Book Launch with Dimitar Bechev: Turkey Under Erdogan

PSA Turkish Politics Specialist Group is inviting you to its virtual book launch event in which Dr Dimitar Bechev will present his new book“Turkey Under Erdogan How a Country Turned from Democracy and the West” published by Yale University Press.

The event will take place on Zoom on Thursday, 12 January 2023, 15:00 – 16:00 GMT.

The book will be discussed by Lauren McLaren, Professor of Politics at the University of Leicester and Dr Marc Sinan Winrow (LSE).

The presentations will be followed by feedback from discussants and a Q&A session.


Registration for the event can be made on Eventbrite.

About the speaker

Dr Dimitar Bechev is a lecturer at the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies (OSGA), University of Oxford.

He specialises in the international politics of Eastern Europe and Eurasia.

Bechev is the author of Turkey under Erdogan (Yale University Press, 2022), Historical Dictionary of North Macedonia (Rowman, 2019), and Rival Power: Russia in Southeast Europe (Yale UP, 2017) as well as co-editor of Russia Rising: Putin’s Foreign Policy in the Middle East and North Africa (Bloomsbury, 2021).

To access more information about Turkey Under Erdogan How a Country Turned from Democracy and the West” click here.

Call for Papers for the 2022 PSA Turkish Politics Early Career Workshop

Photo by Oziel Gu00f3mez on Pexels.com

We are happy to announce first Early Career Workshop organized by the Turkish Politics Specialist Group of the Political Studies Association (PSA). This workshop aims to bring together postgraduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and early-career academics who study various aspects of Turkish politics.

The workshop offers PhD students and early career scholars an opportunity to exchange ideas, receive feedback on their methodological approach, and develop their knowledge of different methodological approaches to studying Turkish politics.

The workshop will be held as a virtual event on Wednesday, November 30th, between 13:00-17:00 (Turkish time).

The workshop will have two sections. In the first half, Dr. Osman Zeki Gokce (Medipol University) will discuss some of the fundamentals of research design in politics. In the second half, PhD students and early career scholars will present their own research, with a particular focus on their methodologies. Each presenter will receive feedback from Dr Gokce and two discussants, as well as opening up for a wider Q&A from the virtual audience. We ask that all participants read all papers before the event and are prepared to give constructive feedback in a supportive atmosphere on each other’s work.

There will be up to six presentations, and these can range from full papers and research designs to pre-analysis papers. Each paper presentation and collective discussion will last 45 minutes.

Applicants should submit their full papers, research designs, or pre-analysis plans by filling out this form by November 8, 2022.

We will notify successful applicants by November 14.

Participants will be required to submit their final submission by November 23. The detailed agenda of the workshop will be released after the applicants are informed of the outcome.

We very much look forward to receiving your applications!

Workshop Organizers


Dr. Bugra Güngör (The Geneva Graduate Institute)
Prof. Yaprak Gürsoy (LSE)
Dr. Seçkin Sertdemir-Ozdemir (LSE)
Dr. Matthew Whiting (University of York)
Dr. Begüm Zorlu (City, University of London)

Call for Papers: Greek Politics and Turkish Politics Specialist Groups Joint Panel

We are sharing the call for papers for the joint panel hosted by Greek Politics and Turkish Politics Specialist Groups at the PSA Annual Conference 2023. The conference will take place at the University of Liverpool, between 3-5 April 2023.

The Greek and Turkish Politics Specialist Groups of the PSA welcome papers for a joint panel, marking the centenary of the Lausanne Treaty in 1923. Taking stock of 100 years of bilateral relations, papers can cover any aspect of state formation in Greece and Turkey and relations between the two nations, including how the history of nationalism and state building impacts relations between the two countries today. Papers with a longitudinal focus covering both Greece and Turkey would be preferred within the general theme of “100 Years since the Lausanne Treaty: Reflections on State-Building, Nationalism and Peace.”

About PSA 2023

The PSA’s Annual Conference 2023 will be held at the University of Liverpool. It plans to combine both in-person and digital presentations. Therefore, we welcome papers which will be presented digitally as well as those which will be presented in-person (please state which format you would prefer in your abstract). Full conference details are available at this link.

Deadline

If you would like to be considered for inclusion in this joint panel, email us a 200-word abstract by the 26th of September 2022 to BOTH email addresses below.

If you have any questions or queries, please do not hesitate to contact us.
turkishpoliticspsa@gmail.com
v.tsagkroni@fsw.leidenuniv.nl


Online Book Launch⎢Police, Provocation, Politics Counterinsurgency in İstanbul

PSA Turkish Politics Specialist Group is inviting you to its virtual book launch event in which Dr Deniz Yonucu will present her new book Police, Provocation, Politics: Counterinsurgency in Istanbul published by Cornell University Press.

The event will take place on Zoom on Monday, 19 September 2022, 18:30 – 19:30 BST

The book will be discussed by Elif Babül, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Mount Holyoke College and Joost Jongerden, Associate Professor of Rural Sociology, Wageningen University.

The presentations will be followed by feedback from discussants and a Q&A session.
Registration for the event can be made on Eventbrite.

About the Book

In Police, Provocation, Politics, Deniz Yonucu presents a counterintuitive analysis of contemporary policing practices, focusing particular attention on the incitement of counterviolence, perpetual conflict, and ethnosectarian discord by the state security apparatus. Situating Turkish policing within a global context and combining archival work and oral history narratives with ethnographic research, Yonucu demonstrates how counterinsurgency strategies from the Cold War and decolonial eras continue to inform contemporary urban policing in Istanbul. Shedding light on counterinsurgency’s affect-and-emotion-generating divisive techniques and urban dimensions, Yonucu shows how counterinsurgent policing strategies work to intervene in the organization of political dissent in a way that both counters existing alignments among dissident populations and prevents emergent ones.

Turkish Politics Specialist Group Virtual Book Launch Event with Sevgi Adak

PSA Turkish Politics Specialist Group is inviting you to its virtual book launch event in which Dr Sevgi Adak will present her new book Anti-Veiling Campaigns in Turkey: State, Society and Gender in the Early Republic published by I.B. Tauris and Bloomsbury.

The event will take place on Zoom on Monday, 6 June, between 17:00 – 19:00 BST.

The book will be discussed by Dr Nazanin Shahrokni, Assistant Professor of Gender and Globalisation, at the London School of Economics and Dr Gavin Brockett, Associate Professor and Vice-Dean of Arts, Wilfrid Laurier.

The event will be chaired by Professor Yaprak Gürsoy, European Institute, LSE.

The presentations will be followed by feedback from discussants and a Q&A session.
Registration for the event can be made on Eventbrite.

About the Book

Adak’s new book adopts a historical approach to examining the context and formation of the meanings of veiling and unveiling during interwar Turkey. In this book, Adak reveals how the interwar period marks a moment that the way women’s dress turned into an issue of national mobilisation. She uncovers the complexities of the Kemalist modernisation project by presenting unpublished archival data and investigating how women responded to anti-veiling campaigns. The book shifts the focus from the high politics of the elite to the implementation of state policies and situates the anti-veiling campaigns as a space where the Kemalist reforms were negotiated, compromised and resisted by societal actors.

Our PSA 2022 Programme is Out

As PSA’s specialist group for Turkish Politics, we are hosting four panels on Turkish Politics at the 2022 PSA Annual Conference. Please find below the programme of our panels that focus on multiple and timely issues on Turkish politics. The conference is taking place both at the University of York and digitally. There is still time to register and join the discussion even if you are not presenting a paper.

PANEL 1 – State Formation, Identity and Emotions in Turkish Politics

The map of Sèvres Agreement
Source: Foreign Policy


12 APRIL 2022, TUESDAY, 9:30-11:00
SLB106


Summary of Panel: A specific state identity, drawing on a specific vision of Turkish nationalism, was institutionalised at the foundation of the Turkish state. This process set a path that embedded certain emotions into Turkish politics and ensured that the Turkish state represented itself, and understood itself, in a particular way. This panel examines how the process of state formation led to particular visions of the Turkish state, often relying on a sense of Otherness, and how deeply embedded emotions around Turkish political identity play out in politics today.


Chair: Matthew Whiting

PAPER 1 – State Formation and Civil War on the European Periphery 1917-1923: an essay on Turkish exceptionalism
Bill Kissane
PAPER 2 – Continuity in Change: Anxiety in Turkish Politics Through Sèvres and Lausanne Syndromes
Erman Ermihan and İrem Karamık
PAPER 3 – “Victorious Victims”: The Analysis of the Nationalist Poems Which Are Written by the Ordinary People
Tuğçe Erçetin
PAPER 4 – Ontological Security, Emotions, and the Turkish-Israeli Rapprochement
Özlem Kayhan Pusane and Aslı Ilgıt
PAPER 5 – Political Agency in Agonistic Contexts: Turkey and Politics of Disaster
Senem Yıldırım Özdem

PANEL 2 – The “Local” and the State in Turkey

Photo by hilal on Pexels.com

12 APRIL 2022, TUESDAY, 13:30-15:00
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Summary of Panel: The importance of the “local” is often overlooked given the prominence of the central state to Turkish politics. This panel reasserts the importance of the local level by examining how local dynamics, local identities and local politics have been an important aspect of Turkish politics, both at the foundation of the state and today.


Chair: Matthew Whiting

PAPER 1 – ‘Hybridity by Design’: Between Liberal Norms and Illiberal Peace in Turkey
Esra Dilek
PAPER 2 – Can intervoter contact reduce support for electoral violence? A survey experiment from Turkey
Buğra Güngör
PAPER 3 – State-building and Borderlands: Control of the Turkish State on an Everyday Level
Dilan Okçuoğlu

PANEL 3 – The State and Women’s Rights in Turkey

Photo by Beyza Kaplan

12 APRIL 2022, TUESDAY, 15:30-17:00
SLB106


Summary of Panel: The AKP has an ambivalent relationship with women’s rights and women’s political participation. After initially supporting women’s rights as part of the EU accession process, more recently the position of women has become increasingly precarious under the AKP. This was further compounded when Turkey withdrew from the ‘Istanbul Convention’ on combatting violence against women and domestic violence. Support from women has been an important component of the AKP’s populist strategy, while the AKP has generally promoted a traditional and conservative view of women’s position within society and encouraged a patriarchal vision of the family. This panel explores the AKP’s policies towards women throughout its time in power, its approach t women’s rights, and its framing of a traditional understanding of family through the state’s institutions.


Chair: Yaprak Gürsoy


PAPER 1 – “Strengthening the Family” through Education in Turkey
Ayça Günaydın Kaymakçıoğlu
PAPER 2 – From Liberalism to Conservatism: Turkey’s Women Policies after 2011
Çağlar Ezikoğlu
PAPER 3 – The Puzzle of International Norm Transfer: Exploration of Women’s Rights in Turkey
Sebahat Derin Atışkan
PAPER 4 – “Uncooperation” for Women’s Rights: Turkey’s Withdrawal from Council of Europe’s Istanbul Convention
Tuğba Bayar
PAPER 5 – How AKP Meets with Women: Politics of Party’s Women’s Branch
Nur Sinem Kourou

PANEL 4 – Democracy, Autocratization and Party Politics in Turkey

AFP PHOTO / OZAN KOSE

13 APRIL 2022, WEDNESDAY, 9:30-11:00
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Summary of Panel: Turkey is a vital case for understanding the recent trend of autocratization and populism observable in some hybrid regimes. Over its 20 years in power, the AKP has become increasingly centred around its leader, Recep Tayyip
Erdoğan. Yet the longer the AKP and Erdoğan remain in power, the more it raises under-examined questions around how the party maintains its support and how manages challenges from opposition groups that threaten its dominance. This panel examines the populist strategies of the AKP, ongoing autocratization in Turkey, and government-opposition dynamics in this political landscape.


Chair: Yaprak Gürsoy


PAPER 1 – Politicization of Corruption in Turkey: Populists and their Rivals
Seda Demiralp
PAPER 2 – The news media as a conduit and target of “disinformation” in Turkey
Natalie Martin
PAPER 3 – What is in a Bridge? Developmentalist Economic Imaginaries and Partisanship Under Competitive Authoritarianism
Aykut Öztürk
PAPER 4 – Oppositional Unity in Competitive Authoritarian Regimes: A Comparison of Turkey and Hungary
Pelin Ayan Musil

Member Publications | Sevgi Adak’s New Book Looks at Anti-Veiling Campaigns in Turkey

A new book from our member Sevgi Adak titled “Anti-Veiling Campaigns in Turkey
State, Society and Gender in the Early Republic” has been published by Bloomsbury Publishing.

Sevgi Adak’s new book adopts a historical approach to examine the context and the formation of the meanings of veiling and unveiling during interwar Turkey. In this book, Adak reveals how the interwar period marks a moment that the way women dress turned into an issue of national mobilisation. She uncovers the complexities of the Kemalist modernisation project by presenting unpublished archival data and investigating how women responded to anti-veiling campaigns.

According to Bloomsbury Publishing the book: “shifts the focus from the high politics of the elite to the implementation of state policies” and “situates the anti-veiling campaigns as a space where the Kemalist reforms were negotiated, compromised and resisted by societal actors”.

To read an extract of the book please click on this link.

#PSA22: Call for Papers for Panels on All Aspects of Turkish Politics

Photo by Oziel Gu00f3mez on Pexels.com

The PSA’s Annual Conference 2022 will be held in partnership with University of York and Sage Publishing.

The conference theme this year, under the title “Politics from the Margins” is inviting a reflection on shifting centres of power in the global, regional, national and  subnational political order.

Once again, this year the Turkish Politics Specialist Group will be organising four panels for the conference. Whilst the theme for the conference is ‘Politics from the Margins’, we are happy to receive quality abstracts on any aspect of Turkish politics, broadly defined.

The conference plans to combine both in-person presentations and digital presentations. Therefore, we welcome papers and panels which will be presented digitally as well as those which will be presented in-person (please state which format you would prefer in your abstract).

Full conference details are available at:
https://www.psa.ac.uk/events/psa22-annual-conference

And Conference website is: https://psa22.exordo.com/ 

If you would like to be considered for inclusion in one of these panels, please email us a 200-word abstract by the 4th of October 2021 to the email addresses turkishpoliticspsa@gmail.com

Should you have any questions or queries, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Yaprak Gursoy and Matthew Whiting

Our Member Muzaffer Kutlay and Her Project Team Nominated For Prestigious Higher Education Award

Our member Muzaffer Kutlay and her Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) COMPASS project team have been shortlisted for the International Collaboration of the Year at the Times Higher Education (THE) Awards 2021, widely known as ‘the Oscars of Higher Education’

The Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) COMPASS project, hosted by the University of Kent in partnership with the University of Cambridge (UK), ADA University (Azerbaijan), Belarusian State University (Belarus), TNU (Tajikistan) and the University of World Economy and Diplomacy (Uzbekistan), has been shortlisted for the International Collaboration of the Year at the Times Higher Education (THE) Awards 2021.

The GCRF COMPASS project works with higher education institutions (HEIs) from former Soviet Republics to develop global partnerships and more sustainable learning capacities through resilience in the face of adversity and crisis. Led by Professor Elena Korosteleva, in partnership with Dr Siddharth Saxena (COI, Cambridge), Rosalind Beeching (Project Manager, Kent) and Prajakti Kalra (Research & Communication Officer, Cambridge), the GCRF COMPASS consortium involves six Research Institutions, 24 members of staff and 100 affiliates. For its success it owes especially to the younger generation of scholars including the PSA Turkish Politics Specialist Group member Dr Muzaffer Kutlay, as well as Dr Irina Petrova, Dr Diana Kudaibergenova and Dr Anastasiya Kudlenko for their incredible enthusiasm, dedication and scholarship.

The project has been recognised by the judge’s panel of THE Awards 2021 for its creative collaborations, imaginative communication of research results, and tremendous achievements in difficult circumstances of war, conflict, uprisings, Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Supported by its International Advisory Board of policymakers, practitioners and academics across the globe, GCRF COMPASS fosters excellence through successful research integration, policy impact and community engagement. Despite the complex challenges both in the UK and the region, the project team, represented in the region by national team leads – Nargiz Ismayilova; Artsiom Nazaranka; Munira Shahidi and Ulugbeck Hasanov – has built close relationships, resulting in new research projects, international training schools for Early Career Scholars, Future Leaders Policy Forums, academic workshops and seminars and signature conferences. The result has been educational partnerships and the project outputs have informed peace and reconciliation between former adversaries and investing in a more sustainable future for the region and beyond.

The project team helped its partners, both in the UK and the region, to nurture signature specialisms to become global hubs in resilience (Kent and Cambridge), migration (Belarus), connectivity (Azerbaijan), regional security (Uzbekistan) and cultural diplomacy (Tajikistan). The project has produced 9 monographs and edited volumes; 6 Special Issues; over 100 journal articles and policy briefs.

The THE Awards 2021 ceremony takes place on 25 November 2021.

VIDEO: Turkish Politics Specialist Group Virtual Book Launch Event with Dr Ayşe Güneş and Dr Çağlar Ezikoğlu

PSA Turkish Politics Specialist Group has hosted its first virtual book launch event in which Dr Ayse Güneş and Dr Çağlar Ezikoğlu presented their new books on Turkish politics. Now, their presentations are available to view online.


This event took place on the 30th of June, 2021.

Dr Ayşe Güneş (Bartın University) gave a presentation on her book “International Human Rights Law and Crimes Against Women in Turkey”. Her book was discussed by Dr Elvira Dominguez-Redondo (Middlesex University).

Dr Çağlar Ezikoğlu (Çankırı Karatekin University)  gave a presentation on his new book “the Logic of Political Survival in Turkey: the Case of AKP”. His book was discussed by  Dr Natalie Martin (University of Nottingham).


The presentations were followed by feedback from discussants and a Q&A session.