Amid the ongoing face-off in the Arab Gulf, a particularly topical new podcast episode with BIROL BAŞKAN, an assistant professor at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar. We discuss his book TURKEY AND QATAR IN THE TANGLED GEOPOLITICS OF THE MIDDLE EAST (Palgrave Macmillan).
Download the episode or listen below.
Here’s my Hürriyet Daily News review of the book.
Subscribe to Turkey Book Talk : iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Acast / RSS
*SPECIAL OFFER*
You can support Turkey Book Talk by taking advantage of a 33% discount plus free delivery (cheaper than Amazon) on five different titles, courtesy of Hurst Publishers:
- ‘Jihad and Death: The Global Appeal of Islamic State’ by Olivier Roy
- ‘The Circassian: A Life of Eşref Bey, Late Ottoman Insurgent and Special Agent’ by Benjamin Fortna
- ‘The New Turkey and its Discontents’ by Simon Waldman and Emre Çalışkan
- ‘The Poisoned Well: Empire and its Legacy in the Middle East’ by Roger Hardy
- ‘Out of Nowhere: The Syrian Kurds in Peace and War’ by Michael Gunter
Follow this link to get that discount from Hurst Publishers.
Another way to support the podcast, if you enjoy or benefit from it: Make a donation to Turkey Book Talk via Patreon. Many thanks to current supporters Michelle Zimmer, Steve Bryant, Jan-Markus Vömel, Celia Jocelyn Kerslake and Aaron Ataman.
Ryan Gingeras on Turkey’s ‘deep state of crisis’
May 19, 2017
RYAN GINGERAS, associate professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in California, joins Turkey Book Talk once again. This time he is discussing his report, penned for Washington’s Bipartisan Policy Center, “DEEP STATE OF CRISIS: RE-ASSESSING RISKS TO THE TURKISH STATE.”
Download the episode or listen below.
Here’s a link to the PDF of the report we are discussing.
Subscribe to Turkey Book Talk : iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Acast / RSS
Ryan previously appeared on the podcast last year to discuss his book “The Fall of the Sultanate: The Great War and the End of the Ottoman Empire, 1908-1922” (Oxford University Press):
He also joined to discuss his biography of Atatürk: “Mustafa Kemal Atatürk: Heir to an Empire” (Oxford University Press):
*SPECIAL OFFER*
You can support Turkey Book Talk by taking advantage of a 33% discount plus free delivery (cheaper than Amazon) on five different titles, courtesy of Hurst Publishers:
- ‘Jihad and Death: The Global Appeal of Islamic State’ by Olivier Roy
- ‘The Circassian: A Life of Eşref Bey, Late Ottoman Insurgent and Special Agent’ by Benjamin Fortna
- ‘The New Turkey and its Discontents’ by Simon Waldman and Emre Çalışkan
- ‘The Poisoned Well: Empire and its Legacy in the Middle East’ by Roger Hardy
- ‘Out of Nowhere: The Syrian Kurds in Peace and War’ by Michael Gunter
Follow this link to get that discount from Hurst Publishers.
Another way to support the podcast, if you enjoy or benefit from it: Make a donation to Turkey Book Talk via Patreon. Many thanks to current supporters Michelle Zimmer, Steve Bryant, Jan-Markus Vömel, Celia Jocelyn Kerslake and Aaron Ataman.
Cenk Özbay and Ayşecan Terzioğlu on the making of neoliberal Turkey
December 21, 2016
Cenk Özbay and Ayşecan Terzioğlu, editors of “The Making of Neoliberal Turkey,” join for the latest episode of Turkey Book Talk.
Download the episode or listen below.
Subscribe to Turkey Book Talk : iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Acast / Facebook / RSS
Here’s the article on the Erdoğan-supporting LGBT group I mentioned during the conversation.
Also, here’s another heads up for the new Twitter account, which wants/needs followers @TurkeyBookTalk.
If you enjoy or benefit from this podcast and want to support independent podcasting, click here to make a small or large monetary donation to Turkey Book Talk via Patreon.
Many thanks to my current supporters Özlem Beyarslan, Steve Bryant, Celia Jocelyn Kerslake and Aaron Ataman.
Michael Wuthrich on the history of elections in Turkey and the future of Turkish democracy
September 17, 2016
New Turkey Book Talk episode with Michael Wuthrich, chatting about “National Elections in Turkey: People, Politics and the Party System” (Syracuse University Press).
This really is an excellent book that overhauls much conventional wisdom about Turkish politics shared by right and left.
Unlike the deceptively boring title of the book, this episode’s title is stupidly ambitious. But we do cover a lot of ground. I’m really pleased with it – hope you enjoy/learn from it.
Download the episode or listen below.
Subscribe to Turkey Book Talk : iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Facebook / RSS
Here’s my review of the book in HDN.
Many thanks to current supporters Özlem Beyarslan, Steve Bryant, Andrew Cruickshank and Aaron Ataman.
Ece Temelkuran on ‘Turkey: The Insane and the Melancholy’
September 2, 2016
Ece Temelkuran joins Turkey Book Talk to discuss “Turkey: The Insane and the Melancholy” (Zed Books), her vivid and personal account of the current state of the country.
Download the episode or listen below.
Subscribe to Turkey Book Talk : iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Facebook / RSS
My review of this one is pending – waiting for it to be published in the TLS before posting in abridged form in Hürriyet.
Many thanks to current supporters Özlem Beyarslan, Steve Bryant, Andrew Cruickshank and Aaron Ataman.
Bilge Yeşil on the Turkish media, past and present
August 20, 2016
Turkey Book Talk is back after a one month hiatus.
We return with a good one: Bilge Yeşil speaks about her book “Media in New Turkey: The Origins of an Authoritarian Neoliberal State” (University of Illinois Press).
Download the episode or listen below:
Subscribe to Turkey Book Talk: iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Facebook / RSS
Here’s my review of the book.
If you like Turkey Book Talk and want to support independent podcasting, you can make a small or large monetary donation to the show via Patreon. Many thanks to current supporters Özlem Beyarslan, Steve Bryant, Andrew Cruickshank and Aaron Ataman.
Shadi Hamid on ‘Islamic exceptionalism’
June 4, 2016
Brookings Institution senior fellow Shadi Hamid joins the pod to discuss his new book ‘Islamic Exceptionalism: How the Struggle Over Islam is Reshaping the World’ (St Martins).
Download the episode or listen below:
Subscribe to Turkey Book Talk: iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Facebook / RSS
And here’s my review of the book at HDN.
Support the podcast with a per episode donation via Patreon! Many thanks to current supporters Özlem Beyarslan, Steve Bryant and Andrew Cruickshank.
Cihan Tuğal on the fall of the ‘Turkish model’
April 16, 2016
Cihan Tuğal, a sociologist at UC Berkeley, chats about “The Fall of the Turkish Model: How the Arab Uprisings Brought Down Islamic Liberalism” (Verso), charting how Turkey went from a model “Muslim democracy” for the Middle East to an increasingly authoritarian state.
Download the podcast or listen below:
Subscribe: iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Facebook / RSS
Here’s my review of the book at Hürriyet Daily News.
Support the Turkey Book Talk podcast via my Patreon account. You can help me keep producing the podcast by making a monetary donation, big or small, on a per episode basis! Many thanks to current supporters Sera Aleksandra Marshall and Andrew Cruickshank.
I should say that the two things in the title are unrelated.
My interview this week was with Toni Alaranta of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, discussing his new book “National and State Identity in Turkey: The Transformation of the Republic’s Status in the International System” (Rowman). In the book, Alaranta traces how the entrenchment in power of authoritarian political Islam in Turkey after 2002 was critically aided by the West’s misguided search for a “moderate Muslim democracy” after the end of the Cold War and the 9/11 terror attacks.
Read the interview at the Hürriyet Daily News here.
And read my review of the book here.
This also marks my first step into the world of podcasting. From now on I’ll be publishing these author interviews in audio as well as written form, through my new podcast “Turkey Book Talk.” The podcast will include some extra parts that didn’t make the written edit, as well as some fancy music, etc.
Click here to listen to the first episode (a work in progress as I’m still figuring out the best host, player, etc).
To subscribe to the feed, visit my PodBean page.
Please spread the word to anyone you think may be interested, and do get in touch with any suggestions on how I can improve the podcast!
I’ve written a piece for Politico about Turkey’s critical general election. Specifically, the article looks at the shift by President Erdoğan and the government in recent months from emphasising economic competence to peddling bombastic conspiracy theories:
“While signs of this paranoiac shift have long been evident, the AKP’s earlier years in power mostly focused on making an economy-based pitch to voters. Economic competence and extending services to the poorer sections of society – along with an appeal to the conservative religious values held by many Turkish citizens – proved a winning combination for a string of crushing election victories. But while the party still pledges to spur development, its rhetoric leading up to Sunday’s election has tilted decisively in favor of a combination of conspiracy theories laced with historic posturing about reconnecting Turkey with the glory of the Ottoman Empire. When you’re on a glorious path, the AKP’s leaders suggest, you will inevitably have enemies.”
Read the whole thing over at Politico.
The rise of political Islam in Turkey
March 7, 2015
My review/interview double-header this week was based on “The Rise of Political Islam in Turkey: Urban Poverty, Grassroots Activism and Islamic Fundamentalism” by Kayhan Delibaş, who works at Kent University and Turkey’s Adnan Menderes University.
The book is well worth reading for anyone looking for a deeper look into the political context of the emergence of Islamist parties in Turkey in the 1980s and 1990s. While it’s true that political Islam is an intrinsically transnational phenomenon, it’s always worth remembering the specific conditions that have facilitated it’s emergence, which of course differ everywhere.
Here’s my review of the book in the Hurriyet Daily News.
And here’s my conversation with its author Kayhan Delibaş.
The Turkish gov’t takes on the foreign media
December 10, 2014
I’ve written a piece for Foreign Policy on the deterioration of the Turkish government’s image in the international media, and Turkey’s aggressive response:
The foreign media image of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the Turkish government has shattered over the past 18 months, and in response Turkey has ramped up an international information blitzkrieg.
The tone is becoming increasingly bitter, motivated by a conviction that the foreign media is a propaganda weapon deployed by the West to attack the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). Patriotic Turks are called on to rally behind their government in the name of national sovereignty.
This sense of embattled defiance is important to understand, and reveals much about the resentful mindset gripping the state. Suspicion about the foreign press is hardly new in Turkey, but it’s unfortunate to see the worst of such sentiments returning – openly sponsored by Erdoğan and the AKP’s top brass. The president himself is even managing to turn international criticism to his own advantage, as evidence that the West is implacably hostile to Turkey and its fearless, truth-telling leader — a useful populist line ahead of next June’s crucial parliamentary elections.
Read the full article here.
Turkey Book Talk 