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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Sinem Adar on Turkey’s dilemmas amid the Israel-Gaza war
November 28, 2023
Turkey Book Talk #207 – Sinem Adar, associate at the Centre for Applied Turkey Studies at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, on Turkey’s response to the Israel-Gaza war.
The conversation builds on her recent article for War on the Rocks arguing that the crisis shows the limits of Turkey’s regional influence. She also co-wrote a piece for the Middle East Institute with Hamidreza Azizi, looking at how Turkey and Iran’s interests converge and diverge on this and other issues.
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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 #189 – Doğan Gürpınar, historian at Istanbul Technical University, on “Apparatchiks and Ideologues in Islamist Turkey: The Intellectual Order of Islamism and Populism” (Palgrave Macmillan).
The book gives a sweeping overview of the public messaging that underpins support for the Erdogan government in Turkey’s popular media sphere, as well as some of the individuals and institutions that contribute to crafting of message in the pro-government media industrial complex.
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Turkey Book Talk #184 – Gregory Goalwin, assistant professor and chair of the sociology department at Aurora University, on “Borders of Belief: Religious Nationalism and the Formation of Identity in Ireland and Turkey” (Rutgers University Press).
The book explores how religion – Catholicism in Ireland, Islam in Turkey – served as a fundamental building block of the two countries’ national identity throughout the 20th century.
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Derya Ozkul on Alevis in contemporary Turkey and abroad
December 20, 2022
Turkey Book Talk #183 – Derya Ozkul, Senior Research Fellow at the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford, on “The Alevis in Modern Turkey and the Diaspora: Recognition, Mobilisation and Transformation” (Edinburgh University Press), co-edited with Hege Markussen.
The book is a wide-ranging volume examining Alevi life in contemporary Turkey and overseas, the forces exerting influence on Alevi culture, beliefs and practices, and the impact of three decades of AKP rule.
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Gönül Tol on Erdogan’s wars at home and abroad
November 8, 2022
Turkey Book Talk #180 – Gönül Tol, director of the Turkey program at the Middle East Institute in Washington DC, on “Erdogan’s War: A Strongman’s Struggle at Home and in Syria” (Oxford University Press).
The book tells the story of how developments in Syria have played a unique role in Erdogan’s political strategy, helping him construct his identity, consolidate his base, and divide and eliminate his domestic rivals. He has done this by shifting shape, emphasising different shades of Islamist or nationalist ideology at different times.
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Galip Dalay on the nuances of Turkey’s Middle East reset
September 13, 2022
Turkey Book Talk # 176 – Galip Dalay, associate fellow at Chatham House and non-resident senior fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, on his recent paper “Turkey’s Middle East Reset: A Precursor for Reescalation?”
The article looks in depth at Turkey’s bid to mend fences with previously bitter rivals including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel, toning down its revisionist zeal in order to return to something like the pre-Arab Spring status quo. Dalay looks at the push and pull factors behind this initiative, the challenges it faces, and some of the possible exceptions.
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Jan-Markus Vomel on Islamism and masculinity in Turkey
August 30, 2022
Turkey Book Talk 175 – Jan-Markus Vomel, doctoral student at the University of Konstanz, on his article “Pathos and Discipline: Islamist Masculinity in Turkey, 1950-2000”, published in the journal Zeithistorische Forschungen (Studies in Contemporary History).
The article examines how political Islam in Turkey weaponised ideas of virility, manliness and strength to mobilise against what it saw as the emasculating forces of secularism and Westernisation.
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Check out Jan’s previous appearance on the podcast from November 2020.
Become a member on Patreon to support Turkey Book Talk. Members get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, links to related content upon publication of each episode, and over 200 book reviews covering Turkish and international fiction, history and politics.
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Turkey Book Talk episode 173 – Gönül Bozoğlu, Leverhulme Research Fellow at Newcastle University, on “Museums, Emotion and Memory Culture: The Politics of the Past in Turkey” (Routledge).
The book focuses on the Panorama 1453 Museum in Istanbul and the Atatürk and War of Independence Museum in Ankara to show how history in Turkey is often a battleground where contemporary identities clash for supremacy.
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Birol Başkan on Islamism and Turkish foreign policy
April 12, 2022
Turkey Book Talk episode 165 – Birol Başkan, non-resident scholar at The Middle East Institute, on “The Nation or the Ummah: Islamism and Turkish Foreign Policy” (SUNY Press), co-written with Ömer Taşpınar.
The book examines Turkey’s foreign policy during the Arab Spring era, when Ankara threw its weight behind protest movements seeking to overthrow established regimes around the Middle East. This period was distinct from the early years of Erdogan’s government, as well as more recent times when Turkey has sought to patch things up with regional adversaries such as the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
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