Insight Turkey / issues

Editor's Note | Summer 2016

Sat, 30 Jul 2016 11:34:00 GMT

The date of July 15, 2016 is a watershed in the history of democracy as well as in the history of Turkey. On the night of July 15, the world witnessed an exceptional and historic event. The Turkish people heroically stood up against the brutal coup plotters; they became an example for other peoples on how to defend your nation and on what is the real meaning of national self-determination. At the same time, they gave a valuable lesson to the Western governments on how to support a democratically elected government. But more than anything, Turkish people proved to themselves that it is they who decide for themselves, for their future. After all, isn’t that what democracy is all about?

After the Coup Attempt, Turkey’s Success Story Continues

Fri, 01 Jul 2016 12:50:00 GMT

The July 15 coup attempt, which was orchestrated by the Pennsylvania-based terrorist organization led by Fetullah Gülen, highlighted the solidarity and unity in Turkey. It is of great importance to appreciate the historic nature of the people’s peaceful resistance against the coup attempt, taking into consideration the fact that Turkey has a long history of military interventions. Ironically, even though the main intention of the coup plot was to destabilize Turkish democracy and prosperity, it had the opposite effect. Turkey will strive to continue the success story of the past 14 years and rely on the support of its citizens to reach even higher goals.

The Role that the Media Played in the Failure of the July 15 Coup Attempt

Fri, 01 Jul 2016 12:40:00 GMT

On the night of the July 15th coup attempt in Turkey both social and conventional media played important roles. Rather than inspiring and directing people, the Turkish media was used as a tool for communicating, motivating and disseminating reliable information throughout the world. This commentary aims to identify the media and military relations that characterized the July 15 case by examining the experience of the media outlets, the use of the media outlets they appealed to, as well as presenting an analysis of the media’s prevalent role in the history of Turkish coups.

Turkey and the West after the Failed Coup: Possible Scenarios

Fri, 01 Jul 2016 12:30:00 GMT

Western powers are the main players that determine the national and international policies of Turkey, a NATO-member and a candidate country to the EU. The converse is also true, meaning that Turkey’s domestic political developments have always had an influence over the country’s relations with the West. The July 15 coup attempt is no exception in this regard. The botched coup is, without a doubt, a turning point in Turkey’s political history. Therefore, the present article aims at conceptualizing the eventual consequences of the July 15 coup attempt for Turkish foreign policy.

Turkey and the West after the Failed Coup: Beyond Suspicion?

Fri, 01 Jul 2016 12:20:00 GMT

In the wake of the events of July 15, mutual suspicion is an accurate description of relations between Turkey and the U.S., and Turkish-Western relations as a whole.1 Going beyond suspicion remains a challenge, and ultimately a necessity. It will not be an easy challenge to meet. The essential logic of Turkish-Western cooperation has been reinforced by developments in Turkey’s region. But developments in Turkey, Europe and, not least, the U.S., suggest that the sense of shared values and long-term purpose has declined.

Coup in Turkey and Egypt: Internal and External Dynamics

Fri, 01 Jul 2016 12:10:00 GMT

The failure of the July 15 coup attempt in Turkey gave rise to many comparisons between the coup attempt in Turkey and the coup in Egypt. This commentary compares the factors, which led to the success of the coup attempt in Egypt and the failure of the Turkish one. For this reason, it analyzes some differences in the social composition of the Egyptian and Turkish people, and the role of internal political actors, external powers, and the media in shaping the fate of the coup in Egypt and coup attempt in Turkey.

Conflicting Reactions in the Middle East towards the Coup Attempt in Turkey: Between Opposing and Welcoming

Fri, 01 Jul 2016 12:00:00 GMT

Reactions in the Arab world to the July 15 coup attempt in Turkey varied between opposing and acclaiming it. Remarkably, some of the most authoritarian Arab regimes were amongst those clearly expressing their jubilation in the early stages of the coup attempt. As for Arab public opinion, particularly Islamists and those loyal to them in the whole region, they decidedly condemned the coup attempt. Furthermore they expressed a sincere satisfaction for the victory of the Turkish people and the strong unity they demonstrated in their combative defiance of the coup.

July 15: The Glorious Resistance of Turkish Democracy

Fri, 01 Jul 2016 13:50:00 GMT

On 15 July 2016, Turkey experienced a milestone in its political history. An entity, judicially and officially recognized as the Gülenist Terror Organization (FETÖ), operating through a group of its disciples nested in the Turkish military, attempted to overthrow Turkey’s legitimate and elected government. Several important and unprecedented factors prevented the coup d’état. Among them, the determined and courageous approach of the ruling AK Party, in solidarity with its opposition; the heroic resistance of the people of Turkey, the Turkish police, and members of the Turkish armed forces; the anti-coup stance of the judiciary; and the democratic posture of the mainstream media. The foiling of the coup attempt will contribute tremendously to Turkish democracy in many respects. In short, the democracy in Turkey in the post-July 15 period will emerge stronger than ever before.

A Historical Perspective on the July 2016 Coup Attempt in Turkey

Fri, 01 Jul 2016 13:43:00 GMT

This paper sets out the historical background to the July 15 coup attempt. It outlines the Turkish armed forces’ age-old interventionist tendencies and argues that this is driven by three overlapping impetuses. The first is concerns over its civilian colleagues’ policy towards external threats and internal dissent. The second is the military’s promotion of its own version of Islamic practice and identity. The third is its determination to protect and, where possible, advance its economic interests.

Turkey’s Civil Rights Movement and the Reactionary Coup: Segregation, Emancipation, and the Western Reaction

Fri, 01 Jul 2016 13:30:00 GMT

Turkey went through a civil rights movement, or a “silent revolution,” under the AK Party governments between 2002 and 2013, in which the legally sanctioned segregationist measures that had previously structured the country’s political and social order were gradually abolished. This civil rights movement allowed for the public expression of religious observance and ethno-linguistic distinctiveness, thus elevating the status of previously denigrated religious conservatives and ethno-linguistic minorities to the level of equal citizenship. These reforms deprived the Gülenists and the PKK of their raison d’être. The PKK offensive in July 2015 and the Gülenist attempt at a military coup in July 2016 can be interpreted as the most violent reactions to-date against the non-violent civil rights movement Turkey went through under the AK Party governments.

Measuring Social Perception of the July 15 Coup Attempt

Fri, 01 Jul 2016 13:20:00 GMT

This study aims to measure the social perception created by the impact of the July 15 coup attempt. The social picture that emerged during and after July 15 deserves greater sociological attention. A total of 250 people were martyred in this upheaval, making it the bloodiest coup attempt in the history of coups in Turkey. Social resistance to the perpetrators transformed into “democracy watch” countrywide which lasted 27 days. As part of the study, interviews were conducted with 176 people who participated in the democracy watch in 9 cities and 12 squares. Hence, the codes of social consciousness developed about the coup attempt and the perpetrators, amongst others, are captured by how the society perceives the coup attempt.

July 15: Political Economy of a Foiled Coup

Sat, 01 Jul 2017 13:05:00 GMT

Turkey has suffered from interventions and enforcements against its elected governments, on the average, in every decade. Against this background, this study presents an assessment of the political economy of the foiled coup attempt on July 15, 2016 via the main theoretical approaches developed to explain the relations between economy and military coups. In this context, the study looks at the economic background of the pre-coup attempt period, crises scenarios serviced by international institutions and the goals of the perception management orchestrated by the western world for the attempted coup. In the same breath, the study presents in detail the FETÖ’s colossal economic power amounting to billions of dollars. The main conclusion is that the July 15 coup attempt was perpetrated to prevent an interruption in flow of financial resources into a murky network of business enterprises around a messianic cult.

Culture, Social Contestation and Turkey’s Failed Coup: The Rivalry of Social Imaginaries

Fri, 01 Jul 2016 13:00:00 GMT

This article explores the processes involved in the emergence of rival social imaginaries, as they develop in a cultural ecosystem, relating it to Turkey’s failed coup. To accomplish that, it unravels how people construct their own nature by studying the social construction of reality, which is comprehensively partial to ‘values.’ What we see and how it is understood leads to the emergence of diverging ideological trajectories and, eventually, to social contestation as a result of competing claims. In Turkey, this ongoing contestation is reflected in the failed coup d’état. In other words, the failed coup d’état is explored as a clash of social imaginaries, in which the Gülenist social imaginary was vanquished by the AK Party’s social imaginary.

Turkey’s Kurdish Peace Process from a Conflict Resolution Perspective

Fri, 01 Jul 2016 18:19:00 GMT

Edited by Bill Kissane, After Civil War: Division, Reconstruction and Reconciliation in Contemporary Europe is an ambitious attempt to explore the formation and reconstruction of identity and nation after internal wars.

Turkish Foreign Policy in the New Millennium

Sat, 01 Jul 2017 17:50:00 GMT

Hüseyin Işıksal and Ozan Örmeci’s edited volume Turkish Foreign Policy in the New Millennium constitutes an insightful analysis of how Turkey’s foreign policy and external relations have been shaped in the last two decades. The two editors have constructed an astonishing academic work in order to thoroughly explain and evaluate the trajectory of Turkey’s foreign policy, especially after the advent into power of the AK Party (Justice and Development Party) in 2002. The edited volume is separated into ten parts and consists of forty-two chapters (including the introduction and the conclusion by the two editors).

Peace In Turkey 2023: The Question of Human Security and Conflict Transformation

Sat, 01 Jul 2017 17:44:00 GMT

Peace in Turkey 2023, published in 2013, adds to the discussions on conflict transformation and human security by focusing on the case of the Kurdish conflict in Turkey from the perspective of “scenario building.” As Tim Jacoby and Alparslan Özerdem underline in the introduction of their book, politics in Turkey are marked by conflicting trends that point to an uncertain future, especially with regard to the Kurdish issue.

Turkish-American Relations, 1800-1952: Between the Stars, Stripes and the Crescent

Sat, 01 Jul 2017 17:39:00 GMT

Since the end of World War II, good relations between Turkey and the U.S. have been thought to be a de facto situation, and indeed for the most part that has been the case. Despite the problems that have erupted between the two countries at times, such as the Cyprus crisis which led to the Johnson letter in 1964, relations between the two countries have generally been on the best of terms. This relationship faced a rocky road following the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and the situation is still vague as the power game in the Middle East is being played out in Syria. Because of recent developments, especially those following the end of the Cold War, most studies tend to see Turkish-American relations through a prism that focuses on geopolitics, foreign policy and international relations.

Reinterpreting Exploration: The West in the World

Sat, 01 Jul 2017 17:34:00 GMT

Edited by Dane Kennedy, Reinterpreting Exploration: The West in the World sets out to provide readers with multifaceted narratives on exploration with a focus on a broad intellectual agenda. In the beginning, there was the word; however as well as the word, there was also the immediate urge to explore. The content of the concept of exploration has changed, and it has been reinterpreted over time, but, finding its place in almost all fields of life throughout the ages, exploration has maintained its dynamism and importance and has not ceased to alter the ways in which people perceive the world.

The Rise of the BRICS in Africa: The Geopolitics of South-South Relations

Sat, 01 Jul 2017 17:21:00 GMT

The notable rising of a select group of developing countries paves the way for new multilateral structures in global governance, like BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa). The Rise of the BRICS in Africa: The Geopolitics of South-South Relations by Pádraig Carmody explores the observable engagements and impacts of the BRICS countries in Africa, within the context of their new globalization models and South-South relations. In Carmody’s book, different globalization strategies of the BRICS powers in Africa are analyzed in individual chapters. The book is structured this way because the five BRICS states have different economic structures, historical legacies, ideologies and interests.

Governance of Seas and Oceans

Sat, 01 Jul 2017 17:15:00 GMT

When the words sea, ocean or maritime are considered, one must notice the 70, 80, 90 rule: “Over 70 percent of the world’s surface is composed of water, over 80 percent of the world’s population lives on the seaside and over 90 percent of the world’s trade has been performed over shipping.” As the world’s population and commerce network due to globalization have gradually increased, the dynamism on and around the oceans has likewise increased accordingly, leading to critical problems like resource depletion, marine pollution, etc.

Muslims and Crusaders: Christianity’s Wars in the Middle East, 1095-1382, from the Islamic Sources

Sat, 01 Jul 2017 17:08:00 GMT

Much has been written on the Crusades – one of the most astounding events the medieval world ever witnessed. However, what has been written on the subject often gives only one side of the story, as the books written so far have often shown little interest towards the people ‒ the Muslims ‒ against whom the Crusades were waged.

The Awakening of Muslim Democracy: Religion, Modernity, and the State

Sat, 01 Jul 2017 17:02:00 GMT

The governmental experience of Islamic-oriented parties in Tunisia and Egypt drew attention to the trajectory of political Islam by the time of the Arab Spring. The main objective of the book under review is to examine the neglected aspect of the politicization of Islam in the light of the Arab Spring. In her preface to the book, the author, Jocelyne Cesari, explains that the book aims to analyze the political mechanisms which fueled the conversion of Islam into a modern religion.

Localizing Islam in Europe: Turkish Islamic Communities in Germany and the Netherlands

Sat, 01 Jul 2017 16:35:00 GMT

Does the presence of Muslim immigrants in Europe change Islam? How is their identity shaped by the European context and do the social, political and economic conditions influence their understanding of Islam? Political and academic debates about the need for a so called “Euro-Islam” often center around the compatibility of Islam and European liberal democratic institutions and view it as a precondition of the successful integration of Muslim immigrants.

Peacebuilding and International Administration: The Cases of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo

Sat, 01 Jul 2017 16:22:00 GMT

While international administrations are imposed in conflict or post-conflict countries/regions in order to stop violence, prevent further casualties, and build sustainable and peaceful states, very often their effectiveness and impact on the affected population remains controversial. Niels van Willigen analyzes the effectiveness of such international administrations in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo by analyzing the level of institutionalization and the sustainability of the institutions created during the state-building activities of the international administrations.