Polarization and the environmental movement in Turkey

Environmental civil society organizations in Turkey have been drawn into the deep cultural and religious divide that characterizes Turkish society more broadly. Turkish environmental organizations are viewed by the Islamist leaning government as proxies for secularist opposition forces and not as independent voices truly committed to environmental protection. Interview data from fifty environmental leaders and Turkish state officials are analyzed to demonstrate how effective civil society functioning in the environmental sphere has been undermined by these deep partisan divisions. Local environmental struggles create one area of opportunity where environmental advocates can bridge the divide and work in collaboration with conservative government supporters.     

Coverage of bombings for political advantage: Turkish on-line news reporting of the 2016 Ankara attacks

On 17 February 2016, a suicide bomber blew himself up, killing 28 people and injuring another 61 in the “heart” of Turkey’s capital Ankara. A few hours after the attack, the Turkish government blamed Salih Neccar from the (mostly) Kurdish-Syrian People’s protection Unit (YPG). Two days later, the Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (TAK) claimed responsibility and named the bomber as Abdülbaki Sömer a Turkish citizen. The bombing is part of a resumption of violence in Turkey between Turkish government authorities and Kurdish groups. In this paper, we examine how on-line news stories recontextualise the bombing. We assert that news sources multimodally recontextualise the bombing in ways which are advantageous to the news organisations’ owners, political alliances and supporters. By each news source representing their political interests unquestionably positive and opposition unconditionally negative, polarisation in Turkish politics is articulated. This does nothing to solve problems and heal wounds in a time of national crisis.     

Politics and the Turkish military

As NATO prepares to expand into Eastern Europe, the military of one its longest-standing members, Turkey, is openly at odds with the country’s democratically elected government. Turkish Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan, under pressure from his generals for months, has been forced to concede political power. The military’s successful challenge to civilian authority, in keeping with Turkey’s praetorian traditions, could have dangerous consequences. The very threat that it now struggles against – radical Islam – could deepen its hold on Turkish society as a result of the armed forces’ challenge to the political order.     

The coalitions of 1989–90 in Greece: Inter‐party relations and democratic consolidation

The Greek coalitions of 1989–90 were unusual by comparative European standards, given their political composition and ideological span. But, above all, they were significant as an historical departure in Greek politics, however much political expediency lay behind their formation. Coalitions are as such almost unknown in postwar Greece, and one‐party government has been the rule since the return to democracy in 1974. Even more significant was the inclusion of the Communist Left in the governments of 1989–90 in view of the polarised state of Greek politics since 1974 and historical memories of the Civil War. Drawing on lessons from coalition theory, the formation and maintenance of these two governments are discussed. While their policy achievements were limited, the governments of 1989—90 allowed Greece to overcome the crisis of the PASOK government and the scandals of 1988–89 and they made way for a second alternation in power. On balance, therefore, they are likely to have contributed to the ongoing process of democratic consolidation in Greece.     

Interests,passions and politics: business associations and the sovereignty dispute in Turkey

This paper examines business associations in a context where the state is being contested from below, focusing on Diyarbak?r, a major Kurdish city in Turkey. Against the backdrop of armed conflict, reform processes triggered by the country’s EU candidacy and socio-economic change, Diyarbak?r has become a contested zone over which the Turkish government and the Kurdish movement have been competing for control. Local business associations have also been implicated in such contestation. Considering the situation of dual power and moral economy at the local level, the paper examines how these associations deal with an adverse situation that is characterized by political instability and uncertainty. The analysis shows that business leaders have been able to make the ‘best’ of the situation.     

Prospects for Solving the Cyprus Problem and the Role of the European Union

Although the Cyprus problem is basically an international questionand a geopolitical issue, the problem's domestic aspects aredirectly related to its international dimension. Resolutionof the problem's domestic aspects, within the framework of afederal constitutional arrangement based on the high-level agreementsof 1977 and 1979, the relevant United Nations resolutions, andthe provisions of the European Union acquis communautaire isperhaps possible. A federal system is a compromise between aunitary state, as initially desired by the Greek Cypriot majority-community,and a confederation, as currently pursued by the Turkish Cypriotminority-community with the support of Turkey. Nevertheless,even though federation is the agreed framework for a solution,a sizable proportion of Greek Cypriots express misgivings abouta federal solution because they fear that what is actually beingdiscussed is a system lying between federation and confederation.A viable federal solution would create a pluralist democraticstate with a market-oriented economy in the Eastern Mediterranean.Given that the Republic of Cyprus is on its way to joining theEU, the EU could play a substantive role in promoting such anoutcome. From a geopolitical perspective, a united Cyprus, asa member of the EU, would be an asset to the EU and also contributeto stability and security in the Eastern Mediterranean.     

The local news media impeding solutions to the Cyprus conflict: competing discourses of nationalism in Turkish Cypriot radio news

This paper, drawing on data from a news production study, carries out a critical discourse analysis of two stories produced by the Turkish Cypriot national news agency (TAK) and the stories produced by three local radio stations based on these texts. Both TAK and the three stations are partisan and used by owners and the elite for political self-promotion that supports what are broadly two different kinds of economic interests. One seeks to benefit from economic links with mainland Turkey and the other through relative independence yet continued isolation and separation from the Greek Cypriot-controlled Republic of Cyprus. Neither position favours unification with the Republic of Cyprus now highly popular with the majority of the population. To this end, stations recontextualise events to promote two different discourses of national identity, one that is Turkish and one that is based on an independent Turkish Cyprus. While listeners tend to accept that news broadcasts will reflect the viewpoints of owners and controllers, what is less understood is the way that even the most mundane and banal news stories are recontextualised to support these. It is this that is explored in this paper.     

Books Received

ABSTRACT

In the summer of 1934 Eastern Thrace was shaken by a wave of antisemitic violence that ended as suddenly as it had begun. The reasons underlying this attack on the Jewish minority are still not well understood, mainly due to the lack of definitive Turkish sources. New evidence indicates that ?brahim Tali, the representative of the Turkish government in Thrace and the district of Çanakkale further south, played a crucial role. The incidents should be understood in light of Turkish–Italian tensions in the spring of 1934, and the strategic need for re-arming the demilitarized zones in Thrace and at the Straits.     

Distrust in Government Leaders,Demand for Leadership Change,and Preference for Popular Elections in Rural China

This paper examines the relationship between distrust in incumbent government leaders and demand for systemic changes in rural China. It finds that individuals who distrust government leaders’ commitment to the public interest have both stronger demand for leadership change and stronger preference for popular elections. It argues that distrust in government leaders may have enhanced the demand for leadership change, which in turn may have reinforced the preference for elections. It further argues that distrust in incumbent leaders has in effect induced a demand for systemic changes, as introducing popular election of government leaders would require a major constitutional amendment. The paper suggests that two distinctive mechanisms may be at work in determining whether distrust in current government authorities induces preference for systemic changes. Whether citizens can engineer leadership change through existing channels influences the generation of idealistic wishes for a better political system. Perceived availability of better and viable alternatives affects whether idealistic wishes become a practical preference.     

Discourses of popular politics,war and authenticity in Turkish pop music

Turkey and the United States (US) have had a close mutually beneficial political and military relationship since the end of World War Two. However, this relationship came under pressure when the US government and Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) tried to cooperate closely in the 2003 military invasion of Iraq. AKP's leadership failed to persuade Turkey's parliament to accept the deployment of US troops and equipment in Turkey partially due to public opinion. Despite Turkish media and its government being intertwined to the extent where subversive discourses are all but silenced, some popular music videos were able to articulate discourses which questioned AKP's military policies. This paper analyses lyrics, visuals and sounds of one of these songs to look at the way war and political issues become articulated through a form of simplified popular politics, despite being presented as serious and authentic by a number of key signifiers across the different modes. A number of scholars have addressed the issue of subversion in music both as actual political challenge and as popular counter culture. This case study is used to assess subversion in music in these terms in order to consider its likely place in political debate in Turkey.     

Cyprus: Federation Under International Safeguards

Constitutional engineering to overcome ethnoregional cleavagesis being put to a severe test on Cyprus, where Greek and Turkishcommunities haltingly endeavor to salvage a divided state Threeyears after independence in 1960, the attempt to govern throughfunctional federalism ended in civil war. Intervention by Greeceand Turkey in 1974 resulted in a de facto partitioning of therepublic into two ethnically homogeneous areas. Under UnitedNations auspices, communal elites bargain for a consociationalsettlement, balancing national autonomy and individual rights.The solution requires international safeguards guaranteeinga new constitution and providing for "free cities" under a bicommunaladministration. Failure of the international community to actwill lead to a partitionist solution as manifested by a growingacceptance of Turkish Cypriot statehood.     

Soviet intelligence and the 1957 Syrian crisis

This article assesses a claim by Khrushchev that warnings from the Soviet intelligence services enabled to him to deter a Turkish invasion of Syria in 1957. The article shows that the United States and Turkey did aim to overthrow the Syrian government, with the Turks massing an invasion force on Syria’s border. Soviet intelligence detected this threat and was able to alert Khrushchev, who took diplomatic and military countermeasures. However, while the Soviet intelligence services did provide advance warning, Khrushchev overestimated the extent to which the United States was committed to a Turkish invasion.     

Biometrics and anthropometrics: the twins of Turkish modernity

ABSTRACT

In the first half of the twentieth century, eugenic debates and policies revolved around positive (encouraging the reproduction of ‘superior’ individuals) and negative (preventing the reproduction of ‘inferior’ individuals) applications for the purpose of improving hereditary characteristics and preventing social problems. However, their particular manifestations varied because eugenic agendas responded differently to putative social problems in different local contexts. Despite the wealth of scholarly studies on eugenics, particularly in Germany and the United States, eugenic debates in Turkey have so far not received any attention. The significance of eugenics in the Turkish context stems from its conflation with republican modernization efforts. While Turkish republican reformers were diligently searching for anthropometric proof of the whiteness, Europeanness and ancientness of Turks, they also supported biometric scholarship that proposed eugenic measures to protect and improve recently ‘discovered’ historical essences. At a time when western eugenicists were classifying non-western peoples as inferior, Turkish reformers creatively adopted the methods and vocabulary of race science to establish the Turks’ innate ability to modernize. In order to demonstrate the wide appeal of eugenics in the Turkish context, Ergin presents findings from a content analysis of educational conferences organized by the government between 1938 and 1941, and argues that the future-oriented project of biometrics was as important as the past-oriented project of anthropometrics for the formulation of Turkishness in negotiation with race and modernity.     

Labor migration,ethnic kinship,and the conundrum of citizenship in Turkey

This paper explores the ambiguous purchase that claiming Turkish ethnicity has in Bulgarian Turkish migrants' attempts to access formal and social citizenship. I suggest that despite the new Citizenship Law, which appears to eliminate ethnic privilege, the emphasis on Turkish ethnicity continues to play a significant role in the migrants' attempts at inclusion. I seek to resolve this seeming tension between, on the one hand, the continuing significance of ‘Turkishness’ in migrants' discursive claims, and, on the other hand, the failure of most of these claims to materialize in practice by addressing the question of social and economic capital. Although ethnic belonging continues to be an important facet of citizenship, social class makes a significant difference in determining who qualifies as a citizen and has access to social citizenship. I thus argue that we need to expand the current terms of the debate on the inclusiveness of citizenship in Turkey, which revolve around ‘denationalization’ and ‘postnationalism,’ to include questions of class-based exclusion.     

State Reform in Turkey: Reasons, Needs and Strategies

The state structure in Turkey including all its branches of government (executive, legislative and judicial) at both the national and local levels has been shown to be ineffective, even irrelevant, to the ingrained demographic, social, economic and political exigencies of the country. One of the main reasons behind this is the collapse of public finance. Conventional rhetoric limiting solutions to administrative reform fails to provide a sufficiently broad enough context within which public sector reform in Turkey can be discussed. Turkey's determination to become a full member of the EU also necessitates a comprehensive and radical overhaul of the Turkish public sector with respect to efficiency and productivity. Five main strategies are proposed to assist Turkey in overcoming its state governance predicament: initiating and carrying out a state-wide reform by employing modern principles of public management; understanding and solving the problem of internal and external debts; enhancing the conditions of governance; reintroduc-ing and strengthening the principle of meritocracy in public sector and cooperating more with the EU.     

The Emperor Has No Clothes! Power and Resources within the Greek Core Executive

International attention has focused recently on the reform “failures” of Greece in the context of its European Union membership. Systemic constraints are increasingly recognized. The present article argues that attention ought also to be given to the inner workings of government at the center and their undermining of reform capacity. It explores the nature of the Greek core executive across five premierships and argues the supposed supremacy of the prime minister is something of a fallacy. In reality, the structure is one of a “solitary centre” amid a “segmented government.” As such, the closest parallels are with Central, rather than Southern, Europe. In developing its empirical analysis, the article makes a methodological contribution to the examination of core executive relations and resources.     

Some correlates of partisan preference in Greece, 1980: a discriminant analysis

Abstract. The factors underlying patterns of partisan preference in Greece have been the subject of fairly little systematic analysis. This article uses data from a 1980 Euro-Barometer survey, the first to include a Greek sample, to outline the structure of the Greek partisan universe. A number of demographic variables – age, family income, education, occupation, sex, size of community, and household status – together with attitudinal variables regarding both foreign and domestic policy issues are tested as predictors of party identification. The multivariate statistical technique of discriminant analysis is used to measure the relative importance of these predictor variables in influencing the direction of party preferences. The findings show that attitudinal factors for the most part are more important than demographic traits. A stepwise analysis provides a rankordering of the strongest explanatory variables. The impact of recent political and historical developments on the party system in Greece is discussed.     

The İsmailağa community and its relationship with the AK party

This article aims to demonstrate the importance of the relationship between the Naqshbandi Ismaila?a community and the AK Party (Adalet ve Kalk?nma Partisi, “Justice and Development Party”) government. As one of the most widespread Sufi brotherhoods in the world, the strength of the Naqshbandiyya lies in its characteristic combination of strict adherence to religious law and active involvement in social and political affairs. The ?smaila?a community, one of five main Naqshbandi communities in Turkey, is highly conservative and traditional, historically dominated by elders who have remained aloof from any power struggles within the Turkish government. While the AK Party has developed ties with religious orders in recent years, including the Ismaila?a, some voices within the Ismaila?a community have become critical of this relationship, leading to a rift within the community. In addition, since 2013, and especially after the attempted coup of July 2016, the AK Party has lost the support of its old ally, the Fethullah Gülen movement. This article examines the relationship between the AK Party and religious movements in Turkey as reflected via its relationship with Ismaila?a, and assesses whether the Fethullah Gülen movement can be replaced as a party ally by the Ismaila?a community.     

European elites and the narrative of the Greek crisis: A discursive institutionalist analysis

This article examines elite European discourses during the Greek financial crisis from its pre-history in September 2008 up to the arrival of the SYRIZA government in January 2015. The article employs the conceptual literature on Discursive Institutionalism (DI) and Historical Institutionalism (HI). Having coded 1,153 unique quotes drawn from a dataset of 15,354 news wires from Reuters, the authors argue that the communicative discourse of 63 senior European (and IMF) officials on the Greek crisis during that period demonstrates significant volatility. Four distinct narrative frames are identified: ‘neglect’, ‘suspicious cooperation’, ‘blame’ and ‘reluctant redemption’, punctuated by three discursive junctures in 2010, 2011 and 2012, which reflect the content of the changing communicative discourse of the Greek crisis. The article's contribution is twofold: empirically, it is the first to provide a systematic analysis of the protagonists’ communication of the Greek crisis; and theoretically, it combines DI and HI in an effort to conceptualise an important part of our understanding of ‘bail-out politics’ throughout the Eurozone crisis.     

政务服务“好差评”制度：政策意蕴、理论阐释与路径建构

党的十八大以来,政务服务已成为建设服务型政府的新引擎。政务服务质量高不高、企业群众满意度如何衡量,长期以来缺乏制度化保障。公共管理学界已经认识到,构建科学合理的政务服务“好差评”制度已提上日程。基于政务服务助力推进政府治理现代化的宏大视角,本文探讨了现阶段我国政务服务“好差评”制度的政策意蕴,基于公共受托责任理论和新公共管理理论阐释了政务服务“好差评”与服务型政府的理念映射,并从价值取向、评价机制、评价内容、评价方法四个维度勾勒出了其建构路径。本文研究既丰富和发展了新公共管理运动的理论体系,亦有助于在实践中为加快我国服务型政府建设提供方法论借鉴。