Turkey's New State in the Making: Transformations in Legality, Economy and Coercion

by Pinar Bedirhanoglu (Editor), Çaglar Dölek (Editor), Funda Hülagü (Editor), Özlem Kaygusuz (Editor)

Overview

Since the Gezi uprisings in June 2013 and AKP's temporary loss of parliamentary supremacy after the June 2015 general elections, sharp political clashes, ascending police operations, extra-judicial executions, suppression of the media and political opposition, systematic violation of the constitution and fundamental human rights, and the one-man-rule of President Erdogan have become the identifying characteristics of Turkish politics. The failed coup attempt on 15th July 2016 further impaired the situation as the government declared emergency rule at the end of which a political regime defined as the "Presidential Government System" was established in July 2018.

Turkey's New State in the Making examines the historical specificities of the ongoing AKP-led radical state transformation in Turkey within a global, legal, financial, ideological, and coercive neoliberal context. Arguing that rather than being an exception, the new Turkish state has the potential to be a model for political transformations elsewhere, problematizing how specific policies the AKP adapted to refract social dispositions have been radically redefining the republican, democratic and secular features of the modern Turkish state.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781786998712
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	02/24/2022
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.67(d)

About the Author

Pinar Bedirhanoglu is an associate professor in the Department of International Relations at Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey. She is currently a visiting professor in the Department of Politics at York University in Toronto, Canada.

Caglar Dolek received his Ph.D. degree in Sociology with a Collaborative Specialization in Political Economy from the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada in 2019.

Funda Hülagü works as a research associate at the Department of Political Science, Philipps University of Marburg, Germany.

Özlem Kaygusuz is an associate professor in the Department of International Relations at Ankara University in Ankara, Turkey.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Part I: Global political context of state transformation
1. Social constitution of the AKP's strong state through financialization: State in crisis, or crisis state?
2. Deconstitutionalization and the state crisis in Turkey: What role for the Turkish Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights?
3. Turkey's double movement: Islamists, neoliberalism, and foreign policy
4. The shift of axis or business as usual? Turkey's S-400 procurement decision and defense industry
Part II: Politics of economic management
5. Understanding the recent rise of authoritarianism in Turkey in terms of the structural contradictions of capital accumulation process
6. Turkey's financial slide: Discipline by credit in the last decade of the AKP rule
7. AKP's move from depoliticization to repoliticization in economic management
8. AKP's income-differentiated housing strategies under the pressure of resistance and debt
Part III: Politics of domination
9. The transformation of the state-religion relationship under the AKP: The case of the Diyanet
10. From military tutelage to nowhere: On the limitations of civil-military dualism in making sense of the rise of authoritarianism in Turkey in the 2010s
11. Courtrooms as solidarity spaces and trials as sentences: Defending your rights and asking for accountability in Turkey
12. SETA: From AKP's organic intellectuals to AK-paratchiks
Part IV: Politics of coercion
13. Domesticating politics, de-gendering women: State violence against politically active women in Turkey
14. War on drugs: A view from Turkey
15. “The law of the city?”: Social war, urban warfare, and dispossession on the margin

Editorial Reviews

"'This is an excellent book of critical and courageous argument and examination. It is indispensable for anybody who wants to know what is going on in the Turkish Republic under the Erdogan governments." --Werner Bonefeld, The University of York

"This book includes the best scholarly work currently available on the political economy of Turkey. The chapters in this volume address neoliberalism, authoritarianism, and the strengths and fragilities of the rule of the AKP in great detail, consistency, and reaching strikingly innovative and important conclusions. This work is indispensable for anyone working on contemporary Turkey." --Alfredo Saad Filho, King's College London

"Turkish political economy has a new milestone. Empirically- and theoretically-rich, this book relentlessly traverses the neoliberal and financial transformation of Turkey under the AKP, posing an uncompromising challenge to the course of Turkish democracy and development. Read it. I say again: Read it!" --Thomas Marois, School of Oriental and African Studies

From the Publisher