Being an Opposition MP in the 22nd Turkish Parliament

This article analyzes the role and strategy of the main opposition (CHP) party’s MPs, their perceptions of their roles, their place in the legislative process and their relationship with their party in the 22nd Turkish Grand National Assembly. In multi-party Parliaments characterized by moderate to high levels of partisan competition, understanding the role of the opposition MPs calls for locating and analyzing three major constraints: the informal norms between the majority and the opposition, the place of the opposition MPs in the legislative process, and party discipline. In this context, a major question to be answered is whether there is a space where MPs can act as individuals in Parliament

Challenging religious and Secularist Patriarchy Islamist Women s New Activism in Turkey

Since the late 1990s, following the state’s process of de-politicization and exclusion, educated Islamist women in the urban centers of Turkey have been active in raising Muslim women’s identity consciousness and generating solidarity with those affected by the headscarf ban. In the women’s organizations analyzed in this article, Islamist women are carving out a niche to challenge both secularist and Islamist patriarchal practices and discourse. This article contends that organized Islamist women have become significant actors in autonomously mobilizing religious women—in the political parties and in the Islamic movement—in the democratization process. The Islamist women’s learning process has opened them up to dialogue and cooperation—on gender equality and other liberalization issues—with secular women as well as with other oppressed groups. However, their “feminist” stance creates some dilemmas for Islamist and secular women

Türkiye'de Toplumsal Cinsiyet Siyasetinde İslami Kadın Ve Muafazakar Eril İktidar İlişkisi.

Çalışma, Turkiyede islami kesimdeki kadının sorunlarını ve bakış açısını siyasal alana taşıma iddasında olan dindar kadın aktörlerin iktidardaki adalet ve kalkınma partisinin kadın politikasıyla ilişkileri eleştirileri ve talepleri incelenecektir

Women officials of the Turkish Diyanet: Gendered transformations and predicaments of empowerment?

© 2021 Asian Center for Women's Studies, Ewha Womans University.The Presidency of Religious Affairs (the Diyanet) is a unique bureaucratic structure authorized to address the religious service needs of citizens in Turkey’s secular system. For a long time, it was characterized by under-representation of women in its ranks. The longstanding quest of educated religious women for recognition of their expertise and integration into this institution coincided with a policy reorientation in the early 2000s, to expand the Diyanet’s appeal for women through its enlightenment and educational functions. Under the Justice and Development Party (AKP) governments, the issue of gender disparity has been addressed through a new strategy of increasingly recruiting women graduates from Theology faculties. However, despite a ‘feminization’ process undertaken via the pro-women reforms of its organizational structure, the Diyanet’s institutional and political-ideological limitations are intertwined with prevailing gender norms and patriarchal conventions. This article inquires into the gendered dynamics and predicaments that have constrained the status and roles of its women officials and impacted their empowerment prospects. Nevertheless, as women have started to exercise religious authority with men in the Diyanet’s enduring male-dominated structure, the recognition for their expertise, professional commitment, and the potential impact of their work have reinforced the social significance of women’s roles

The 2011 Parliamentary Elections in Turkey and Challenges Ahead for Democratic Reform Under a Dominant Party System

The sweeping electoral victory of the centre-right Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey's parliamentary elections of 2011 constitutes a milestone in the governing party's consolidation of political dominance. This article discusses the significance of the recent elections for the challenge of reconciling majoritarian dynamics in the Turkish political system with the need to reach an enduring consensus among parliamentary parties. It is argued that, in the aftermath of the elections, this challenge has become more acute than ever in view of the likely emergence of a dominant party system under intensified political conflict around constitutional reform, despite a relative stabilization of party competition

Gender Politics Under Authoritarian Populism in Turkey: From the Equal Rights Agenda to an Anti-Gender Strategy

GENDER POLITICS UNDER AUTHORITARIAN POPULISM IN TURKEY: FROM THE EQUAL RIGHTS AGENDA TO AN ANTI-GENDER STRATEGY?This paper has the objective of analyzing thegenderedtransformationof the conservative populist government of the JDP (Justice and Development Party) in Turkeywhich has politicized gender equality issues through specific mobilization strategies over the past decade.At the time of its electoral rise in Turkish politics back in 2002, the JDP projected a ‘conservative democratic identity’ and implemented a reform agenda which also addressed the concerns of women’s organizations about gendered discriminations.However, in the context of a democratic backslidingwhich substantially weakened the reform process, institutions and which Turkish polarized politics since 2011, the government’s populiststrategies and discourses has also dominated its approach to gender issues and women’s quest for solutions to existing challenges toequality. Research on the JDP’s gender policy has so farfocused on its Islamic vision and the consolidation of a neoliberal patriarchal gender regime through the transformation of social policies.It is underlined in this paper that the new populist regime of polarizing and exclusionary discourses and institutional transformationshaveepitomized a (neo)-patrimonial mode of governance and mobilization with significant repercussions for reorienting gender policies. The promotion of a conservative gender order summed up in the motto of ‘‘strong families, empowered women’’hasrecently been transformed into a conservative backlashwith an anti-gender agenda. This paper analyzesboth the discursivemobilization strategies andthe leading institutional pillars of the gender populism of the government (specifically, the Directorate for Religious Affairs, andthe Ministry of Family). The analysis also reflects on the resistance strategies of women’s and feminist groups to the new anti-gender agenda threating women’s rights.The research is based on the analysis of the primary and secondary documents on the government policy and discourses, published interviews and debates on controversial issues as well as the policy documents and projects and their coverage in both pro-government and critical/liberal media outlets