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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]

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]

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]

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]

The Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (AKP) which has a tendency towards Islam, but secular concurrently raises a question: what is the identity of the AKP? To date, this question is still being debated although generally, AKP has frequently been denoted as a party with an Islamic aspiration. Hence, this paper aims to revisit the identity of the AKP based on the framework of Islamic political movement. This paper fully adopted library research by examining sources related to the scope of the discussion. Ideologically, AKP makes conservative democracy as its ideology by harmonizing between conservative and liberal democratic values. The party also adheres to the secularism discourse although it meets almost all the characteristics of Islamic political movement for the Turkish context. Besides, it was found that the AKP has sided to religious interests in few issues. At the same time, AKP also has been resisted by military as the guardian of secular principle. This paper argues that the AKP is a party of its own identity, where it upholds the liberal version of secularism and tends to create an accommodative atmosphere for free religious practice. Finally, this paper offers some recommendations that can be considered for future studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to reveal the main features of the right to aca- demic freedom by analyzing theoretical aspects of this concept, some moments of its historical development, related case law, and the Turkish case. The first chapter considers the relationship between the right to academic freedom and the other human rights, its structure, and its place in legal acts. Then, the paper reveals the practical issues regard- ing the right to academic freedom, taking into account the most significant legal inter- pretations of the concept of academic freedom in the form of legal judgments from U.S. and European courts. More precisely, the case law of the U.S. Supreme Court, European Court of Human Rights, and European Court of Justice is relevant in understanding how both sides of Atlantic Ocean understand the right to academic freedom. The third chapter considers the state of academic freedom in the Republic of Turkey. The case of Bogazici University is considered in an attempt to reveal the restrictive conditions of academic freedom in Turkey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

President Erdoğan and the AKP government initiated a comprehensive restoration process immediately after the failed coup in mid-July 2016. In fact, the country has been experiencing a very comprehensive and violent regime transformation since this time. I assert that recent political developments paved the way for institutionalization of a 'plebiscitary presidential regime' that depends on a particular combination of supreme power of the leader, an extremely weak parliament, and elections of a plebiscitary character. In this context, the paper aims to shed light on the role of the new strategic legalism which allows rule of law to be replaced by a rule by law approach, the executive prerogative principle to be dominant, and the law to be used for demobilization, all playing a highly critical role in the suppression of democratic opposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the relationship between Islam and democracy has received considerable attention in the social science literature, very few studies have explained the dynamics of support for democracy through a micro-level, socio-psychological lens. Applying a novel perspective, this study analyzes the empirical nexus among Islamic religiosity, being open to new ideas and creativity (ONIC), and pro-democratic attitudes to probe the following two questions: Are Muslims who are open to new ideas and think creatively more supportive of democracy than those who are not? Could ONIC be an intervening factor between religiosity and support for democracy? To this end, the paper systematically (1) examines the interrelationship between ONIC and Islamic religiosity; (2) estimates the effects thereof on support for democracy; (3) assesses the mediating potential of ONIC between devoutness and pro-democratic attitudes through an illustrative case of Turkey. The findings indicate that ONIC and Islamic religiosity are not mutually exclusive. The evidence also suggests that, ceteris paribus, while religiosity is positively associated with pro-democratic attitudes, the mediating potential of ONIC is inconclusive. Religiosity and ONIC appear to have an independent effect on support for democracy. Educational reforms or policies that cultivate and support creative thinking might be consequential for building and fostering democracy in Islamic societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past few decades there has been a great deal of interest in the academic literature on the relationship between civil society organizations (CSOs) and the state, and the impact of state power on CSOs in the Middle East North Africa (MENA) region. Yet, despite this interest, very few detailed empirical explorations of these issues have been conducted to date. Of the detailed empirical work that does exist, none has focused on state–CSO relations in a democratic context in the MENA. This paper contributes to filling this gap by examining these relations and their implications in the Turkish context. More specifically, this paper explores the democratizing role of independent women’s organizations in Turkey and the ways in which the state has sought to exert power over and control these organizations. The methodology consists of a series of 38 in-depth interviews with both registered and unregistered women’s organizations from across the seven administrative regions of Turkey. The findings show that while CSOs do challenge the state in some regards, the state is by far the more powerful actor and very effective at moderating and de-radicalizing civil society. The state does this by controlling the areas in which CSOs can operate and be effective, and through the use of repressive measures. The results show that these measures have the effect of tempering the demands of CSOs and reducing their capacity to challenge and counterbalance state power. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper makes a parallel reading of two recent urban protest movements: the 2013 Istanbul Gezi Park Movement (GPM) and the 2014 Hong Kong Umbrella Movement (UM). As regional centers at both ends of Asia, Istanbul and Hong Kong might at fırst sight appear to be incongruent cities for comparison. Istanbul’s recent past has been defined by contrasting opinions about the city’s post-imperial identity, while Hong Kong’s recent past has been shaped by competing visions around the city’s post-colonial status. Directing attention to the striking parallels between the GPM and UM in terms of the nature of the events themselves, the profile of the participants and opponents, the government response that they received, and the cultural sensitivities concerning the questions of belonging and identity that they rekindled, the paper argues that comparative studies of the new urban protest movements would provide significant insights for discerning the dynamics of emerging illiberal democracies across the world. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper proposes an alternative form of conflict resolution to analyze ethnic conflict and Kurdish dissent in the polarized and divided society of Turkey. It does so by employing Mouffe’s concept of agonism and radical democracy, in conjunction with Laclau’s model of populism. Through an analysis of the role of the Kurdish-led, left-leaning populist party, the People’s Democratic Party (HDP), and its approach to Turkish-Kurdish reconciliation, the paper makes the case for the political and theoretical effectiveness of an agonistic approach, illustrating the possibility of dispute resolution by taking conflict into the centre of the peace building process. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores the phenomenon of the absence of public libraries from the politics and agendas of the Republic of Turkey, which was founded in 1923. Every institution is established and developed within the framework of the laws of its country. Both the successes and failures of institutions are directly proportional to the understanding of democracy in that country. In countries where democracy is not indigenized, the desires of the rulers in power may forge ahead regardless of what the legislation stipulates. The library as a social institution is an indispensable component of the dynamics of any democratic country. Therefore the question being asked is, to what extent can public libraries fulfill their objectives and functions in countries like Turkey, where democracy is not yet fully indigenized? With this question in mind, the paper first determines the place and function of politics in the general history of public libraries in Turkey; it then goes on to reveal how library institutions are affected when politics and democracy do not overlap. The methodology used for the study is an analysis of documents such as government programs, development plans, and laws and regulations. Data show that what has been promised directly or indirectly by some government programs has never been realized. It is concluded that unstable politics and the involvement of politicians in the operations of libraries hinder public libraries in performing their role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main goal of this paper is to explain the rise of competitive authoritarianism in Erdoğan's Turkey. The recent literature has mainly focused on the taxonomical debate about the type of regime established by Erdoğan, dealing only rarely with the factors explaining the Turkish autocratization. Building on Levitsky and Loxton's framework, which underlines the catalyst role played by the election of populist leaders for the rise of competitive authoritarianism in Latin America, the analysis identifies the interactions among Erdoğan's populism and threats and opportunities provided by both domestic and international environments as the major cause explaining Turkish autocratization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the dynamics of making group rights claims using individual human rights discourse in the Turkish public sphere. Group claims that invoke universalist discourses are paradoxical. While some groups demand group rights, they frame these demands in terms of universal human rights claims. This paper highlights this paradox by looking at the dynamics of making group rights claims using individual human rights discourse with an empirical case study from Turkey. The study looks at the case of Mazlumder which is an Islamist human rights association in Turkey. The paper uses the qualitative case study method based on in-depth interviews with members of the group. Three themes that highlight the paradox emerge from the research: the emphasis on the rights-based discourse, their anti-state rhetoric and their interpretation of democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – This paper aims to make use of participatory scenarios to assess the multiple aspects of space with the help of future scenarios. Design/methodology/approach – This paper makes an attempt to appreciate multiple representations of space where past and present experiences merge with future desires and concerns. With the help of one case study, Izmir (Turkey), where a vision of democratic city is developed, the paper shows how future scenarios can provide deeper and richer appreciation of present space, thereby challenging existing spatial practices. Findings – The participatory approach used in the development of scenarios suggests interesting implications to operationalise a more relational concept of space in real planning strategies. Research limitations/implications – The use of scenarios in strategic planning to identify future possibilities and to make stakeholders aware of uncertainties has been increasingly recognised in planning research and practice. Practical implications – The appreciation of the multiple aspects of space with the help of future scenarios would enrich the spatial planning practice. Social implications – The use of participatory approach to preparing scenarios enables participants to make use of interactive method in social and political discourses. Originality/value – The use of scenarios to examine various aspects of space that may be relevant in spatial planning has not received similar attention. The latter poses methodological as well as practical challenges for researchers. This paper is an attempt to do just that. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Guillermo O’Donnell’s influential work ‘Delegative Democracy’ set the discourse on a peculiar type of democracy. Lying between representative democracy and authoritarianism, the uniqueness of delegative democracy lies in its features, including an absence of horizontal accountability, strong centralised rule, individual leadership with unchecked powers, a cult figure embodying the nation and clientelist practices. While delegative democracies seem to arise out of presidential systems, Turkey, though a parliamentary system, has also displayed the distinctive features of delegative democracies. This paper identifies three characteristics of delegative democracy, which are responsible for the lack of democratic consolidation, if not the erosion of democracy itself: anti-institutionalism, an anti-political agenda and clientelism. Arguing that delegative democracy is the best concept with which to examine contemporary Turkey, the paper lays out how, post-2011, Turkey has demonstrated the three elements of delegative democracy. The final section discusses the implications of the Turkish case for scrutinising the very possibility of delegative democracy in parliamentary regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper reviews the evolution of the Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (AKP)’s civilizational outlook vis-à-vis the West as a discursive instrument that justified its Muslim democracy practices as well as its nativist authoritarian practices. The former practice entails that the AKP appear as a Muslim democratic political force, reconciling Islam and democracy, falsifying the Orientalist essentialism prevalent in the West and resolving the crisis in Turkey’s Western identity. After relieving the secular establishment of its guardianship roles in 2010/2011, the AKP’s nativist practices have aimed at redefining Turkey as a Muslim nation by using a civilizational discourse. As such, the AKP’s nativism was characterized by an attempt at resetting the legitimate parameters of Turkish politics to reject the validity of the universal norms of democracy and the legitimacy of their domestic and international proponents. This naturally entailed a populist anti-establishment stance in foreign as well as domestic policy realms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a wide gap between planning ideology and planning practice in some regimes. In planning practice, contextual differences and traditional practices affect urban spatial configurations and their related societal dimensions, and also influence the legislative and administrative systems that dictate the process and production of the built environment. This is linked to situations where hidden practices and power relations among key actors may limit democratic participation in the planning process and challenge ethical practice. This paper focuses on the emerging traditions of planning practice in Turkey. We argue that by understanding the role(s) of the key actors in the process and investigating approval processes in detail, it can become evident that planning 'on the ground' is often tokenistic and circumvented by hegemonic power relations and tactical actions. These latter in turn side-step a requirement for democratic participation and encourage a 'loosening' of planning ethics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today, regional economic integration in the Middle East continues to remain at an unusually low level compared to other regions of the world. This is especially problematic because traditionally, regional integration has long been seen as an effective tool for encouraging regional peace, stability and prosperity, with also the added expectation that economic growth may also help or facilitate transition to democracy. This paper asks the question of whether the Arab uprisings might provide a new environment in which Turkey and the USA, together with the European Union, could cooperate to bring about some degree of regional economic integration. The paper discusses Turkey's increasing economic engagement of its neighbourhood since the end of the Cold War and argues that this experience constitutes a good basis for cooperation, even if there remain a number of challenges stemming from Turkey as well as the Middle East. As much as these challenges may seem insurmountable, initiating a tri-lateral dialogue is of critical importance as the rewards of regional integration in the Middle East in terms of stability, peace and prosperity would be huge and of a ‘win-win’ nature for Turkey, for the EU, for the USA, and of course for the region. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The aim of this paper is to discuss the ‘Kurdish question’ in Turkey within the framework of the current debates on the ‘death of multiculturalism’. Contra what I would call ‘multikulti-sceptics’, I contend that it is too early to compose an epitaph for multiculturalism, both as practice and as ideology, that there is no binary opposition between a form of rights-based multiculturalism on the one hand, and universal human rights, democratic constitutionalism or social cohesion on the other. The paper also focuses on ‘multicultural constitutional citizenship,’ based on democratic deliberation and dialogue, as a solution to Kurdish demands for the public recognition of their identities. I juxtapose Kurdish claims with similar demands made by national minorities in other contexts, and conclude by delineating the normative contours of multicultural constitutional citizenship and outlining the practical measures that are required to sustain it. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Participation is key to the discussions of democracy and justice. For all citizens, no matter their differences, having the ability to participate is a difficult but required condition for a just and democratic political community. Based on the recent research on citizenship in Turkey, this article aims to explore, first, whether young citizens’ political participation shows a different pattern when compared to the rest of the population and, second, whether being young still determines the outcome when controlled for demographical factors and economic status. We then question whether belonging to different collective identities plays a different role in the way young citizens participate, and how. Last, mostly focusing on young citizens’ perceptions of the Gezi Park protests, the paper will discuss the role of politicized collective identities in the formation of conventional and unconventional political participation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An essay on Turkey's exit from democracy and a shift to authoritarianism and an Islamist revolution is presented. It discusses the nation's illiberal governance including its quest to mobilize voters by polarizing society to unequal election campaign. It also examines the ideas and papers prsented at an international symposium on majoritarianism, populism an crises of liberal mode democracy, held at the University of Graz in October 2015.

This paper seeks to explain Turkey’s rapid de-democratization from the conceptual perspective of existential insecurity, which accounts for the unwillingness of incumbents to share or relinquish power. The Kemalist era, the multi-party period and the early AKP era have all shown elements of the radicalizing effects of political insecurity and the weak institutions which stem from them. The concurrence of a revisionist Islamist project and geopolitical and ideological crises in Turkey’s overlapping neighbourhoods, however, have driven existential angst and insecurity among the incumbents to novel proportions. Under the conditions of this aggravated insecurity, the consolidation of a stable authoritarian regime appears unlikely, reducing the possible scenarios for Turkey’s immediate future to a weak and contested authoritarian arrangement or further escalation of conflict and instability. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper traces the ideology of democratic autonomy, as developed by PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan from the libertarian and anarchist writings of Murray Bookchin, as an alternative to the authoritarian and centralist nation state, not only in the Kurdish-inhabited provinces, but in Turkey at large. It explores, first, the ideological underpinnings and second, the practical implementation of democratic autonomy both in south-eastern Turkey and in north-eastern Syria, or Rojava. Divergences between the two, I will argue, are not merely the result of contradictions between ideology and practice, or of the PKK’s enduring Leninist vanguardism, but also arise because the ideology itself remains ambiguous or implicit on the questions of party organization and the legitimacy of armed resistance. These ambiguities help to account for the apparent tension between grassroots anarchism and Leninist centralism in democratic autonomy, not only in practice but also in theory. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Even though they are not the sole forms of organization in a democratic system, political parties constitute the most effective bodies of people's will. A large volume of empirical research has been conducted for a concrete clarification of the cyclical relationship between the types of election system, political party system and political system. This paper aims to examine this relationship by focusing on different states, with a special focus on Turkey. It is argued that the more democratic a political system is, the more democratically political parties will have to function, and that the higher the eagerness of political parties to function democratically, the more the democratic capacity of a political system will expand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Democratization policies in Turkey are implemented on macro levels and mainly argued on the basis of ethnic and class power relations. The nation's democratization efforts do not treat masculine tutelage as a freedom issue. Gender-based power relations are limited with the sub-field of social problems. As democracy and freedom discourses in Turkey have yet to discard their masculine characteristics, the discourse of women is still limited in the family context where modernization is only able to question women's rights and freedoms within the framework of family responsibilities. Thus, it is quite difficult to discuss real modernization in Turkey unless the masculine modernization in the country is not transformed into a multiple modernization. This paper discusses the unjust structure of the political system founded on the gender-based unequal distribution of rights and freedoms and aims to identify the extent of representative injustice using statistical descriptive analysis of qualitative methodology. Its results indicate that, although there is a relative increase in the number of women in the parliament, the percentage of women parliamentarians has yet to reach satisfactory levels. On the basis of these ratios, the universal basic principle of political democracy, justice in representation, is discussed in a twenty-first century perspective and in the context of Turkey's democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the ongoing process of transition in Turkey from a "homogeneous national identity", which produced a notion of "equality as sameness", to a "multiculturalist democracy" that requires a new constitutional system that has a conception of "equality in difference". The organization of this paper is as follows: First a brief evaluation of the Kemalist foundations of the Republic will be provided to establish how the official ideology in Turkey conceives of state-society relations. An evaluation of the persistence of this official ideology under the multiparty political system is provided in the second part. The final part of the paper concentrates on the rising public presence of the Kurdish problem, which is forcing Turkish politics to change its constitutional identity, most notably aided by the process of change driven by EU reforms. The article concludes with a call for the inevitability of a radical change in Turkish constitutional identity to include a public recognition of multiculturalism through an acceptance of linguistic and other cultural rights, but leaves open the question of how this change will be realized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the state of civil society in Turkey in order to determine whether the Turkish government is involved in repressing the rights and freedoms of individual Turkish citizens. The paper is divided into six parts that include an introduction and conclusion. Part two discusses the various meanings of "civil society" over time and states that it is the current understanding of civil society, that of institutions and organizations outside of and autonomous of the domain of the state, that is of interest to the authors. As pointed out, if these organizations are able to function properly, then democracy and freedom of speech are enhanced. The next part discusses particular civil society organizations in Turkey and concludes that the state turns a deaf ear to those it does not favor or it discourages alternative ideas to its ideology—its version of secularism. Part four looks at the role of the state in the past in order to understand the legacy influencing the current situation. The authors point to the patrimonial structure inherited from the Ottomans described as a tradition in which the state has priority over civil society in order to prevent opposition and disunity. Bureaucratic centralization resulted. Part five considers the future of civil society in Turkey. The authors see the continuation of "divisiveness anxiety" on the part of the state leading to the demonizing of opposition movements. The paper concludes that Turkey has a long way to go before it achieves greater freedom and democracy and that the state needs to start opening channels of communication and embark on an honest and constructive dialogue with the civil society organizations in Turkey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to analyze the Alevi Opening in 2009 by the Justice and Development Party. Based on a close reading of the manuscripts of the seven workshops and the subsequently published report, a critical analysis of the initiative by the government is presented. It is argued that the organization and the composition of the workshops were not conducive to attaining a set of solutions to the problems encountered by the Alevis. The article concludes by stating that, though a historic step in state–Alevi relations, the Opening has not been successful in producing a politically significant result. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The massive demonstrations of June 2013 against the Turkish government constitute a new element in the country's social reality. After many years, new dynamics have risen to the surface, claiming the ‘new’, outside the context of the Justice and Development Party's (AKP) hegemony. At the same time, these demonstrations offer the opportunity to re-evaluate political power in Turkey. With that in mind, this paper aims to decode the perceptions and strategies that the AKP have developed on issues such as democracy and the transformation of public space, and the way that these are related to the ideological background of historic sites such as Istanbul and Gezi Park. It also seeks to address the protests of June 2013 as an opportunity to understand the content given by the AKP on concepts of strategic importance such as democracy, the nation–millet, urban transformation and the Imperial–Islamic heritage of Istanbul. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The recent democratic movements in the Middle East, especially in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Libya, Yemen, and Syria, put forward a new kind of political activism accelerated by social media. Whereas in these countries the social media created opportunities for the social movement referred to as the “Arab Spring,” this paper looks at the neighboring country of Turkey and the role of social media in Turkish women's activism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]