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.     

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.     

Mental Health Service Recipients and Prison Work Release: How Do the Mentally Ill Fare Compared to Other Inmates in Prison Work Release Programs?

The objective of this study was to compare the success rate of the mentally ill and other inmates on prison work release within gender groups. Mentally ill (MI) men (n = 42) had a higher success rate (79%) than other men (NMI) (61%) (n = 49), but this difference only approached statistical significance (p = 0.07), and mental illness did not distinguish male success/failures in regression analyses. Mentally ill women (n = 51) had a statistically significant lower success rate (58%) than other women inmates (n = 49) (83%) on work release. The difference in rates, however, only occurred in the group of women who were currently in prison due to a parole violation, not new court commitments. Regression analysis confirmed the importance of mental illness and current commitment as a parole violator. A greater number of MI men should be allowed to participate in work release. Women with mental health issues who had prior trouble on parole may need enhanced services.     

Delinquent histories of adolescents adjudicated for criminal sexual conduct

A content analysis of closed case records from family court examined personal and family history variables for adolescents with sexually abusive behaviors who had been adjudicated for criminal sexual conduct and compared subgroups of adolescents with ( n = 72) and without (n = 80) prior other delinquent behavior. The study's findings indicate that adolescents with and without prior delinquent behaviors differed on a majority of the variables measured in this study. Adolescents with sexual offending behaviors who also had prior delinquent behaviors were older and had higher rates of documented childhood maltreatment, and drug and alcohol use. These adolescents had caregivers with more substance use and abuse problems and more extensive criminal histories. These findings have a number of practice implications when working with adolescents with sexually abusive behaviors. The findings also suggest that comparisons between adolescents with sexually abusive behaviors and other delinquents may be misleading if these subgroups of adolescents with sexually abusive behaviors are not distinguished.     

The limits of autocracy promotion: The case of Russia in the ‘near abroad’

In recent years, observers have raised concerns about threats to democracy posed by external support for authoritarianism coming from regional powers such as Russia, China and Venezuela. This article assesses the efficacy of autocracy promotion through a close examination of Russian efforts to shape regime outcomes in the former Soviet Union. It finds that while Russian actions have periodically promoted instability and secessionist conflict, there is little evidence that such intervention has made post‐Soviet countries less democratic than they would have been otherwise. First, the Russian government has been inconsistent in its support for autocracy – supporting opposition and greater pluralism in countries where anti‐Russian governments are in power, and incumbent autocrats in cases where pro‐Russian politicians dominate. At the same time, the Russian government's narrow concentration on its own economic and geopolitical interests has significantly limited the country's influence, fostering a strong counter‐reaction in countries with strong anti‐Russian national identities. Finally, Russia's impact on democracy in the region has been restricted by the fact that post‐Soviet countries already have weak democratic prerequisites. This analysis suggests that, despite increasingly aggressive foreign policies by autocratic regional powers, autocracy promotion does not present a particularly serious threat to democracy in the world today.     

A Closer Look at Peer Discrimination,Ethnic Identity,and Psychological Well-being Among Urban Chinese American Sixth Graders

Recent research suggests that although ethnic discrimination may have negative consequences for psychological well-being among youth of Chinese descent as it does for other ethnic groups, ethnic identity beliefs may buffer against such effects. Data for this study were drawn from the Early Adolescent Cohort Study, an investigation of contextual influences on the social, emotional, and academic adjustment of youth in ethnically diverse New York City middle schools. The present study sample consists of Chinese American (n = 84) and African American (n = 119) sixth graders. Results suggest that Chinese American youths’ own positive affect toward their ethnic group (private regard) was positively associated with higher self-esteem. In addition, the more favorably Chinese American youth perceived that others view their group (public regard), the fewer depressive symptoms they reported. In addition, among Chinese American youth, more favorable public regard attenuated the negative relationship between peer ethnic discrimination and depressive symptoms. The implications of these findings are discussed in light of the commonalities among ethnic and racial minority groups’ experiences of discrimination as well as the unique challenges that Chinese American youth face.

The structural sources of postcommunist regime trajectories

Regime trajectories in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union (FSU) have diverged considerably since the collapse of communism. We argue that this variation is the product of two largely structural factors: the salience of anti-Soviet nationalism and the opportunity for membership in the European Union (EU) that was mostly the product of geography. In Eastern Europe and the Baltic states, anti-Soviet nationalism and the stimulus of EU democratic conditionality contributed to the rise of a non-communist elite that confronted serious internal and external pressure to democratize. By contrast, weaker anti-Soviet nationalism and dearth of pressure from the EU allowed for the persistence of communist elites who faced relatively weak external constraints on autocratic behavior. We argue that these structural factors played a more important role in accounting for variation in democratization across the postcommunist world than factors such as institutional design. At the same time, the different character of structural forces in Eastern Europe and the FSU has likely created greater room for voluntarist factors in determining regime variation within the former Soviet Union than within Eastern Europe.     

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.