Turkey Book Talk #218 – Emre Toros, professor of political science and dean of the communications faculty at Ankara’s Hacettepe University, on “Electoral Integrity in Turkey” (Edinburgh University Press).
The book weighs up the country’s democratic credentials after over two decades of rule by Erdogan’s party, both in terms of its electoral system and its broader institutional framework. It ultimately describes today’s Turkey as being in an ambiguous grey zone, neither straightforwardly democratic nor conventionally authoritarian.
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Turkey Book Talk #216 – Seda Demiralp, professor of political science at Istanbul’s Işık University and non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington DC, on what the recent surprise local election results mean for Turkish politics.
The conversation takes in what the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) did right, what Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) did wrong, the emerging challenge to the AKP posed by the hardline Islamist Yeniden Refah Party, the performance of the pro-Kurdish DEM Party, and the impact of Turkey’s economic woes.
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Bahar Baser on Turkey’s brain drain
March 12, 2024
Turkey Book Talk #214 – Bahar Baser, associate professor of Middle Eastern politics at Durham University, on “An Exodus from Turkey: Tales of Migration and Exile” (Edinburgh University Press), which she co-edited with Erdi Ozturk.
The book examines the current wave of migration from Turkey, focusing on the experiences of 21 public figures who have moved overseas – voluntarily or otherwise – amid political and economic turbulence in recent years.
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Tuğba Tekerek on the crisis in Turkish academia
January 30, 2024
Turkey Book Talk #211 – Tuğba Tekerek, journalist and author, on “Taşra Üniversiteleri: AK Parti’nin Arka Kampüsü” (Provincial Universities: The AK Party’s Backyard Campus), published by İletişim.
The book examines the impact of the government’s push to open over 100 universities across Turkey over the last two decades. It paints a picture of falling academic standards but increased outlets for the ruling party’s religious nationalist ideology.
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Timur Hammond on religion and change in Istanbul
January 16, 2024
Turkey Book Talk #210 – Timur Hammond, Assistant Professor of Geography and the Environment at Syracuse University, on “Placing Islam: Geographies of Connection in Twentieth-Century Istanbul” (University of California Press).
The book is a sociological and historical study tracing the changing character of Istanbul’s Eyüpsultan district, its industrial and commercial history, and its role in the emergence of political Islam in Turkey.
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Turkey Book Talk #208 – Berk Esen, associate professor of political science and international relations at Istanbul’s Sabanci University, on the troubled future of Turkey’s democracy and the challenges facing its opposition parties heading into 2024.
Berk is a prolific commentator and sophisticated scholar of Turkish politics, recently co-authoring “Turkey’s New Regime: Competitive Authoritarianism” (Iletisim) along with Hakan Yavuzyilmaz and Sebnem Gumuscu.
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Spyros Sofos on Turkey’s many nationalisms
September 19, 2023
Turkey Book Talk #202 – Spyros Sofos, Assistant Professor in Global Humanities at Simon Fraser University, on “Turkish Politics and ‘The People’: Mass Mobilisation and Populism” (Edinburgh University Press).
The book delves into the nuances and ambiguities of the term “the people” from the late Ottoman era to today, and how religious, secularist, left-wing and right-wing projects have used it for different ends.
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Turkey Book Talk #198 – Şebnem Gümüşcü, associate professor of political science at Middlebury College, on “Democracy or Authoritarianism: Islamist Governments in Turkey, Egypt and Tunisia” (Cambridge University Press).
The book looks in depth at how intra-party factional struggles were key in shaping the AKP’s authoritarian direction in Turkey, while also comparing this with Islamist parties that won elections in Egypt and Tunisia.
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Turkey Book Talk #197 – Constanze Letsch on “Territorial Stigmatisation: Urban Renewal and Displacement in a Central Istanbul Neighbourhood” (Transcript).
The book examines a controversial project to demolish and rebuild Istanbul’s historic, troubled Tarlabaşı neighbourhood, the impact it had on locals and what that tells us about today’s Turkey.
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Download the ebook for free via the Transcript website.
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Turkey Book Talk #195 – Political communications strategist Derin Koçer on Turkey’s critical recent presidential and parliamentary elections.
The conversation addresses how economic woes may actually have helped Erdogan’s campaign, why the main opposition CHP repeatedly fails, whether nationalism is the real winner to emerge from the ballot boxes, and what awaits Turkey in the next five years.
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Read and subscribe to Derin Koçer’s Substack.
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Turkey Book Talk #192 – Tezcan Gümüş of the University of Melbourne on “Turkey’s Political Leaders: Authoritarian Tendencies in a Democratic State” (Edinburgh University Press).
The book shows how almost all major political leaders throughout Turkey’s multi-party history have demonstrated authoritarian and undemocratic traits, reflecting and fostering the various failings of Turkey’s democratic system.
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Turkey Book Talk #191 – Paul Levin, director of Stockholm University’s Institute for Turkish Studies, on “Migration from Turkey to Sweden: Integration, Belonging and Transnational Community” (IB Tauris/Bloomsbury), co-authored with Bahar Baser.
The conversation looks at the demographic profile of the Turkey-origin migrants in Sweden, the power dynamics of Turkish and Kurdish communities in the country, and the imbroglio over Ankara’s continued non-ratification of Stockholm’s Nato membership bid.
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