Women prisoners in Turkey

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 Turkish political structure. Although the literature cites the so-called ‘28 February Process’, the impact of EU accession, and the learning effects of democratization as explanations for the distinction of the AKP from its predecessors, this article argues that the AKP is different due to its extended business network and newly defined conservative base. The decision of the court in the recent closure case against the AKP reflects this structural political change within the foundation of Islamic parties in Turkey. While the court acknowledged the political legitimacy of the party by taking a decision against its closure, it has revealed the general discontent regarding AKP's non-adjusted conservative/pro-Islamic policies by cutting down its financial means.     

Reassessing Turkish National Memory: An Analysis of the Representation of Turkish National Memory by the AKP

In this article continuity and discontinuity of interpretations and manipulations of national memory during the successive governments of the Adalet ve Kalk?nma Partisi (Justice and Development Party – AKP) in Turkey are investigated. The strong continuities between the Islamist parties of the 1990s and the AKP, with regard to the way they consider and manipulate Ottoman history as a means of political legitimation, are demonstrated. In addition, the continuity between the AKP's style of governance and that of preceding governments is shown. The conclusion of the article is that, in addition to continuities with its Islamist predecessors, the AKP is to a large extent still embedded within the boundaries of the nationalist framework set out by Kemalism with regard to the party's stance on Turkish citizenship, national identity, traumas in national history and leader-centred politics.     

Politics in the Kurdish periphery: clan networks and local party strategies in a comparative perspective

Despite the return to violence and state repression in the Kurdish conflict, the ruling Adalet ve Kalk?nma Partisi (Justice and Development Party – AKP) has remained the only alternative to the Kurdish National Movement (KNM) for Turkey's Kurdish citizens. What local-level strategies did the AKP employ in Kurdish areas to reinforce its national-level appeal to Islamic values? Under what conditions did local vote-seeking strategies help the AKP to overcome its pro-Kurdish rivals at the ballot box? This article examines the politics of local coalition building in the periphery of the Kurdish landscape – Bingöl and Mu?. Despite their many similarities, the two cities voted for different political parties in national elections. This article examines how the AKP's local party organizations interacted with local authority structures, recruited influential local elites, and pursued new voters. The vitality of clan networks in parts of Bingöl enabled the AKP to build a reliable local coalition. The gradual weakening of clan networks in Mu? and their permeation by the KNM prevented a similar coalition. Instead, the parties of the KNM were able to take advantage of divided clan networks to win national electoral contests in the province.     

A World Bank Project Implemented by a Moderate Islamic Party: The Social Risk Mitigation Project in Turkey

This paper presents some related processes in Turkey which have been initiated or influenced by the World Bank's execution of the Social Risk Mitigation Project (SRMP). It argues that the Justice and Development Party (AKP), as a party that redefined social assistance as charity by incorporating Islamic values with neo-liberalism, benefited from the SRMP for increasing its public support. It also demonstrates how the AKP's use of this project for its political aims led to some unintended consequences, causing the production and spreading of discourses about the poor, the Kurdish population and the emergence of a culture of poverty in the country.     

The intersectionality of gender,sexuality, and religion: novelties and continuities in Turkey during the AKP era

ABSTRACT

This article argues that in the AKP era, gender and sexuality play a central role in reshaping the secular-religious divide to instil ‘yeni milli’ (new national) – or as AKP members call it, ‘yerli ve milli’ (homegrown and national)- values. Adopting a feminist and reflexive approach, this article seeks to demonstrate that Erdo?an and the AKP have used gender and sexuality-related issue areas not as diversions to highjack the public agenda, as it is often assumed, but as a medium to regulate the neoliberal redistribution of conservative values. After a brief presentation of the historical background of the gendered evolution of the secular-religious divide in Turkish politics, this article focuses on the following three particular cases: the policies and discourse on LGBTI rights; the link that was established between the reproductive rights of women and ethnic identity; and how the AKP created new types of ‘other men’ and ‘other women.’ The article also seeks to show that in each case the meanings attributed to the secular and the religious in the secular-religious divide have shifted accordingly and that shift was reflective of, and was used to instil the particular set of values supportive of particular political positions.     

Feminist voices in Saudi folk tales: analysis of three folk tales retold by Abdulkareem al-Juhayman

This article explores whether Saudi Arabian society has propagated feminism through folk tales. Unregulated by societal standards, folk tales are an alternative structure. Since folk tales are children's entertainment and passed along orally, they are not as regulated as written literature. Academic feminists have brought folk tales to light, but this field is relatively unexplored. Female narrators mostly told such folk tales to young and/or female audiences. Additionally, folk tales have highlighted certain social issues; Saudi tales are no exception. This work studies the seeds of feminism in Saudi folk tales with strong female protagonists. This article uses feminist content analysis and focuses on three folk tales from the Arabian Peninsula, first assessing their effectiveness as vehicles of complex ideas by assessing children's reactions to them. Next, the study analyzes instances of patriarchal dominance, gender and sex concepts, and feminist coding.     

Anniversary meeting,June 24, 1936

The election of the first government of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in 2002 was a turning point for Turkey. People wanted change. That's what the AKP offered. Their successful economic management has seen Turkey transformed over the last 12 years. Foreign policy initiatives also prospered and relations with a number of neighbours improved.. More recent events have led some commentators to ask whether Turkey is moving forwards or backwards on the democratic path. There are concerns that the Ataturk legacy of a secular state is being slowly eroded by the forces of a conservative democracy and that too much power is now concentrated in the hands of Mr Erdogan. This is the background to the 2013 riots in (westernised) Istanbul. And the situation in the region leaves little room for optimism. The challenge now is to promote the political stability and predictability that will encourage continuing foreign and domestic investment in Turkey and to undertake the further structural reforms essential if Turkey is to rise out of the middle income trap and climb into the group of wealthier nations.     

The Sacrifice Of A Schoolgirl: The 1995 Rape Case,Discourses of Power,and Women's Lives in Okinawa

In September 1995 relations between the United States, Japan, and Okinawa were transformed when three U.S. servicemen brutally gang-raped a twelve-year-old schoolgirl. Okinawan feminists called public attention to the rape, but it wasn't long before the media and political leaders shifted their focus to concerns about Okinawa's colonial history and its postwar occupation by the United States. A crisis of sovereignty replaced the crisis for women and a particular girl, which gradually faded from view, as did the agenda of feminist activists. Through an examination of Okinawa's contentious identity politics, the author traces the political trajectories of Okinawa's component groups and asks why this particular crime, in a long list of crimes against Okinawans by U.S. personnel since 1945, resonates so strongly both in Okinawa and in mainland Japan. The author argues that the rape has been enlisted for its powerful symbolic capacity: Okinawa as sacrificed schoolgirl/daughter. As such it is emblematic of past, prior narratives of Okinawan victimhood, most notably the Himeyuri students in the Battle of Okinawa. Feminists' cooperation in a patriarchal language that posits Okinawa as daughter within a national Japanese family is problematic but necessary as a strategy in the fight for women's human rights.     

IMPARTIAL OBSERVATION AND PARTIAL PARTICIPATION: Feminist Ethnography in Politically Charged Japan

ABSTRACT

Using reflexive accounts from her own research, the author of this article discusses her struggles as a Japanese feminist anthropologist with what “contribution” actually means in different research contexts. The author compares her dissertation research on a feminist group with her ongoing research project on right-wing opponents of feminism. As a feminist, the author found it relatively easy to practice the idea of contribution with feminists as her research subjects. The situation was much more complex, however, when studying conservative opponents of feminism, whose views were directly oppositional to the author's views and to the human rights principles supported by the American Anthropological Association. By examining her fieldwork experiences on these two types of activists, the author discusses the possibilities and constraints of ethnographic practices such as participant observation, archival research, and contribution to the people anthropologists study and to feminism. The author also discusses the role that the internet is playing in current research contexts, and argues that the distinction between home and field is increasingly blurred. This study complicates the notion of “native anthropology,” contending that as the anthropologist engages deeply in politically charged situations in the field, the distinction of native versus other may no longer be accurate. By illustrating complexities surrounding the practice of fieldwork, the author complicates the notion of contribution, and shows that one possible way to grapple with the difficult question of what and to whom to contribute is to listen to diverse, complex voices, not only of feminists but also of their political opponents, antifeminist conservatives.     

Wildlife policy matters: inclusion and exclusion by means of organisational and discursive boundaries

As a result of shifting wildlife policy, approximately one-sixth of South Africa's total land has been ‘game-fenced’ and converted for wildlife-based production during the last three decades. The wildlife industry has thereby become a multibillion rand industry with an increasingly vocal political arena. Seeing nature and its production as an organised political project, this article sets out to give insight into the shifting power relations between wildlife utilisers, government officials and civil society in South Africa. It does so by examining the production of dominant narratives on wildlife in the emerging organisational field of wildlife policy. This article studies the Wildlife Forum, an important national discursive space in which government engages with non-governmental parties about wildlife policy. The article argues that by means of organisational and discursive restructuring, government and industry actors have promoted a discourse alliance that endorses both government's conservation interests and industry's development interests, while excluding dissenting voices.     

Women's Organisations and the Politics of Gender in Cuba's Urban Insurrection (1952–1958)

This article sheds new light on Cuba's urban insurrection to oust Fulgencio Batista by focusing on two all‐women's anti‐Batista groups. It charts the origins and developments of the groups, explores their conceptions about the importance of women's political action and examines the impact that participating in the insurrection had on group members. The article complicates long‐standing assumptions about women's low levels of participation in the insurrection and the absence of demands for gender equity among those who did participate by noting that some older women militants had histories with the feminist movement of the 1930s, and that many younger women were forced by the circumstances of the insurrection to confront and challenge contemporary gender norms.     

Between Indigenous Paramountcy and Democracy: How Differentiated Citizenship and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Could Help Fijian Self‐determination

Contemporary Fijian politics is shaped by a colonial legacy of extraordinary complexity and political tension. Since gaining independence from Great Britain in 1970, Fiji's history has been distinguished by incoherent and inconsistent accounts of political power. These concern the political rights belonging to indigenous peoples as first occupants vis‐à‐vis the claims to political recognition by the descendants of Indian indentured labourers. The relative power between the indigenous aristocracy and commoners is a further complicating variable. Following three coups (1987 and 2006) and a putsch (2000), indigenous paramount authority has been positioned against various forms of democracy and military oversight of the political process. However, none of these political arrangements has enhanced indigenous self‐determination. This article argues that indigenous self‐determination is more likely to be realised through a form of differentiated liberal citizenship consistent with the United Nations’ Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This reasonably requires the extension of the Declaration's provisions to indigenous Fijians, who, as a recent majority indigenous population, are constrained by colonial legacy in a similar manner to the minority indigenous populations for whose benefit the Declaration was primarily adopted.     

Conspiracy Mongering in Venezuela: The Chavismo Period (1998–2018)

Hugo Chávez's rise to power in 1998 brought many changes to Venezuela's political culture. One transformation not frequently commented on is the constant formulation of conspiracy theories, both by chavismo supporters and by its opponents. This article discusses some of those conspiracy theories, relating to the deceased Venezuelan President's origins, his religious beliefs, the 2002 failed coup d'état, and Chávez's own death. It also addresses more recent conspiracy theories relating to Nicolás Maduro's birth, economic warfare, and drug smuggling operations. Venezuela is currently undergoing a major humanitarian crisis, and this article defends the view that, at least partially, conspiracy mongering has been a factor in Venezuela's collapse. As part of Venezuela's reconstruction, this article recommends that Venezuelan political forces need to reach a consensus and agree not to make ridiculous conspiratorial claims.     

Alexei Navalny and challenges in reconciling “nationalism” and “liberalism”

This article examines the challenges and complexities in the efforts by political activist Alexei Navalny to reconcile “nationalist” and “liberal” modes of thinking in the current Russian environment. After deciphering three major axes of Navalny's narratives on the national question, the author then discusses the social and political context within which the national-democratic (Natsdem) movement was forged. Natsdems, who are simultaneously pro-European and democratic but also xenophobic, and who target an audience among the urban middle classes, reflect a fundamental shift in Russian society. The last part of the article discusses the paradoxes of Navalny's trajectory, in which a failed theoretical articulation between “nationalism,” “democracy,” and “liberalism” nonetheless has translated into a political success.     

The gender-apartheid analogy in the transnational feminist imaginary: Ms. Magazine and the Feminist Majority Foundation, 1972-2002

Abstract

This article considers the rhetorical implications of transnational exchange between feminist activists in the late twentieth century. It uses Gloria Steinem’s Ms. Magazine (est. 1972) and the Feminist Majority Foundation (FMF) as a lens through which to understand the emergence of the gender-apartheid analogy in the 1990s. During the 1970s and 1980s, Ms. demonstrated knowledge of and commitment to the anti-apartheid movement. However, when the FMF and Ms. began using apartheid as an analogy for gender-based oppression in the Middle East after the fall of the apartheid regime, the limitations of transnational understanding became fundamentally apparent. This article traces the historical and rhetorical foundations for the use of race-based analogies in women’s rights activism. It then examines the journalistic and foreign policy perspectives espoused toward the South African apartheid regime and women’s rights abuses under fundamentalist Islamic regimes. At the turn of the twenty-first century, this article argues, the transnational feminist imaginary was shaped by a process of inspiration and appropriation which delimited solidarity and understanding across transnational networks of feminist activists.     

The Co‐optation of LGBT Movements in Mexico and Nicaragua: Modernizing Clientelism?

Before the 1980s, LGBT groups in Latin America were largely (though not entirely) excluded from the state. This article argues that a combination of factors—democratization, social movement demands, neoliberal globalization and its accompanying discourse of modernity—has led many state actors to seek to incorporate LGBT groups into the state. Considering two cases of self‐proclaimed revolutionary parties, Mexico's PRI and Nicaragua's FSLN, the article examines how and why these parties incorporated LGBT organizations and what impact such incorporation had on the LGBT groups themselves. In both countries, LGBT groups benefited from clientelistic resources at the same time that they found themselves deradicalizing, often forced to accept visibility without rights. But in Nicaragua, a more recent revolutionary experience and ties to a combative, autonomous feminist movement have allowed some LGBT activists to resist the state's efforts to co‐opt their movement.     

A history of Turkey’s AKP-Gülen conflict

Although organized independently, both the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalk?nma Partisi, AKP) and the Gülen Movement (GM) have primarily addressed the same base and acted as mediums of upward mobility for Sunni Anatolian conservatives. Targeted by the old secular establishment, AKP and GM forged a mutually beneficial relationship in 2000s, with the former’s political office reinforcing the latter’s social and bureaucratic power and vice versa. Nevertheless, with the demise of their common enemy, this marriage of convenience gradually turned into a brutal fight, as epitomized in the abortive coup of 15 July. This profile provides a critical history of AKP and GM relations, illustrating how and why the image of Gülenists has changed in AKP’s projection from a faith-based community to a terrorist organization.     

Friends in High Places: Congressional Influence on the Bureaucracy in Chile

Chile presents a paradox for legislative studies. In most comparative research on the political power of presidents and assemblies in Latin America, the Chilean presidency is considered one of the most powerful in the region. The country's congress is seen, accordingly, as weak and lacking influence over public policy. Such evaluations, however, tend to be based on constitutional and legal faculties (that is, formal powers), and they overlook the substantial influence exerted by the Chilean Congress through informal political channels. This article analyzes literature on informal politics that shows the substantial influence of Chile's Congress on public policy; and, for comparison, presents an empirical study that adds several details to current accounts of congressional influence on the bureaucracy in Chile and describes two mechanisms of congressional influence not contemplated by recent research.     

Promises and Pitfalls of Veto Player Analysis

Veto player approaches have come to occupy a central role in comparative politics. This article critically reviews the literature, focussing especially on veto player explanations of policy outputs and outcomes. The review highlights three problems empirical veto player studies have to face: 1) identifying the relevant veto players, 2) establishing equivalence between veto players, and 3) specifying (theoretically or empirically) veto players' policy preferences. The article concludes that empirical veto player analyses advance our understanding of political institutions and their effects, but that they should deal more systematically with the three above mentioned problems.     

Explaining Political Islam: The Transformation of Palestinian Islamic Movements

This article aims to present a comprehensive explanation of the development of Islamic political movements among the Palestinians. It focuses specifically on the analysis of three Islamic movements: two that are active among the Palestinians of Israel (e.g. the 1948 territories)—the Southern Islamic movement and the Northern Islamic movement—and the Hamas movement that is active among Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Through the analysis of these movements, the authors have identified three different major strategies used by the movements under consideration: The ‘politics of acceptance’ by the Southern Islamic Movement, the ‘politics of difference’ by the Northern Islamic Movement, and the ‘politics of resistance’ by Hamas. Four factors together constitute the basis for a multi-layered explanation of the different approaches adopted by political Islam: the context, the public orientation, the leaders' movements' preferences and the interpretation of the religious text.