Balkans: History, Politics, Society

The European Union has played the most important role in stimulating political change in post-World War II Europe. Turkey had to become more democratic in order to attain candidacy for EU membership in the second half of the 1990s, and when it became a candidate, it had to adopt sweeping political reforms in order to…

• ŞADİYE MELTEM MÜFTÜLER BAÇ

This article provides a novel conceptual framework to understand the impact of the European Union on Turkish politics and policies in the aftermath of the opening of accession negotiations in 2005. It argues that the post-2005 developments in Turkey not only attest to lesser and more limited Europeanisation, but also…

Abstract: The paper analyzes the main factors leading to the Justice and Development Party’s 2011 electoral victory and proposes that the party’s ability to engage with the Turkish public and its effective governance are the main reasons behind its electoral successes. The AKP’s position could be characterized by “ele…

• ŞADİYE MELTEM MÜFTÜLER BAÇ

On May 29, 1996, travelers visiting Istanbul witnessed a rather peculiar celebration. A group of burly men dressed in Ottoman military clothing, some wearing false moustaches, were dragging a decorated sailboat along the asphalt road toward the central Taksim Square. Although it was no easy task to drag the sailboat u…

Historically, the closure of a party is a common phenomenon in Turkish politics. While the recent case against the governing Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi, AKP) was reminiscent of this trend, the decision of the Constitutional Court demonstrated that there are changes in the dynamics of the…

The argument of this paper is that the new foreign policy orientation of Turkey under the AKP (Justice and Development Party) government is a constitutive component of a new nationalist project, constructed and carried out by the AKP over the last decade. The article expounds the ways in which the AKP has reformulated…

• CENK SARAÇOĞLU
• ÖZHAN DEMİRKOL

Following four elections in three years, on 16 April 2017 Turkish voters once again went to the polls - this time under the emergency law established after the failed coup attempt of July 2016 - to vote on constitutional amendments aimed at replacing the existing parliamentary system with an executive presidency. This…

• BERK ESEN

The loss of the Balkans was not merely a physical but also a psychological disaster for the Ottoman Empire. In this frank assessment, Ebru Boyar charts the creation of modern Turkish self–perception during the transition period from the late Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic. The Balkans played a key role in iden…

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate how immigration-settlement policies were employed by post-Lausanne Turkey to create a homogenous nation-state. Focusing on the incorporation of immigrants in the period of 1923-1934, the paper argues that the state policies of migration and settlement pursued two primary objecti…

• EROL ÜLKER

This article provides the trajectory of the political and social conditions that structured the sudden and puzzling explosion of the nationwide Gezi revolt in Turkey out of a small protest for an urban park in Istanbul during the summer of 2013. It depicts the macro-level political struggles that shaped the last decad…

Since the 2000s, Turkish policymakers and private sector interests have combined representations of Turkey as both Western and Eastern with a branding approach to identity in foreign policy, trade and investment promotion, and cultural sector activities. This article analyses how the commodification of its liminal ide…

• BAHAR RUMELİLİ SANCAK
• RAHİME SÜLEYMANOĞLU KÜRÜM

This paper analyses how state policies towards minorities are defined in new nation‐states. It compares the treatment of Turks in Bulgaria and Kurds in Turkey from the foundation of both states until the 1940s. Imperial legacy, elite unity, responses of minority groups and the international context are important facto…