Authoritarian Neoliberalism and Democratic Backsliding in Turkey: Beyond the Narratives of Progress

Unpacking the core themes that are discussed in this collection, this article both offers a research agenda to re-analyse Turkey’s ‘authoritarian turn’ and mounts a methodological challenge to the conceptual frameworks that reinforce a strict analytical separation between the ‘economic’ and the ‘political’ factors. The paper problematises the temporal break in scholarly analyses of the AKP period and rejects the argument that the party’s methods of governance have shifted from an earlier ‘democratic’ model – defined by ‘hegemony’ – to an emergent ‘authoritarian’ one. In contrast, by retracing the mechanisms of the state-led reproduction of neoliberalism since 2003, the paper demonstrates that the party’s earlier ‘hegemonic’ activities were also shaped by authoritarian tendencies which manifested at various levels of governance

Effectiveness of a multistimulant home-based program on cognitive function of older adults.

The purpose of this study was to test the effects of a multistimulant home-based program on cognitive function among older adults. This study was conducted in northeastern Turkey between March and June 2010. It was planned as an experimental versus control two-group design and carried out on 96 (intervention group = 48, control group = 48) participants. The intervention and control groups were similar regarding sex, education, partner status, and continuous drug use. Data were collected with a Standardized Mini Mental Test, the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS), and the Beck Anxiety Scale. Each senior received a total of 10 home visits on a once-per-week basis. Results for the intervention group showed that the Mini Mental State Test scores of the participants had statistically increased, and the Beck Anxiety and the GDS scores showed a decrease. The study found an association between the multistimulant home-based intervention program and cognitive function