Foreign policy orientation of Turkey's pro-Islamist parties: A comparative study of the AKP and Refah

This study aims to discuss the foreign policies of the pro-Islamist parties in Turkey by comparing the party programs and policies of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi) and the Welfare Party (Refah Partisi). By focusing on programs and policies separately, it is argued that pro-Islamist elements in the establishment and program of the parties do not necessarily translate to actual policies, particularly in foreign affairs. Moreover, pro-Islamist political parties are not monolithic in terms of member composition; the parties also differ from each other. Finally, the parties might have different policies in the domestic context while employing a more pragmatic and traditionalist perspective in terms of foreign policy

Political opposition in Turkey: reflections on political Islam

Despite the common perception in the Turkish society on the ineffectiveness of opposition, the scholarly work is very few on the opposition movements. This paper aims to contribute by discussing whether there is a real opposition movement at the state/system level in Turkey, by focusing mainly on political Islam. The main argument of the study is that although political Islam is currently the most distinguished oppositional voice, it is also articulated to the state tradition failing to move beyond the founding principles of the state tradition. * I would like to thank Prof. Dr. Hasan Bulent Kahraman and Prof. Dr. Serif Mardin for their constitutive comments

MODEL COUNTRIES IN POLITICAL ANALYSIS. Is Turkey a Model for State-Building in the Arab World? Jean Monnet Occasional Paper No. 10/2014

This study analyzes the Turkish case as a model country for the state-building processes in the Arab world in the aftermath of the Arab revolts that took place in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. To this end, it deals with the Turkish case in three phases: the founding of the Turkish Republic, political developments until 2002, and the post-2002 Justice and Development Party period. The study focuses on state-society relations manifested in the form of a secular-religious cleavage intertwined with problematic civil-military relations. Each phase of Turkey’s history is compared to cleavages and civil-military relations in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya. After analyzing the constitution-making processes in the latter three countries following the Arab revolts, the study concludes by discussing the viability of the Turkish model in the light of Turkey’s search for a new constitution

Siyasal islamda partileşme: Arap ayaklanmaları sonrası islamcı partiler

İslamcı hareketlerin seçimlere ve partileşmeye olan yaklaşımları tarihsel olarak ikircikli bir süreç işlemiştir. Bir yanda seçimlerin ve oy vermenin İslam’a uygunluğu tartışılırken, öte yandan İslamcı hareketlerin bir kısmı partileşmeye çalışmıştır. Arap ayaklanmaları sonrasında ise partileşme sürecinin tabanı genişlemiş ve daha önce siyasal katılımı teolojik düzlemde reddeden gruplar tarafından yeni partiler kurulmuştur. Bu çalışmada ayaklanmalardan önceki partileşme hareketleri ile ayaklanmalardan sonraki İslamcı partiler karşılaştırmalı olarak incelenecektir. Partileşen oluşumların benzerlikleri ve ayrımları ele alınacaktır.Publisher's Versio

Coalition politics in Turkey: 1991-2002

Coalition government has been the dominant type of rule in Western Europe in the 20th century as countries increasingly reformed their electoral systems towards proportional representation. However, these governments are heavily criticized. They are argued to be difficult to form and govern, hence less durable compared to the majority party governments. This study aims to respond to these criticisms focusing on the Turkish coalition governments in the period between 1991 and 2002. It shows that the duration of party or coalition governments vary systematically between countries and within each country across time. Hence, the study mainly explores why some governments lasted long despite the political turmoil, economic crises and inter-party conflict, while others remained in power for merely a few months in Turkey. While discussing the dynamics of cabinet durability, it adopts a holistic approach in which all three phases of a government's life – formation, maintenance and termination, are analyzed in interaction. The study perceives coalition politics as a set of continuous bargaining processes protraction of which put an end to the governments. Therefore, it also focuses on the communication between the political actors, and attempts to explain the factors that increase the level of mistrust and information uncertainty in the bargaining environment. Finally, the analysis of the coalition politics in Turkey is located within the wider inquiry on the multiparty politics in Western European democracies

Yeni Ortadoğu: Toplum, Siyaset ve Ekonomi Konferansı

Ortadoğu asırlar boyu uluslararası siyasetin merkezinde yer almış, araştırmacı ve siyaset yapıcıların ilgi odağı olmuştur. Bu ilgiye rağmen, 2010 yılında başlayan ve ‘Arap Baharı’ olarak adlandırılan halk ayaklanmaları ve bu çerçevede yaşanan siyasal, ekonomik ve sosyal dönüşümler siyasetçiler ve sosyal bilimciler tarafından öngörülememiş ve mevcut varsayımları derinden sarsmıştır. Bir yandan demokratikleşme hareketleri ve ekonomik bir dönüşüm yaşayan bölge, diğer yandan iç çatışmaların, darbelerin ve vekalet savaşlarının merkezi haline gelmiş, ve tüm bu gelişmeler yeni yaklaşımları ve analizleri gerekli kılmıştır. Bu çerçevede Işık Üniversitesi Uluslararası İlişkiler Bölümü, Arap Baharı’yla başlayan süreçte bölgede gözlemlenen yeni toplumsal, ekonomik, iç ve dış siyasal dinamikleri akademik alanda tartışmaya açmak amacıyla ‘Yeni Ortadoğu’ başlıklı bir konferans düzenledi. Bu konferans çerçevesinde 24-25 Mart 2016 tarihlerinde Maslak Kampüsü’nde bizzat sunulan ve tam metin olarak bize iletilen bildirilerden bu kitabı oluşturduk.Publisher's Versio

Civil society and state in Turkey: a gramscian perspective

This study focuses on the relations between civil society and state in Turkey. It acknowledges that the interactions in civil society might lead to further democratization. However, it criticizes the ready identification of civil society as a counter-hegemonic force in the Turkish case from a Gramscian perspective. It argues that civil society is rather a site for hegemonic struggles and that these struggles determine the outcome which might not necessarily result in any further democratization of domestic politics. The chapter begins with an evaluation of Antonio Gramsci’s views on civil society. The study then turns to the state tradition and emergence of civil society in Turkey in its historical context, both as an attempt to understand why civil society is conceptualized as opposed to the military and the state, and to reveal the dialectical relations between Turkish civil society and political society

Türkiye'de ve Romanya'da sokakta çalışan çocuklar: yeni yoksulluk bağlamında karşılaştırmalı tarihsel bir inceleme

This study aims to explore the dynamics behind the emergence and expansion of working street children since 1990s in Turkey and Romania, in the context of New Poverty. Poverty is not a new concept, it is a dynamic process, accommodating to new circumstances, its scope shrinking from time to time, but surviving ages. Children, on the other hand, are among the groups that are first and foremost affected from the course of poverty. Nevertheless, working street children is a new notion different from traditional forms of child labour driven with distinct dynamics. In this study, it is claimed that poverty is transformed in the course of globalization process and neo-liberal paradigm. It is also argued that the way children are affected from poverty changed in this process, leading to emergence of working street children. The main discussion of the study is about the connection between working street children and the concept of New Poverty. Turkey and Romania are countries whose political, economic, social and cultural characteristics involve differences at the expense of similarities; however, working street children have been a common problem that both countries have faced at the same period. Employing comparative historical methodology, the main research question is developed as why working street children emerged in similar time periods in Turkey and Romania, which are two quite different countries. After an introductory chapter, Chapter II aims to provide a theoretical framework in which transformation of poverty in general and transformation of child poverty in relation to this process leading to emergence of working street children will be discussed. The third chapter focuses on Turkey and the fourth chapter is on Romania; in both chapters the dynamics leading to emergence of working street children, the scope and dimension of the issue is explored. The fifth chapter is devoted to the comparison of Turkey and Romania in terms of working street children in the context of New Poverty. The conclusion chapter discusses the findings of the study in both countries and tries to locate them into the theoretical framework.M.S. - Master of Scienc

Congruence in proportional representation systems: non-economic issue salience and coalition formation

This article contributes to our understanding of democratic representation by analyzing government congruence – the gap between the positions of the government and the median voter – within proportional representation systems. Analyzing elections in non-post-communist, democratic OECD countries in the post-war period until 2014, we argue and show that the salience of non-economic issues such as national way of life and migration led to ideological incongruence indirectly through its effect on government formation by right-wing political parties. We suggest that in this period right-wing political parties that own and emphasize these issues found it easier to differentiate themselves from their ideological counterparts and join a coalition with them without being threatened by credit claiming conflicts. Since, everything else kept constant, right-wing coalitions were then more likely to emerge when such non-economic issues were salient in the party system, their probability to form when the median is located at the center was also higher, leading to higher levels of ideological incongruence overall

Turkey's ministerial elites: the growing importance of technical expertise

This chapter analyses the social profiles and political careers of the ministers who served in the Turkish governments from 1950 to 2011. Our findings show that in comparison to the earlier periods in Turkish politics, the ministerial elites have increasingly included larger number of individuals who have expertise in economic and social policy issues. Although technical expertise has become essential for cabinet membership, this trend has not been accompanied by the growing prominence of the non-partisan technocrats, as it has been the case elsewhere in Europe. Technocrats were represented in large numbers in Turkey’s governments between 1960 and 1980. Since then, affiliation with a political party has become an unwritten requirement for holding a ministerial portfolio. While cabinet ministers have been largely recruited from the parliamentary groups of the political parties, majority of them have had no legislative experience and they joined the cabinet only after winning a seat in the parliament for the first time. We argue that the problems that Turkey has experienced in consolidating its democracy along with the importance of clientelism and patronage in party politics are critical in understanding these trends in the making of Turkish cabinets