrian empires, and the great tragedy of the Orthodox Greeks in Constantinople and Asia Minor led to changes in theological paradigms in the Patriarchate of Constantinople, which also initiated a change in its church position from Primus inter pares (The first among equals) to Primus sine paribus (The first without equals). This fact leads to the pretensions of this patriarchate to the entire Orthodox diaspora, as well as to the exclusive right to form criteria for granting autocephalous status to church communities that request it. However, the representatives of the Patriarchate of Constantinople very consistently continue to develop the theological assumptions of the new ecclesiological matrix, especially in the decades after the Second World War. Quite consciously and with the expected outcome, they are approaching the levers of power of the US political elite with the desire to strengthen their position in front of the repressive regime in Turkey. Soon, they began to use the established connections and increased political potential to impose their ecclesiological and canonical views on other Orthodox churches, especially since the fall of the Iron Curtain and the demolition of the Berlin Wall. The resistance of the new ecclesiological narratives of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, which give it a priority place in relation to all other churches and in the processes of accomplishing canonical and spiritual authority, not just honour, to all reasoned theological and historical criticism from Orthodox theologians, canonists, and archbishops, points to the fact that the theological turnover of this Patriarchate is well and studiously prepared. It is apparent that this church expects essential benefits from it, but also that the shaped narratives have a reflective effect on anticipated political situations that have been preparing for decades under the guise of the pseudo-ideological supremacy of the West. Since it is under massive transformative pressure from the Western power centres, it's evident that the Orthodox Church is in great turmoil, with painful uncertainty about its resolution. The processes that are mentioned are part of global geopolitical change. Rational interpretation of reality suggests they are synchronized from the same centre of power and political decision-making, as well as mutually compatible and complementary. This fact tells us that the mutual relations of the Orthodox churches are in a crisis that seems to be designed and managed for the purpose of more comprehensive intervention in the self-consciousness of the Orthodox peoples and their ecclesial, national, ethical, and political identity.

The League of Nations and Turkish political refugees in Greece in the early 1930s

With the signing of the Ankara Agreement in 1930 between Turkey and Greece, the Greek government withdrew its open support for Turkish political opponents of the Kemalist government and expelled such figures from Western Thrace. Among them were some Yüzellilikler, the 150 people proscribed by the Turkish government under the Protocol of the Lausanne Treaty of 1923. The Yüzellilikler, who had gained the status of refugees under the protection of the League of Nations as a result of the 1928 Arrangement, now turned to the League for support. Focusing on the cases of the ex-şeyhülislam Mustafa Sabri and former Ottoman police officer Namık Hilmi, this article discusses the role of the Athens Office of the Nansen International Office for Refugees of the League of Nations in supporting and strengthening the position of the Turkish political opposition to the Kemalist regime in Turkey in the early 1930s.

The parable of copycat headlines under Erdogan regime in Turkey

The parable of copycat headlines under Erdogan regime in Turkey

Gendered familialism in a Mediterranean context: women’s labor market participation and early childhood education and care in Turkey

AbstractThis article explores the relationship between women’s labor market participation and early childhood education and care (ECEC) in Turkey within a broader Mediterranean context. Since the 1990s, there have been significant changes in the familialist models in the Mediterranean region driven by women’s increased labor market participation and the expansion of ECEC services. The transformations in the region have unveiled a significant link between the expansion of preschool education and an increase in women’s labor market participation. Turkey missed this critical juncture in the 1990s, as indicated by the low employment rates of women and below-the-Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)-average preschool enrolment. Through a comparative perspective that examines the slow progress in both areas in Turkey as well as the gendered feature of its familialist model, the article emphasizes the need for closer analysis of the link between ECEC and the low labor force participation of women. Given that the expansion of ECEC in the 2000s has taken place through market-driven services, the article concludes that the link between ECEC and women’s labor market participation exhibits a class dimension. Thereby, women from lower socio-economic groups are increasingly experiencing the impact of the gendered characteristics inherent in the familialist regime in Turkey.

Rejoicing of the hearts: Turkish constructions of Muslim whiteness in Africa south of the Sahara

AbstractThis article analyses the racial framing of the humanitarian encounter between Turkish and African Muslims as a trope of first contact. Intensifying humanitarian relations with Africa south of the Sahara, in tandem with the foreign policy of the AKP (Justice and Development Party), has led to the emergence of a racialized affective regime in Turkey that endows Islamic philanthropy with new racial meanings. This article argues that racial subjects such as the White Muslim and the Black Muslim are produced through the affective labour of humanitarian volunteers and others, who narrativize and circulate experiences of first contact in Turkey. Based on a multi-sited ethnography in Turkey, Tanzania, Senegal, Gambia and Benin, this article explores race-making as affective labour. Taking on Berg and Ramos-Zayas’s call for an anthropological theorization of race and affect, it develops a critical framework to examine how humanitarian voluntarism produces differently racialized subjects. In order to do so, this analysis draws on James Baldwin’s insights into the racial and affective politics of the first contact to discuss how Turkish humanitarians build on and alter the racialized affective regime Baldwin describes.

MANDATORY AUDIT FIRM ROTATION: EVIDENCE FROM TURKISH AUDITORS’ PERCEPTIONS

The purpose of this paper is to investigate auditors' perceptions of mandatory audit firm rotation (MAFR) in Turkey. Using the survey method, the opinions of 45 audit partners, directors, and managers from the audit firms were determined. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first MAFR survey study conducted in Turkey. The findings show that auditors both support and oppose MAFR. Majority of the respondents believe that MAFR will increase independent and objective, higher quality audit, fresh look will be provided, and the risk of audit failure will be decreased as a result of familiarity with client management. Furthermore, respondents stated that the benefits of MAFR cannot exceed the benefits of mandatory audit partner rotation (MAPR). They also highlights that the benefits of MAFR outweigh the costs of enforcing such a requirement. The vast majority of respondents believe that the risk of audit failure (audit risk) is higher in the early years of an audit tenure period. This is, in fact, a result against the MAFR. From the standpoint of IFAC, it is necessary to examine the activities from numerous perspectives. Therefore, it is critical that a country develops a rule based on its own circumstances rather than copying and applying a rule from another country. Regarding audit quality, the MAFR regime in Turkey is not deemed necessary, but the MAPR regime will probably be sufficient.

Spatiotemporal trends in daily and subdaily rainfall extremes and return levels in Turkey

AbstractIn this study, we present the long‐term daily and subdaily station data of annual extreme rainfall (1970–2015) and the trend analyses in rainfall regimes in Turkey. Trends in 5, 10, 15, and 30 min, 1, 2, 6, 12, and 24 hr of extreme rainfall in seven different rainfall regimes are estimated through nonparametric tests. The trends in return levels (2, 20, and 100 years) are defined by an appropriate three‐parameter generalized extreme value distribution and are evaluated in the climatological context of rainfall regimes. Overall, from 5‐min to 2‐hr durations, magnitudes of trends in extreme rainfall constantly increase in all rainfall regimes, which may be attributed to the intensified contribution of convective rainfall as a response to warming. Trend analysis of return levels reveals that, compared with 2‐year return levels, low‐probability high‐impact extreme rainfall events generally have the lowest estimated median trends until 30‐min to 2‐hr range. A shift in the magnitudes of trends occurs generally at 30‐min and 1‐hr durations; trends of rare intense events increase at the expense of less intense extreme rainfall. Thus, the intensification of 1–2‐hr extreme rainfall events can arise from both the increasing trends of more common events in shorter rainfall durations and from the increase in the trends of low‐probability high‐impact extreme rainfall events at this range. Moreover, explicitly in continental rainfall regimes, increases in the magnitudes of the trends in 30‐min to 2‐hr duration range are accompanied by various declines in 6–24‐hr duration range. Although coastal regimes generally have increasing trend values from 5‐min to 24‐hr durations, in northern and southern clusters, changes occur in the variability of extreme rainfall and the trend values of rarer (20‐ and 100‐year return periods) extreme rainfall exhibit increases in 6–12‐hr range.

The Character of Soil Temperature Regime over Turkey

This paper presents the spatial and temporal characteristics of Turkish soil temperature regimes. Basic data consists of the monthly soil temperature averages from 153 stations at depths of 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100 cm for 44 years (1975-2018) record length. The soil temperature regime of Turkey has been analyzed based on both classical climatic regime approach (monthly average soil temperature change) and Soil Taxonomy. As expected, The annual course of soil temperatures differs between the coastal and inland areas of Turkey and in the western and eastern half. Latitude and continentality shapes the soil temperature regime in the eastern half of Turkey while elevation shapes the soil temperature regime in the western half of Turkey. The frost is seen in the eastern half of Turkey in January and February, except for coastal areas. Morever, the frost period goes up to 4 months (November-February) in northeastern Anatolia. Frost reaches up to 90 cm in this area. The high soil temperatures adversely affecting plant life (35 °C and above) is seen in the South-East Anatolia Region and Çukurova region in Turkey in July and August. These high temperatures are effective up to 80 cm in the region. The majority of Turkey has thermic soil or mesic soil. Considering long-term averages (1975-2018), there are four main soil temperature regimes in Turkey as frigid, thermic, mesic, hyperthermic. The eastern Mediterranean coastline and the southwestern Anatolian coastline are hyperthermic soil temperature regime character and the northeast Anatolia (Ardahan surroundings) show a frigid temperature regime character. Percentages of thermic and hyperthermic soil temperature regime have been increasing in the last 10 years. The increase is probably due to the above normal average air temperatures from July to December and the breaking of air temperature records in the last 10 years.

Rising Threats in the US It Can Happen Here: White Power and the Rising Threat of Genocide in the US

ABSTRACTThe Trump presidency in the United States and the consolidation of strongman regimes in Turkey, Russia, India, Hungary, Brazil, and elsewhere sparked new concern about authoritarianism among scholars, including anthropologists. The Society for Cultural Anthropology recently ran a blog series on “American Fascism,” Anthropology Now devoted an issue to the current U.S. conjuncture, and this reviewer and others have highlighted the urgency of analyzing the rightwing offensive. In this outpouring of apprehension, Alexander Hinton's new book occupies a special place.

Rebuilding peace in exile: bringing together the Women, Peace and Security Agenda and the International Refugee Protection Regime in Turkey

ABSTRACT Refugee women are generally depicted as vulnerable and dependent subjects and excluded from peacebuilding efforts. This article is a response to the need for balancing the protection needs of refugee women and their participation in decision-making processes. It brings two different but complementary frameworks, namely the International Refugee Protection Regime (IRPR) and the United Nations Security Council’s Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda, into conversation through a gender analysis. The article shows that bringing these two frameworks together can overcome each other’s limitations regarding refugee women’s agency. Through analysing legal and policy frameworks together with the existing literature on refugee women and the WPS Agenda, this article focuses on Turkey as a case study. This article argues that implementing the IRPR and the WPS Agenda together in a national action plan in Turkey would strengthen refugee women’s protection and promote their agency as actors of peacebuilding in exile.

Examining the effect of credit on monetary policy with Markov regime switching: Evidence from Turkey

This paper analyses the effect of credit on monetary policy responses for different regimes in Turkey. To do so, the Taylor rule augmented with the credit gap is estimated by using a Markov regime switching model from January 2006 to December 2019. The empirical findings identify two regimes: the low- and high-interest rate regimes. The prevalence of the former indicates policy authorities’ growth priorities. Furthermore, differing responses across the regimes reflect that the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey has an asymmetric policy stance. In the low-interest rate regime, the monetary policy only significantly responds to inflation. In the high-interest rate regime, both inflation and credit have significant positive impacts on interest rate setting. This indicates that credit conditions affected the tightening of the monetary policy stance in Turkey despite the use of macroprudential tools after the global financial crisis.

TURKISH TYPE OF LUTHERANISM AND TURKISH NATIONALISM

The influence of nationalism which was spread to the whole world through the way which was paved to the Great War, makes its presence felt majorly in the steps towards modernity after the establishment of the republican regime in Turkey. Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey has made reform in religion and a return to Turkish language a top priority in his modernity programme. Suitable to this determined priority, Atatürk and Turkish intellectuals created a Turkish-Lutheranism, which follows the historical creations of Martin Luther, the leader of the reformation movement. The first step of this secular formation was the translation of the Qur’an into Turkish language. This translation made more of a political impact rather than a religious one. In this study, all of the social and political dimensions of the religious reform and modernity movement fundamentally initiated by the translation of the Qur’an into Turkish Language are going to be reviewed in all of its stages and an attempt to understand the roots of the nationalizing religion which finds ground in the modern Turkish Republic.

YÜZELLİLİK OSMAN NURİ (BALKANLI) BEY’İN GAZETECİ KİMLİĞİ İLE TÜRKİYE CUMHURİYETİ’NE BAKIŞI

As is known, some civilian-military intellectuals came out against the Countrywide Resistance Organization in Anatolia, and the governance of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey during the War of Independence. While some of these intellectuals left the country before the end of the War of Independence, others left the country following the Battle of Dumlupinar, and they were then listed among the Yuzellilik (150 Personae non Gratae) group. Osman Nuri (Balkanli) was one of these intellectuals. Osman Nuri, who was born in Tirnova [Kilifarevo] village of Bulgaria, worked as a self-employed lawyer after completing his law degree, and he also began to work as a journalist in the same period. He also worked as the governor of Ayvalik before the Greek Invasion, and then he was appointed as the governor of Balikesir by the Government of Istanbul. He came back to Istanbul when he found out about the civil resistance in Balikesir, and then he was appointed as the governor of Dersim. After the Representative Committee protested this appointment, he was then appointed as the governor of Bolu. He continued to come out against the War of Independence. He came back to Istanbul after the Representative Committee took over the governance of Bolu, and then he left for Bulgaria in September 1920. He settled in Şumnu and worked as a teacher/hodja in Nuvvab Madrasah and continued to work as a journalist. He wrote in Yarin (Tomorrow) Newspaper published by Mustafa Sabri in Iskeçe (Xanthi); in Intibah (Renaissance) newspaper published in Şumnu; and Acik Soz (Honest Words) and Dostluk (Friendship) newspapers in Sofia. Osman Nuri (Balkanli), who lived in Bulgaria until 1938 and returned to Turkey in the same year, was one of the most important persons with his columns in newspapers popular among the Turks in the Balkans. Both these newspapers and Osman Nuri’s other works and opinions have not yet been revealed. Whereas these articles both reveal the reasons of the opposition for the War of Independence, and they have the potential to explain the Balkan Turks’ outlook on the Turkish Republic after 1923. Besides Osman Nuri’s outlook on the Turkish Republic, in this study, the authors will try to present the conservative Balkan Turks’ outlook on the political regime in Turkey, and their perceptions, thoughts and arguments regarding the reforms.

Turkey's Democratic Erosion: On Backsliding and the Constitution

Turkey's Democratic Erosion:On Backsliding and the Constitution Bertil Emrah Oder (bio) INTRODUCTION In March of 2021, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan introduced an action plan on human rights in Turkey. His opening speech included a quote from Malcolm X: "I am for truth, no matter who tells it. I am for justice, no matter who it is for or against" (Erdoğan 2021). Emphasizing the rule of law and human rights throughout his speech, he reiterated his goal of drafting and ratifying a new constitution to mark the Republic's centenary in 2023. The constitutional call coincided with developments perpetuating Turkey's constitutional backsliding, including its move to ban the third largest political party, the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), and its withdrawal from the Council of Europe's Istanbul Convention on the prevention of violence against women and domestic violence (Official Gazette 2021). As of April 5, 2021, 92 journalists were under arrest, giving Turkey the highest score in terms of threats to journalists in the Council of Europe countries (Council of Europe, www.coe.int/en/web/media-freedom, accessed April 8, 2021). Canan Kaftancıoğlu, one of the leading politicians of the main opposition CHP (the Republican People's Party) in Istanbul, was charged with a series of crimes because of her tweets between 2012 and 2017. Her charges include defamation, inciting public hatred and violence, and insulting the president. The parliamentary immunity of a deputy of the pro-Kurdish opposition HDP, Ömer Gergerlioğlu, was removed [End Page 473] (CoE Parliamentary Assembly 2021), and he was convicted of dissemination of terrorist propaganda by sharing on social media news that had been published by a media outlet. Yet, despite the government's continued and increased actions to undermine democracy in the country, its representatives assert that Turkey needs a new and civilian constitution for the people. Criticizing the constitution-making under military interventions in Turkey, Erdoğan stated, "The new constitution's text, which will emerge with the widest possible consensus, will be submitted for the nation's approval" (Hürriyet 2021a). Shortly after Erdoğan's announcement of the action plan on human rights and his call for a new constitution, the Democracy Report 2021 of the V-Dem Institute placed Turkey on a list of the top 10 autocratic countries and in third place for democratic decline, behind Poland and Hungary, based on recent scores in the Liberal Democracy Index and Electoral Democracy Index (Alizada et. al. 2021, 11, 19). The country had moved towards the consolidation of liberal democracy after 2001 by using deliberative constitutionalism and Europeanization policies in line with the EU accession process. However, since 2014, Turkey has found itself in the bottom 20 percent in the global rankings on the Liberal Democracy Index and has lost its status as an electoral democracy. At present, Turkey's regime type falls within an intermediate category of competitive nondemocracy, i.e., an electoral autocracy (Levitsky and Way 2010, 14–16), as the opposition can still contest governmental issues or rulings using democratic institutions (Alizada et. al. 2021, 19). Under the current circumstances, it is a nondemocracy with multiparty elections, wherein electoral integrity has been secured, mainly by vigilant civic oversight, as observed in Istanbul's mayoral rerun election in 2019. Ekrem İmamoğlu, the main opposition's candidate, won the election in a landslide victory, which was a heavy loss for Erdoğan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) after its 25-year rule in Turkey's largest city. Turkey's current democratic erosion towards autocracy occurred under the AKP's nearly two-decades-long governmental rule. In contrast with the rapid and complete collapse of democracy by military [End Page 474] interventions in 1960 and 1980, this represents a slow degradation. It demonstrates serious backsliding in multiple areas, including curbs on freedom of expression, the shrinkage of the civic space, a dysfunctional and subservient judiciary, and systemic cronyism. Ironically, the AKP government, led by Erdoğan from 2003 to 2010, oversaw a wave of democratization in Turkey. The AKP came to power by receiving 34.8 percent of the vote in 2002. Prior to the 2002 election, the consensual...