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In a remarkable development for Turkish politics, six opposition parties signed a joint manifesto at a public ceremony on 28 February. The document outlines plans to abolish the executive presidential system and restore rule of law and civil liberties under a "strengthened parliamentary system". The successive concentration of power in President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s hands has culminated in a hyper-presidential system without meaningful institutional checks. The opposition parties are determined to reverse this process by offering the electorate an alternative political plat­form supported by a single presidential candidate. If their cooperation generates a pre-electoral alliance for the upcoming elections, the opposition camp dubbed the "Table of Six" has a reasonable chance of defeating Erdoğan and his governing bloc. (author's abstract)

Millions of Turkish voters are geared up for the twin (parliamentary and presidential) elections that are scheduled to take place in June 2023 at the latest. After nearly 20 years in power, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's rule may seem unassailable to many observers of Turkish politics. However, owing to the economic downturn and rifts in his ruling party, this will be the first election in which Erdoğan is not the clear favourite. Six oppo­sition parties of different ideological origins have come together to pick a joint presidential candidate to stand against Erdoğan and to offer a common platform for restoring parliamentary democracy. Although the opposition alliance has reasonable chances of defeating Erdoğan's ruling bloc, their victory would not guarantee a smooth process of transition to parliamentary democracy. If the opposition can defeat Erdoğan, the new government would need to undertake the arduous tasks of estab­lishing a meri­tocratic bureaucracy, restructuring Turkey's diplomatic course and economic policy, and switching back to parliamentary rule. Due to the opposition alliance's diverse com­position, accomplishing these goals may be as difficult as winning the elections.

Öngörülmesi giderek güçleşen, sarsıntılı ve savrulmalı zamanlardan geçiyoruz. İkinci Dünya Savaşı ve Soğuk Savaş ortak deneyimleri sonrasında 1950’lerden ve 1990’lardan itibaren demokratik sistemlerin peş peşe dalgalarla meşrulaşacağı, yaygınlaşacağı ve güçleneceği öngörüsü hakimdi. Ancak son yıllarda yaşanan bazı gelişmelerle demokrasilerin geleceği tekrar sorgulanmaya başladı. Gerek 11 Eylül ile başlayan ve IŞİD ile devam eden ve şiddet içeren İslamcı radikalizm, gerek Batı demokrasilerinde popülist radikal sağ hareketlerin ve beyaz ırkçı grupların yükselişi ve iktidara gelişi, bir yandan güvenlik-özgürlük ikileminin demokrasi dengesini bozdu, bir yandan da hem demokratik sistemlerin hem dünya barışının geleceğini bizi tekrar sorgular, sorgulatır hale getirdi. Demokrasileri bildiğimizi zannediyoruz, ama demokrasiler ile ilgili daha öğrenmemiz gereken çok şey var. Demokrasi kaderimiz de geleceğimiz de olmak zorunda değil belki de. Ya da belki yanlış yerden soru sormaya başlıyoruz, belki demokrasi yerine yeni bir referansa ihtiyacımız var. Aslında demokrasileri çantada keklik görmeyip, sabırla büyütüp yeşertmek, geliştirmek, korumak, ileri safhalara taşımak ve bizden sonraki nesillere aktarmak bir sorumluluk, ve bu sorumluluk bizlere ait. Popülizm, demokrasi, güvenlik kavramlarının her biri bugün sıkça ve yaygın olarak kullandığımız kavramlar olarak gündelik sohbetlerimizin içine kadar girmiş durumda. Bu yaygın kullanımlarına rağmen her bir kavram, üzerine düşünmeye, tartışmaya ve değerlendirmeye tekrar tekrar olanak verecek derinlikte. Her bir tartışma bir diğerini açarken, farklı gibi görünen bu kavramların birbirleriyle kesiştikleri zeminler bulmak mümkün. Popülist liderlerin politikaları bütün siyaset yapma biçimlerini kendine çeken ya da kendinden uzaklaştıran eksenler yaratarak her ikisini de aynı anda besleyebiliyor. Popülist politikaya angaje olan liderler ve grupların yanında bu politikaya karşı mücadele eden kişiler ve kitleler de yok değil, ancak kimi zaman bu kitleler eleştirdiği bu siyaset biçiminin kurucu öznesi haline de gelebiliyor. Bunun karşısında tabandan gelen demokratikleşme talepleri ve popülist siyasetle beraber kurumsallaşan diğer politika yapma biçimleri, demokrasi anlayışımızı farklı yönlere çekebiliyor. Bu demokratikleşme talepleri kimi zaman olumlu karşılıklar alsa da, kimi zaman devletlerin güvenlik politikaları ile etkisizleştirilmeye ve bastırılmaya çalışılıyor. Güvenlik politikalarının alanı günümüz teknolojisi sebebiyle o kadar genişledi ki, bu politikanın nesnesi haline gelmemiş varlık ve alan bulmak neredeyse mümkün değil. Ulusaldan Küresele: Popülizm, Demokrasi, Güvenlik konferansımız bu alanların kendine özgülüklerini göz önünde bulundururken, aralarındaki kesişimleri de ortaya koyan pek çok değerli sunuma ev sahipliği yaptı. Konferansın düzenlenmesinde emeği geçen herkese, ve bu bildiri kitabında tam metinleri ve özetleri bulunan bütün katılımcılarımıza çok teşekkür ederiz. Publisher's Version

The situation in Ukraine is the subject of an intense discussion in the public sphere and the media across Europe. But what do we know about how our neighbouring countries are reflecting on the crisis, its historical background and its meaning for the relationship between our countries, Ukraine, Russia and the European Union? During 2014 and 2015 the Cultures of History Forum asked historians and sociologists from more than 15 European countries, the US, Israel and Turkey to reflect on the media coverage and public debates regarding the Ukrainian crisis in their countries. This article focuses on Turkey.

Chen, Ching-Chang/0000-0003-1720-4723; Aydin, Mustafa/0000-0002-4029-6681; Makarychev, Andrey/0000-0002-0751-2653 WOS: 000435447200007 …

One of the primary debates in Turkish political science literature is the surprisingly weak and rigid character of the center-left parties which caused social democracy to become a generic name for a progressive political culture and attitude instead of a fully-fledged ideology. This is more clearly seen when Turkish mainstream left parties are juxtaposed to their European counterparts. This is mainly an epistemological problem that revolves around the question of whether Turkish mainstream left ideology is compatible with the universal norms of social democracy. The aim of this study is to examine the roots and parameters of the inability of Social Democratic Populist Party to reformulate its static organizational body in accordance with societal demands and reinvigorate its ideology and political programme to better address the contemporary problems. A comprehensive analysis of the intra-party debates that occurred in this period is conducted by linking them with the important developments in the Turkish political landscape to detect epistemological causes of the question at hand. The ideological crisis of Turkish social democracy during the early 1990s is thoroughly discussed to get a full account of the intra-party attempts for renewal and understand why they have failed. The study has revealed that the failure of the SDPP leadership to more closely adopt the universal norms of social democracy is closely tied to the demise of statism that restrained the organizational structure and mission of the party, the crisis of Turkish modernity that distanced the party administration from the constituent groups and decline of Kemalism that challenged the ideological framework of Turkish center-left.

Bu makale, 1983 ve 2015 arası parlamenter dönemde kurulan hükümetlerin çıkardıkları kanunları konu kapsamları bakımından analiz ederek, farklı hükümetlerin politika önceliklerini araştırmaktadır. Yaklaşık 32 sene gibi uzun bir zaman dilimine odaklanarak çıkmış olan tüm kanunlar, Karşılaştırmalı Gündem Projesi’nin kodlama sistemi kullanılarak konu kapsamlarına göre kodlanmıştır. Bu sayede, hükümetlerin konu kapsamına göre yasama performansları ölçülerek politika öncelikleri belirlenmektedir. Çalışmada ilk olarak, hükümetlerin genel yasama performansı ve buna etki eden etmenler analiz edilmektedir. Bu analizde hükümet türü (tek parti-koalisyon hükümetleri) ve hükümet süresi gibi değişkenlerin üzerinde durulmaktadır. İkinci olarak ise hükümetlerin çeşitli politika alanlarındaki yasama performansına odaklanmakta ve farklı siyasi dinamikler altında kurulmuş olan hükümetlerin çıkardıkları kanunların konularını mukayese etmektedir. Böylece, farklı hükümetlerin politika öncelikleri ve gündemleri ortaya konmaktadır. Bu analiz ayrıca literatürde vurgulanan partiler arası rekabet, uluslararası kuruluşlar, hükümetlerden bağımsız gerçeklesen krizler gibi faktörlerin Türk hükümetlerin politika gündemine etkisini tartışmaktadır. Çalışma 1983 sonrası döneme odaklandığı için elde edilen bulgular ve bunların Türk siyaseti üzerine olası çıkarımları temel olarak son 30 yıllık dönemin detaylı bir siyasi portresini vermektedir. Çalışmanın bulguları, ilgili dönemde hükümetlerin yasama performanslarının hükümette kalma süresinden etkilendiğini ve bunun da etkisi ile tek parti hükümetlerinin yasama performanslarının koalisyon hükümetlerine göre genel olarak daha yüksek olduğunu göstermektedir. Ayrıca, hükümetlerin en çok sırasıyla Uluslararası İlişkiler, Devlet İdaresi, Makroekonomi, Adalet Suç ve Aile Meseleleri ve Savunma politika alanlarında kanun yaptıklarını ve dolasıyla bu alanları diğer politika alanlarına göre öncelediklerini ortaya koymaktadır.

On 24 June 2018 Turkish voters headed to the polls to elect a new president and parliament after President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s decision to call for snap elections eighteen months earlier than scheduled. The election was noteworthy for several reasons. First, the electoral campaign took place under emergency law that was initially issued after the failed 2016 putsch. Following the coup attempt, the government carried out a widespread purge of its opponents in the public sector, curtailed political space for dissent, and subsequently consolidated its hold on power, thus tilting the already uneven playing field. Furthermore, this was the first election held after the 2017 constitutional referendum that created an executive presidency with limited checks and balances. Allied with the opposition leader Devlet Bahçeli, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan rationalized his decision to call for snap elections by suggesting that the country needed to inaugurate the new system to ensure effective decision-making during hard times. Indeed, there was worry among pundits that the Turkish economy was heading for an economic crisis, as evidenced by the rising levels of unemployment and inflation rate, not to mention the weak national currency. As such, the timing of snap elections was chosen with the intention of hindering the opposition’s ability to cooperate, particularly when socio-economic worries, as well as the large number of Syrian migrants in the country, had begun to erode the government’s popularity. Throughout the campaign, the opposition candidates faced an uneven playing field against the incumbent due to the excessive coverage of the latter in national media and his unfair access to public and private resources. While Erdoğan was the clear frontrunner, he defied the opinion polls by winning the presidency in the first round with 52.6 per cent of the vote. We contend that in addition to benefiting from the uneven playing field that has been a feature of Turkey’s competitive authoritarian regime (Esen & Gumuscu, 2016), Erdoğan owes this victory to his lasting popularity and growing hegemony over the political system. As the country’s undisputed leader, Erdoğan still enjoys strong support among the conservative voters, many of whom attribute their economic achievements under the AKP rule to him. Erdogan consolidated this electoral base by portraying the election as a contest between his nationalist-conservative camp and the rest. In particular, he resorted to media sanctions and intimidation to sideline credible rivals from the conservative camp, while eliminating the popular pro-Kurdish candidate through imprisonment. It should be also noted that the ruling party did not hesitate to resort to extrajudicial methods, such as vote rigging, ballot stuffing, and voter intimidation. Although these methods do not account for Erdoğan’s victory in the end, they demonstrate that meaningful electoral competition in Turkey is becoming exceedingly difficult. With his victory Erdoğan has become the head of the executive branch and will directly govern the country through his cabinet.

This article tracks far-right attitudes and policies toward organized labor and the working class in Turkey since the 1960s. In particular, we attempt to explain why nationalist attitudes have remained unchanged over nearly six decades, whereas political Islamists have shifted to neoliberal policies since the 1990s under the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. In explaining Erdoğan's neoliberalism, we highlight the working relationship between Islamist mayors and the so-called pious bourgeoisie in local governments as well as the willingness of neoliberal ulema to endorse these ties.

After decades of multiparty politics, Turkey is no longer a democracy. A theory-upending case, the country has descended into a competitive authoritarian regime under the Justice and Development Party ( Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi—AKP), despite rising income and education levels and strong links with the West. What accounts for democratic breakdown in such an unlikely case? Instead of ideological and institutional factors, we offer a political economy account. We contend that the coalitional ties that the AKP forged with businesses and the urban poor through the distribution of public resources has altered the cost of toleration for the party leadership and their dependent clients, while reducing the cost of suppression for incumbents. This new political calculus led to increasing authoritarianism of the AKP government through securitization of dissent, mounting repression, and systematic violation of civil liberties.