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This qualitative study examines teacher educators' articulations about their beliefs and motivations for preparing the next generation of teachers. The study also explores how teacher educators conceptualise their roles as the teachers of prospective teachers. Employing case study design, the participants included 10 teacher educators who serve at a highly selective, public, research university in Turkey. The data were collected through semi-structured and in-depth individual interviews. Adopting critical pedagogy as the theoretical framework, the interviews were analyzed by content analysis method with the help of NVivo 10 qualitative data analysis software. The results showed that the teacher educators specifically saw their roles as enacting change, advocating for democracy, equity, and social justice, and promoting the improvement and welfare of societies, in an effort to bring more emancipatory educational practices in the society through pre-service teacher education. This study furthers our understanding of how teacher education programs could improve their professional preparation and practices to push the agenda for social justice and equity in K-12 schools. [This study was presented at the annual meeting of American Educational Research Association (AERA) in New York/USA between April 13-17, 2018.]

The United Nations (UN) and Council of Europe (CoE) have engaged in the development of a human rights education (HRE) curriculum in Turkey. The study programme for an elective high school course, "Democracy and Human Rights," was first developed as part of the UN Decade for HRE initiative in 1999. The programme was later renewed as part of CoE's Education for Democratic Citizenship and HRE initiative in 2013. This study scrutinises the course's two programmes with a view to providing insights into the role of international agencies in HRE curriculum reforms. The introduction and development of the course--which is possibly the world's longest-lived example of HRE taught as a school subject--was a product of the efforts of the international organisations. After discussing the political-ideological influences of the factions that held power when both programmes were developed, the paper ends with suggestions to improve the effectiveness of international organisations in HRE curriculum reform.

Gender-related issues feature prominently on the EU's agenda and in policies such as the Gender Equality Strategy 2020–2025 which identifies gender equality as a core principle of the EU. Within the broader convergence discourse which examines whether candidate countries are converging with the EU, prompted by Turkey's withdrawal from the Council of Europe Istanbul Convention and the Sofagate incident, this paper conducts a gender-centric convergence analysis in the case Turkey. To this end, it uses five gender-focused indices compiled by the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project. The empirical results from the convergence tests do not provide evidence supporting convergence in terms of these five gender-related indices. The findings of the present study concur with the existing relevant literature and should be viewed in the broader context of Turkey's democratic backsliding and de-Europeanization process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using President Joe Biden's opinion article published in The Washington Post ahead of the June 14, 2021 NATO Summit as a point of departure, the present paper examines how NATO members fare in terms of the core constituent elements of liberal democracy such as civil liberties and freedom of expression. To this effect, the paper uses three indices constructed and published by the Varieties of Democracy project. The Liberal democracy, Civil liberties and Freedom of expression indices. The results from club convergence analysis that covers the post-Cold War period, indicate the presence of different convergence clubs among NATO's member-states and Turkey as the single divergent country. Moreover, given that many NATO countries are also EU members, the paper examines the comparative effect the dual NATO and EU membership had on the democratisation process of East European countries and Turkey. The findings suggest a statistically stronger impact of EU membership vis-à-vis NATO membership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prominent themes in Turkey's political development are modernization and Westernization, notions that carry with them a particular teleology in terms of expected political outcomes. While Turkey has, over several decades, modernized in several respects, Westernization has arguably been much more limited, particularly in terms of embracing political liberalism. This paper scrutinizes its failure to take root in Turkey, noting how a congruence of factors at both the mass and elite levels tends to work against policies that would embrace individual rights and freedoms, pluralism, and a more limited role for the state. It focuses in particular on three periods in Turkish history when liberalism could have potentially been adopted, but ultimately failed to succeed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study deals with the AKP (Justice and Development Party) right-authoritarianism during the COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey, as seen from the perspective of necropolitics. It examines the relationships between politics and death, asking the question of how such relationships fell into an authoritarian character adversely influencing democracy and democratic values. For this, the study centres on the AKP government's response to the pandemic crisis, discussed as a manifestation of necropolitics. The paper explains the concept of necropolitics and underlines two of its fundamental characteristics: state of exception and creation of enemy. The paper focuses on these two traits to frame and critique the AKP's right-authoritarian politics during the COVID-19 outbreak. The aim of the analysis is to show how AKP politics has politicised death, bearing in mind the social and political opposition's moves against such politics in Turkey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Gezi protests were a watershed moment for market liberals since it triggered inter-movement and intra-movement schisms. A flagship institution of market liberals, Liberal Düşünce Topluluğu (the Association of Liberal Thought) underwent such a schismatic process and, consequently, new market-liberal organizations arose from the schism, which was characterized by a frame dispute with the ALT over the policies pursued by the incumbent government, Justice and Development Party (JDP). The framing dispute between the two factions occurred along the lines of securing democracy versus the restriction of state power. This study delineates the root causes of the framing dispute between market liberals. To this end, two factors are proposed to account for it within the context of this paper. These two factors can be encapsulated as the growing conservative/liberal division among market liberals and entrenched interpersonal patronage networks within political circles which is closely related to the changing nature of government-civil society relations in Turkey. Drawing from semi-structured interviews, publications of market liberals, and a good number of secondary sources, we aim to shed light on the rift within market liberals in post-Gezi Turkey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Copenhagen criteria for EU accession are the essential preconditions that candidate countries must satisfy to be deemed eligible for membership. In line with the strand of the literature that focuses on candidate countries' convergence with the EU, the paper examines whether converge with the EU in terms of the Copenhagen political criteria can be established empirically for candidate and potential-candidate countries. Currently, the candidate country status is granted to Albania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey. Bosnia–Herzegovina and Kosovo are recognized by the EU as potential candidate countries. In addition to the candidate and potential candidate countries, we include in the convergence tests the six countries of the Eastern Partnership EU policy: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine. Using unit root tests, convergence is examined in terms of two indices drawn from the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project: the Liberal democracy and the Civil liberties indices. The findings reported herein, are not uniform and on the whole offer only scant evidence in favour of the convergence hypothesis. For some of the candidate and potential candidate countries convergence is established, while for others the results do not point to such a process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review study provides an opportunity to look at the level of organizational democracy (OD) that a large sample of private- and public-sector employees in an emerging market (Turkey) perceive. The focused systematic review includes empirical studies examining employees' level of OD and associated work and organizational psychological variables, using the Organizational Democracy Scale (ODS) in Turkey. This paper includes studies published between January 2014 and April 2021 in the Google Academic, Dergipark, and Ulakbim databases and on the Turkish National Thesis Center website. From a total of 1,778 records, 37 empirical studies meeting the inclusion criteria were included (with a total of N = 10,370 employees). Of these studies, 67.6% are published articles and manuscripts, 24% are unpublished dissertations, and 43.2% of the studies took place in the public sector. The results suggest that the level of employees' perceived OD was slightly above the medium level (mean: 3.30 ± 81), and the scores of the private-sector employees are higher than those of the public employees. Further, empirical associations between OD and 21 different outcome variables are reported and discussed. To varying extents, significant positive correlations were found between the level of employees' perceived OD and positive organizational variables, such as organizational citizenship behavior, organizational commitment, psychological capital, and job satisfaction. On the other hand, negative significant relationships occurred between OD and negatively evaluated organizational variables, such as job stress and organizational depression. The results of this study support the importance of organizational democracy as a management approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research explores and compares basic indicators regarding the participation of young people in political processes in Turkey and Bulgaria between 2011 and 2016. The data used are derived from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems database. The results of the secondary processing of the quantitative data are comparatively analyzed. This paper shows that the youth of Turkey and Bulgaria had some similarities regarding their attitudes toward civic participation but also significant differences. The economic performances of governments shown to be a factor regarding support for ruling parties. However, in the case of Bulgaria, other factors played more significant roles in this respect during the examined period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Selcuk Law Review / Selçuk Üniversitesi Hukuk Fakültesi Dergisi is the property of Selcuk Law Review and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Bulletin of Ablai Khan KazUIRandWL: Series 'International Relations & Regional Studies' is the property of Kazakh Ablai Khan University of International Relations & World Languages and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The relevance of the stated topic is determined by the constant decline in the level of democracy in the Republic of Turkey over the past few years, which is characterised by the decline in the development of the fundamental rights and freedoms of its citizens. Arbitrariness in the judicial system, international law violations, antidemocratic legislation is the chosen course for deeper European integration and has every chance to remain an exclusively imaginary strategy without its external embodiment. In this regard, this work is aimed at analysing Turkish legislation in the area of human rights and determining its compliance with the principle of the rule of law. Also, the study is focused on covering the essence of the effective democratic governance, controversial political and legal decisions of the Turkish government, as well as Turkey’s political problems in its relations with the European Union. The leading methods of the study were theoretical methods of generalisation and analysis, with the help of which the current factors inhibiting European integration processes in the state were comprehensively considered, as well as the method of studying regulatory documentation, which made it possible to analyse the national legal framework and the current state of compliance with international treaties in the area of human rights protection. The article reveals the importance of the rule of law and freedom in the fight against discriminatory manifestations within the country, as well as the need to develop a protected legal framework as a necessary criterion for membership of the European Union. At the same time, the gradual waning of democracy and the reinforcement of authoritarianism in the Republic of Turkey were substantiated. The materials of this scientific work are intended to draw the public’s attention to the democratic freedom issue and especially its absence, and the obtained conclusions will be a foundation for further practical studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise of populism presents a challenge to liberal democracy in various countries. This article questions how populist attitudes affect the democratic preferences of the electorate. Using representative survey data fielded from Turkey in 2019, we first tested the effect of populist attitudes on illiberal democratic attitudes. The results show the negative impact of populism on support for illiberal democratic attitudes. Next, we analyzed which dimension of populism correlates with illiberal democratic preferences. Our results pointed to the negative influence of the Manichean outlook on preferences concerning democracy. Contrary to expectations, as anti-elitist and people-centric attitudes increase, support for illiberal democracy decreases. Hence, the relative emphasis on different dimensions of populism is likely to shape the net balance of its influence on democracy. Electoral alliance preferences also shape democracy preferences. The ruling People's Alliance voters are more supportive of illiberal democracy than the opposition blocs and parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Turkey, tea is a near-universally consumed beverage that also operates as a salient moral and political sign in social life. This article describes how tea functions as a "medium of value" in the country, circulating as both a physical commodity and a multivalent sign vehicle that is closely linked in popular imagination to modern modes of egalitarian sociability and the formation of Turkey's postwar multiparty democracy. In describing the semiotic ideologies that inform tea's uptake as a sign and its place in Turkey's modern public culture, the article also traces the historical-material processes that have made tea into both a symbolic model of communal solidarity and a salient sign of national difference—a contested semiotic medium of representation that informs popular discourses on public virtue and democratic politics and that is prominently mobilized in divergent public making projects in contemporary Turkey and North ("Turkish") Kurdistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reflects on the reasons why Erdoğan and the Justice and Development Party (AKP) could still win in the recent 2023 presidential and parliamentary elections in Turkey despite, among other daunting issues, the deep economic crisis and their unsuccessful handling of the February 2023 earthquake. The article discusses the role of state apparatus and the media under a neopatrimonial system, as well as the role of the EU, which turned Turkey into a rentier state with the refugee deals. The discussion considers whether Turkey could still be seen as a competitive authoritarian regime and points to the difficulties in determining whether regimes such as the Turkish one are competitive authoritarian or not until the election results are seen and the opposition candidates actually win. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Finland and Sweden originally made a pact to join NATO together following the invasion of Ukraine. As evident by current events, Finland has joined the bloc, while Sweden must continue to wait to have its membership approved. This article examines why it has occurred through an analysis of the requirements to join NATO and the reasons Türkiye and Hungary have used to justify their delaying Finland from joining NATO while continuing to refuse to sign Sweden’s accession protocol. Finland joined without Sweden – a result of Türkiye and, to a lesser extent, Hungary attempting to make NATO membership conditional on issues unrelated to the requirements to join NATO. Due to the requirement that the members of NATO unanimously approve applicants, applicant countries are at the mercy of current members. It has allowed Türkiye and Hungary to delay Finland’s accession to NATO and to not ratify Sweden’s accession protocol, not based on the country’s preparedness to fulfil NATO obligations but instead based on personal disputes they have with the Swedish government. Türkiye is not satisfied with Sweden’s freedom of speech laws permitting the burning of the Quran meanwhile Hungary is using the opportunity to punish Sweden for raising concerns about the state of democracy in Hungary. The North Atlantic Treaty does not include an article that details the removal of a country from NATO, and NATO leadership has not indicated any interest in removing Türkiye or Hungary for not yet approving Sweden’s request to join the organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When outside actors criticize domestic rights and freedoms, do voters take notice? We argue that messages coming from outsiders who condition resources on democracy, and who have expertise in democracy promotion, are more likely to change minds. We also argue that partisanship is a moderating variable when it comes to the impact of outside messages: partisan elites help amplify or lessen the impact of outside messages. We offer evidence from a series of survey-experiments we deployed in Turkey, focusing on the roles of the European Union and of the European Court of Human Rights as sources criticism of domestic freedoms. We show that emphasizing expertise and conditional benefits can cause more belief updating. We also show that pro-government voters are likely to change their minds but that opposition supporters may do so as well. Non-partisan voters show some evidence of backlash, possibly because they are disengaged and alienated from elites. The argument has implications for the ability of outside actors to influence domestic-level processes related to democracy in countries in imperfect democracies and in countries sliding towards authoritarianism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article attempts to explain the role of the educational civil society in Turkey from 2003 to 2012, where the regime excessively co-opts and controls associational life while maintaining a veneer of nominal compliance with democratic values. While existing studies fail to explain how the state interacts with these organizations during regime transitions, this research addresses this gap by adopting two educational policy periods as a case study. Thus, it shows the role of civil society under competitive autocratic regimes and which mechanisms the state uses in its shifting approach to civil society organizations in policymaking. This article claims that the state co-opts government-friendly civil society organizations and alters existing laws and regulations of educational institutions to keep the facade of democracy. Competitive autocratic state structure and its limited capacity, however, compel the regime to include different civil society organizations into the policymaking. Additionally, these organizations' extensive knowledge and expertise are indispensable and invaluable resources the state needs to implement policies. Based on elite interviews of state officials and civil society organizations, and extensive document research, this article presents crucial insights on how competitive autocratic regimes adapt their approach to civil society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of European Review of Public Law is the property of European Public Law Organization and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in 2002 with the promise of reforms to further democratic consolidation in Turkey. At that time, the AKP represented a rainbow coalition of individuals from the previous Islamist parties and many liberal democrats who were fed up with the failures of old secular political parties. The Turkish public shared their frustrations and overwhelmingly supported the AKP. Unfortunately, these reforms did not last. Today, it is indisputable that under the rule of the AKP, and more specifically, President Recep T. Erdoğan, Turkey has become an authoritarian state defined and shaped by one person. This article explores what these developments mean for the future of Turkish democracy as the country celebrates its centenary, and it includes an examination of whether Turkish political culture is supportive of such changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Turkey's fast-paced democratic backsliding has attracted unprecedented scholarly interest from observers both inside and outside the country. Among various labels proposed to define Turkey's new regime type, 'competitive authoritarianism' (CA) has by far outdistanced its rivals. As plenty of time has passed since its coinage, it is timely to commence a scholarly discussion on the appropriateness of the term. Our analysis reveals that the CA argument comes with three major shortcomings when applied to the case of Turkey. First, although its proponents discuss the concept adequately and seem to find abundant evidence to convince most of their audience, they undertake little, if any, theoretical discussion to show why CA is more plausible than its alternatives. Second, although the party system is generally regarded as the main indicator of a certain regime type, the link between the two remains un(der)-explored. Third, the mechanism leading to the transition to CA is not fully identified. We conclude that experts have jumped on the CA bandwagon, dubbing Turkey's authoritarian regime competitive authoritarian without sufficient conceptual sophistication; this has proved deleterious rather than beneficial to the relevant literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What do national votes mean for dual citizens who have the right to vote here and there? Does political socialization in a liberal democratic system lead to a democratic remittance or do immigrant minorities align with authoritarian regimes challenging the West's liberal democratic values? In this article, we analyse voting preferences by using a transnational lens that focuses on the convergence of two different political systems via immigrant-origin voters. We focus on the Turkish-Dutch population from conservative backgrounds in our aim to gain a thorough understanding of support towards Islamic parties here (in the Netherlands) and there (in Turkey). This is one of just a few studies that have investigated the complex and layered nature of political preferences in a transnational world. A qualitative approach is followed to acquire in-depth insights of the ideas and evaluations of our research group. We collected data through semi-structured interviews (N = 21) between 2017 and 2018. Our conclusions indicate the significance of ethnic and religious identity, opening the way for Erdoğan's authoritarian populism in shaping political preferences across the transnational political environment. Such influence, however, is limited by other factors such as adherence to democratic values and norms on the one hand and rational political calculations on the other hand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies on far right party behaviour mostly focus on democracies. While valuable, they do not fully explain the behaviour of such parties in other regime settings. We argue that non-ruling parties in hybrid regimes, including far right parties, respond to topics like immigration differently from their counterparts in democracies. As an example, we explore the puzzling behaviour of the leading Turkish far right party, MHP, toward Syrian refugees in Turkey. We argue that MHP has prioritised ideological infiltration on policymaking over vote seeking on the issue, which can explain the divergence between the sentiments of its supporters and its behaviour. Aside from the literature on immigration, far right parties and Turkish politics, our discussions can contribute to the literature on nondemocratic regimes in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the instrumentalization of women's rights and the transformation of the gender rights regime in the context of democratic backsliding in Turkey. I show how the Islamically rooted Justice and Development Party governments and their allies used women's rights in constructing authoritarian rule and promoting a conservative gender agenda. The governing elites had different needs at different political stages and instrumentalized women's rights to meet those needs. First, they needed to legitimize their rule in a secular context, so they expanded liberal laws on women's rights. Second, in the process of backsliding, they sought to construct and legitimize their conservative ideology, so they reinterpreted existing laws to promote conservative goals. Finally, they wanted to mobilize conservative women in support of the newly authoritarian regime, so they built new institutions and marginalized existing women's NGOs. The article contributes to the literature on regime types and gender rights by shifting the focus from regime type to regime change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do voters care about anti-democratic behavior by their leaders? While political pundits and academics often hope that they do, there has been little research that tests the effects that specific anti-democratic actions have on voters during elections. This is because there are few clear instances where violations of democratic norms are so visible to the average voter that one would expect it to have an effect, above and beyond traditional predictors of the vote. However, the recent elections in Turkey offer a unique opportunity to test the effect that nullifying an entire election (an unequivocal violation of democratic norms) has on voters. We do exactly that with a survey of voters following the election re-do. We find that even in such an extraordinary circumstance, voters rely on standard voting drivers like partisanship, rather than concern for the functioning of democracy itself. Ultimately, our findings have important implications for voting in competitive authoritarian regimes, as they fail to show that anti-democratic behavior is punished. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of Turkish is increasing day by day with the geographical location of Turkey and the development it has shown in every field. With this importance, an increase is observed in the number of those who want to learn Turkish as a foreign language. Those who want to learn Turkish as a foreign language apply to Turkish Teaching Centers (TÖMER) and learn Turkish with the teaching principles and methods determined. Some books and publications are used during this teaching. One of these publications and books is Istanbul Turkish for Foreigners B1 Textbook. In order to teach Turkish correctly and quickly, these books should be rich in visual content. It is important that the images also evoke the relevant text and enable the student to make inferences about the text. In this study, the importance of Turkish, its development, the reason for the increase in the need to learn Turkish as a foreign language and its consequences are mentioned. Then, the visual-text harmony in the 4th Unit of the Istanbul Turkish for Foreigners Textbook B1 Textbook was examined, and the visual elements and visual order in the text, and the text-visual layout of the Educational Life unit were mentioned. In this study, it was concluded that some images were compatible with the text and the images were smaller than the texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

U.S. debates on reforming the Supreme Court, including controversial arguments to break the norm against court-packing to repair the democratic system, have generally focused on historical precedents and the domestic system, with scant comparative analysis. However, the U.S. debate raises fundamental questions for comparative constitutional lawyers regarding the paradoxes of constitutional repair in contexts of democratic decay, framed here as a distinct category of constitutional transition. This study argues that sharpening our analytical tools for understanding such reforms requires a novel comparative and theoretical approach valorizing the experiences of Global South states and drawing on, and connecting, insights across four overlapping research fields: Democratic decay, democratization, constitution-building, and transitional justice. The article accordingly pursues comparative analysis of the legitimacy of court-packing through case-studies of Turkey and Argentina to offer a five-dimensional analytical framework: (i) democratic context; (ii) articulated reform purpose; (iii) reform options; (iv) reform process; and (v) repetition risk. In doing so, this article seeks not to present a rigid check-list for evaluating the legitimacy of contested reforms, but rather, to foreground important dimensions of reforms aimed at reversing democratic decay as an emergent global challenge for public law meriting closer attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What happens to the anti-establishment sentiments of pro-incumbent voters for a populist force that is in government and thus controls the political system? This article examines this question utilizing the case of Turkey, a country in which a populist force has been in power for more than a decade. By analyzing populist attitudes among a nationally representative sample, we demonstrate that while the voters of the incumbent populist party (AKP) are less likely, compared to everyone else, to hold populist sentiments, the same voters are also substantially more likely to endorse conspiracy theories that center on malign foreign powers. This finding is relevant beyond Turkey, because it demonstrates that populist forces might be able to maintain popular support and thus stay in power for a long stretch of time by employing government propaganda to fuel an antagonism against conspiratorial foreign and global forces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heightened political polarisation threatens democratic stability. While prior studies find polarisation in competing groups' deployment of different terminologies to describe the same topic, we emphasise that it can also be evident in groups' attachment of different meanings to the same terminology. Competition for dominance in the public sphere is reflected in social media which become sites of contestation, showcasing antagonistic claims of legitimacy. In a case-study of the June 2019 rerun Istanbul elections in Turkey, we used qualitative and computational methods to analyse approximately 116,000 tweets, focusing on discussions around the themes of 'democracy', 'elections', and 'public service'. Twitter users associated the act of casting a vote not only with electing the candidate, but also with a competition over the future of Turkish democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Law & Justice Review is the property of Justice Academy of Turkey and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The early monumental statues of Atatürk in Turkey have so far been studied from the perspective of the state and its ambition to disseminate a national consciousness. While this state‐centric approach has been helpful to understand the role of symbolism in nation‐building, it ends up reducing people to a passive recipient of symbolic indoctrination. We, in contrast, approach public perception as an active component in the discursive construction of these monuments over time. We first analyse the period until the death of Atatürk in 1938 during which the democratic possibility of conflicting with the official narrative remained quite minimal. We then look at the aftermath of Atatürk's death, which coincides with the introduction of the multiparty democracy in Turkey where there were more critical engagements with these monuments, particularly by the right‐wing constituents and politicians. We conclude that such resistance was still discursively bound by the nationalist context within which it operated. Our analysis of the politics of symbolism in Turkey taps into the theoretical works of Hanna Pitkin and Warren Breckman. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite Turkey's long-standing history of inter-party democracy, its political parties have remained distant from intra-party democracy (IPD). This study investigates the quality and level of Turkey's four big parties' IPD culture with a systematic, quantitative survey data collected from parties' district members in 2015. The data analysis demonstrates that despite its anti-systemic left-radicalism and alleged association with the armed groups, the Kurdish left (HDP) is relatively the most internally democratic party. The centre-left CHP has some edge owing to its limited use of primaries for candidate selection, yet it often comes secondary after the HDP. The two parties of the Turkish-Islamic right, AKP and MHP, are relatively more autocratic, sometimes indistinguishable. Despite the overwhelming effects of the failed coup and the system change with the 2017 referendum, the birth of new splinter parties such as the Good Party (İYİ), Future Party and DEVA still points to potential future in-party dynamics that can help improve the IPD culture in Turkey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Collected Papers of the Law Faculty of the University of Rijeka / Zbornik Pravnog Fakulteta Sveučilišta u Rijeci is the property of Pravni fakultet Sveucilista u Rijeci and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)