Everywhere Taksim: Sowing the Seeds for a New Turkey at Gezi

During the early years of the ruling Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (Justice and Development Party, AKP), Turkey was seen as a burgeoning democratic power propped up by economic prosperity in line with the reforms for European Union (EU) accession and International Monetary Fund (IMF) conditionality. However, 20 years later, it is considered an emblematic case of democratic backsliding in line with rising poverty and inequalities that have been amplified as a result of sweeping neoliberal reforms and authoritarian consolidation in the country. The recent literature has identified these concomitant and complementary modes of authoritarian governance and neoliberal policies in Turkey as ‘authoritarian neoliberalism’. In this chapter, we discuss the dynamics of consolidation of authoritarian neoliberalism in Turkey as well as the acts of contention against it. Building mainly on the eight case studies presented in this volume, we put forward a framework that explains the consolidation of authoritarian neoliberalism in Turkey through the mechanisms of executive centralisation, autocratic legalism, cronyism, violence-fuelled rentier accumulation, criminalisation and stigmatisation, and contestations against authoritarian neoliberalism through strikes, protests, demonstrations, network building, litigation, everyday struggles, and armed acts of contention.

show abstract

Active Citizenship in Turkey

Bee

2017

Active Citizenship in Europe

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Everywhere Taksim: Sowing the Seeds for a New Turkey at Gezi

Cited by 16 publications

References 48 publications

A Discursive Opportunity Structure to Confront the State

A Discursive Opportunity Structure to Confront the State

Consolidating and Contesting Authoritarian Neoliberalism in Turkey: Towards a Framework

Active Citizenship in Turkey

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About