The legal notion of nationality in the Turkish Republic: from Ottoman legacy to modern aberrations

Shortly after its emergence, the Turkish Republic adopted legislation inspired by European legal systems and traditions, including a law on nationality. The implementation of this law was affected by the staunchly nationalistic early republican policies which were not immune from the influence of the concept of ‘race’, as well as by the Ottoman legal conceptions on nationality based on religion, both of which guided the application of the new laws by the judiciary and the administration. This article proposes a critical legal approach to the issue of Turkish nationality, based on historical reflections. After a survey on the laws on nationality since the foundation of the Republic, it addresses the major confusions in connection with the concept of nationality in the light of textbooks from the relevant period, in order to observe, in conclusion, inherent and insolvable inconsistencies within the law, and a tenacious survival of Ottoman conceptions within the current law on nationality, especially with regard to religious minorities, which are assimilated to dhimmis in the legal subconscious and often equated to foreigners in practice.     

Bulgarian studies on the Ottoman Empire and Turkey

Chez les voisins de l'Afghanistan: l'Asie Centrale Soviétique (Moscow: Progress Press, 1983; 174 pp.)

’Islamskiy faktor’ v myedzhdunarodnikh otnoshyeniyakh v Azii, ‘The Islamic Factor’ in International Relations in Asia (Moscow: Nauka, 1987; 192 pp.)

Islam v SSSR: osobyennosti protsyessa syekularizatsii v ryespublikakh Sovyetskogo Vostoka, Islam in the Soviet Union: Characteristics of the Secularisation Process in the Republics of the Soviet East (Moscow: Misl’ Press, 1983; 175 pp.)

Oktay Efyendiyev's Azyerbaydzhankoye gosudarstvo Syefyevidov v XVI vyekye, The Azerbayjanian Government of the Safavids in the 16 Century (Baku: Elm Press for the Institute of History in the Academy of Sciences of the Azerbayjanian Soviet Republic, 1981; 308 pp.)

Kavkaz i Sryednyaya Aziya vo vnyeshnyey politiki Rossii: vtoraya polovina XVIII – 80ye godi XIX v., The Caucasus and Central Asia in the Foreign Policies of Russia: From the 18th Century to the 1880s (Moscow: Moscow University Press, 1984; 328 pp.)

Zapiski o Bukharskom Khanstvye, Notes on the Khanate of Bukhara (Moscow: Nauka Press for the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union, 1983; 150 pp.).

M. Annanyepyesov's Ukryeplyeniye Russko‐Turkmyenskikh vzaimootnoshyeniy v XVIII‐XIX vv., The Consolidation of Russo‐Turkmenian Mutual Relations in the 18 and 19 Centuries (Ashkhabad: Ilim Press for the Institute of History in the Academy of Sciences of the Turkmenian Soviet Republic, 1981; 267 pp.).

G. Kh. Saparova's Revolyutsionniy komityet Turkmyenskoy SSR kak Pyerviy visshiy organ gosudarstvyennoy vlasti ryespubliki, The Revolutionary Committee of Soviet Turkmenistan as the First Supreme Body of Political Power of the Republic (Askhabad: Ilim Press for the Institute of History in the Academy of Sciences of the Turkmenian Soviet Republic, 1981; 132 pp.).

I.V. Pogoryel'skiy's Istoriya Khivinskoy ryevolyutsii i Khoryezmskoy Narodnoy Ryespubliki 1917–1924 gg., History of the Revolution in Khiva and the Popular Soviet Republic of Khorezm, 1917–1924 (Leningrad: Leningrad University Press, 1984; 228 pp.).

Kh. Sh. Inoyatov's Narodi Sryednyey Azii v bor'bye protiv intyervyentov i vnutryennyey konterryevolyutsii, The Peoples of Central Asia in the War with the Interventionists and with Domestic Counter‐Revolution (Moscow: Misl’ Press, 1984; 464 pp.).

Basmachyestvo: vozniknovyevniye, sushchnost’, krakh, The Basmachi Movement: Rise, Nature and Downfall (Moscow: Nauka Press, 1981; 246 pp.)

Basmachyestvo: pravda istorii i vimisyel’ fal'sifikatorov, The Basmachi Movement: Historical Truth and Fabrications of the Falsifiers (Moscow: Misl’ Press, 1986; 256 pp.).

M. Syeytakova, entitled Obraz Russkogo chyelovyeka v Turkmyenskoy Sovyetskoy prozye, The Image of the Russian Person in Turkmenian Soviet Prose (Ashkhabad: Ilim Press for the Academy of Sciences of the Turkmenian Soviet Republic, 1981; 57 pp.)

A.K. Rzayev, entitled Azyerbaydzhanskiye vostokovyedi XIX vyeka: ochyerki, Azerbayjanian Orientalists of the 19 Century: Essays (Baku: Elm Press for the Institute of Oriental Studies in the Academy of Sciences of the Azerbayjanian Soviet Republic, 1986; 141 pp.)

Tatarskaya lityeratura i publitsistika nachala XX vyeka, Tatar Literature and Journalism of the Early 20 Century (2nd edition, Kazan: Tatar Book Press, 1983; 352 pp.).

Azat Akhmadullin's Gorizonti Tatarskoy drami: lityeraturno‐kritichyeskiye stat'i, The Horizons of the Tatar Drama: Papers of Literary Criticism (Kazan: Tatar Book Press, 1983; 216 pp.)

R. U. Amirkhanov's Tatarskaya dyemokratichyeskaya pyechat’ (1905–1907 gg.) The Tatar Democratic Press, 1905–1907 (Moscow: Nauka Press, 1988; 190 pp.).     

Window-conflicts in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey: visual privacy,materiality and right to the city

This article focuses on the visual privacy rights as practised in the urban settings in the late Ottoman Empire (1850–70) and in contemporary Turkey (1980–2010). The analysis draws on the detailed examination of the legal conflicts on the overlooking windows between neighbouring houses in both periods. A hundred legal cases from the Ottoman context and 35 parallel cases from the last decades in Turkey were covered to understand the everyday practices of visual privacy and to compare them with the official privacy rules in the Ottoman and Republican contexts. First, the cases suggest that even today many citizens, including some lower court judges, confidently defend the urban right to be unseen from the neighbour's window despite the contrary decisions of the Supreme Court. Second, the in-depth analysis of the window-conflicts showed that the radical separation of the material world from the human world in both Islamic law and the Republican Civil Law was challenged by popular claims to visual privacy thanks to their exclusive focus on windows. It is argued that popular privacy rights were not about individual private space but about the urban built environment. Hence, windows were targets of the claims of the right to the city.     

The political aspirations of Indian Muslims and the Ottoman nexus

This article introduces the story of Yusuf al-Marzuk (1895–1957), a Kuwaiti merchant who created a thriving network in the Arabian/Persian Gulf and India. This network was part of the vast, undocumented activities of Kuwaiti merchants. They were uncovered by rare British reports. Yusuf's economic power enabled him to participate in the struggle of Kuwaiti elites to achieve political power vis-à-vis the Kuwaiti rulers, the Sabah family. This article demonstrates the importance of the trading networks with respect to the economic and political developments that shaped the region before the relatively well researched oil period.     

The political psychology of participation in Turkey: civic engagement,basic values,political sophistication and the young

This article aims to understand the recent heightened levels of mobilization and unconventional political participation in Turkey. We use a political psychology model that highlights the impact of civic engagement, political sophistication, and values on conventional and unconventional participation. We argue that these factors will be significant predictors of unconventional participation setting it apart from conventional political behaviour, which will be driven by simpler considerations. We expect these qualitative differences in the drivers of conventional and unconventional participation to go beyond age and gender differences and highlight the complexity of political decision-making in Turkey’s electoral authoritarian system. We use the 2012 World Value Survey to test our hypotheses, with a nationally representative sample of Turkish citizens. We find significant variations in the role of values, sophistication and levels of civic engagement for conventional and unconventional participation when controlling for age, gender and left–right ideological orientations. Our findings confirm the complex considerations that drive citizens’ engagement with politics and can be useful to explaining recent political developments in Turkey involving youth, public mobilization and protests, but also mainstream voting choices.     

The genesis of the ‘Exceptional’ Republic: the permanency of the political crisis and the constitution of legal emergency power in Turkey

ABSTRACT

Almost half of the political life has been experienced under the state of emergency and state of siege policies in the Turkish Republic. In spite of such a striking number and continuity in the deployment of legal emergency powers, there are just a few legal and political studies examining the reasons for such permanency in governing practices. To fill this gap, this paper aims to discuss one of the most important sources of the ‘permanent’ political crisis in the country: the historical evolution of legal emergency power. In order to highlight how these policies have intensified the highly fragile citizenship regime by weakening the separation of power, repressing the use of political rights and increasing the discretionary power of both the executive and judiciary authorities, the paper sheds light on the emergence and production of a specific form of legality based on the idea of emergency and the principle of executive prerogative. In that context, it aims to provide a genealogical explanation of the evolution of the exceptional form of the nation-state, which is based on the way political society, representation, and legitimacy have been instituted and accompanying failure of the ruling classes in building hegemony in the country.     

Islam and economics in the political sphere: a critical evaluation of the AKP era in Turkey

ABSTRACT

Since Weber’s articulate conceptualisation of the nexus between religion and economics, these phenomena have been examined through various academic viewpoints. While some take religion as a determining factor of economic performance, others argue that it is the economy that influences religiosity. This paper focuses on the manifestation of religion and economics in the political sphere regarding the case of Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP). After discussing the literature on the relations between religion and economics, it scrutinises the AKP period, considering three specific pillars: (a) the early years of the AKP in which Western economic policies were implemented as a continuation of the Kemal Dervi? period; (b) between 2008 and 2015, when the idea ‘we can do as well’ maintained the centre stage; and (c) 2015 and onwards, when the Islamist influence on economic policy became highly apparent, particularly regarding interest rates. This study argues that the AKP changed politically in terms of Islamic influence upon the economic sphere, however this remains at the discursive level for the time being.     

The Empire and the Khanate. A political history of Qing relations with Khoqand

Kemal Atatürk wanted to break with the past by providing his new nation with a new history that would give the Turks pride by showing that they were an ancient and civilized nation. The textbook produced under his personal supervision presented the Turks as central to the development of virtually all ancient civilizations. This became an official doctrine promulgated in historical congresses and many publications. It drew heavily on European writers, among them Gobineau and H.G. Wells. Although presented as a novel achievement, the new history had its roots in the recent Turkish past whose ideas were given a coherent form by Atatürk.