The religious identity of Turkey’s Alevis, with the origins of their traditions, and in particular their relation to Islam, are the focus of a debate current in Turkey as well as in those western European countries with strong Turkish migrant populations. This debate began in the late 1980s, with the public coming-out of the Alevi community, when the Alevis set out on a manifest campaign to be recognized as a distinct cultural and/or religious tradition. Against the backdrop of this (...) debate, this article discusses the impact of Turkish politics of doxa on the possibilities of Alevi representation in Turkey. It gives particular attention to the implication of secularism and nationalism in the knowledge regime that subscribes heterodoxy to the Alevis – an ascription that secures their principal integratability in the Turkish nation, while at the same time preparing the ground for otherizing them from the Sunni majority perspective. (shrink)

Since the inception of Turkey as an independent state, the country has based itself on Western modes of governance, with secularism being a hallmark of the nation. In recent years, Islamic parties have made inroads in government, causing consternation among the old guard and allies in Europe. Much of the modern arguments against Turkey's inclusion in the EU rely on psuedo-Orientalist ideas; Turkey is somehow so different and alien from "European" culture that they simply do not belong in the EU. (...) Historical notions of Turkey and Islam as fundamentally different are then propagated to remove Turkey from contemporary Europe. Islamic politics in Turkey do not represent a shift to a more fundamentalist ideology; in actuality, Turkish Islamic parties are very modern movements based in progressive ideas. The rise of Islamic parties in Turkey signals a shift away from a dogmatic following of the strictly secular West into a more hybrid political identity, unshakably tied to the West but allowing for a greater expression of its Middle Eastern Muslim heritage. (shrink)

This article aims at revealing the patriarchal pattern that has dominated Turkish political thought in the 20th century. I analyse the construction of woman's identity in the writings of three prominent thinkers of the early-republican era (1923–1945); namely, Ahmet Aǧaoǧlu, Peyami Safa and Zekeriya Sertel. The thinkers are deliberately chosen since each represents challenging political dispositions vis-à-vis the others. Ahmet Aǧaoǧlu is a liberal-nationalist, Peyami Safa is a well-known conservative thinker and Zekeriya Sertel is a leftist. However, despite the (...) differences between and/or opposing foundations of their approaches all the three thinkers agree that there is a universally valid woman nature, attested by women's reproductive function, and approach the ‘woman issue’ on the basis of this assumption. The thinkers also argue that participation of women in public sphere inevitably results in their masculinization. Moreover, they distinguish between femininity and womanhood and offer their ideal models of womanhood. Although one can trace differences among the models, all converge on the concept of ‘nation's motherhood’ as the most significant feature of ideal womanhood. The main argument of the article is that women's subordination in the Turkish context is reinforced by the wide acceptance of these assumptions, and is further reproduced by the exclusion of the construction of gender typologies in the studies on Turkish political thought for a considerably long time. (shrink)

The article argues that the failure of political Islam in Turkey is correlated with the characteristics of the polity that are broadly undemocratic. Political Islam not only failed to propose a new narrative but produced the so-called New Turkey that displays familiar totalitarian features. The article examines the approaches political Islam used to assert its rule, namely, dewesternization, Islam’s nationalization and instrumentalization, majoritarianism, empowering devout masses, and synergizing with the undemocratic culture.

Political discourse relies heavily on specific discursive strategies to gain, exercise and sustain power. Among those are metaphors which have the power to persuade and the potential to carry certa...

Michael Wendeler’s disputation on the Turkish republic is a discussion of Ottoman history, political philosophy, and the concept of monarchy and tyranny. Half of his disputation concerns the identification of the Turks with the little horn which arises on the head of the fourth beast in the prophet’s vision described in the Book of Daniel 7:1–28. Giving copious historical references, Wendeler explains that this little horn cannot be referring to Christ as the Jews believe, nor to the Seleucid monarch (...) Antiochos Epiphanes as the Calvinists believe. Nor can it be identifed with the Antichrist as the Catholics believe. Wendeler puts forth a detailed argument that the little horn on the fourth beast in the prophecy of Daniel can only be identified with the Turkish monarch (Ottoman Sultan). In conclusion, Wendeler draws a parallel between the monstrous ‘little horn’—the tyrannical Turkish monarchy—and the tyranny of the Catholic Church, exemplified by the untrustworthy Pope and the satanic writings of the Catholic Machiavelli. (shrink)

Various studies have been made on different aspects of the Turkish and Japanese languages, but comparative studies between the two languages are still limited. The aim of this study is to describe the politeness strategy of these two languages from a cultural perspective within the paradigm of cognitive linguistics. Both Turkish and Japanese are agglutinative languages, and speakers of both languages prefer the subjective construal. So, if the typology of a language might be related to its perception, the (...) conceptualization of ‘polite’ and the perception of politeness in that language may be alike. (shrink)

Various studies have been made on different aspects of the Turkish and Japanese languages, but comparative studies between the two languages are still limited. The aim of this study is to describe the politeness strategy of these two languages from a cultural perspective within the paradigm of cognitive linguistics. Both Turkish and Japanese are agglutinative languages, and speakers of both languages prefer the subjective construal. So, if the typology of a language might be related to its perception, the (...) conceptualization of ‘polite’ and the perception of politeness in that language may be alike. (shrink)

Various studies have been made on different aspects of the Turkish and Japanese languages, but comparative studies between the two languages are still limited. The aim of this study is to describe the politeness strategy of these two languages from a cultural perspective within the paradigm of cognitive linguistics. Both Turkish and Japanese are agglutinative languages, and speakers of both languages prefer the subjective construal. So, if the typology of a language might be related to its perception, the (...) conceptualization of ‘polite’ and the perception of politeness in that language may be alike. (shrink)

Various studies have been made on different aspects of the Turkish and Japanese languages, but comparative studies between the two languages are still limited. The aim of this study is to describe the politeness strategy of these two languages from a cultural perspective within the paradigm of cognitive linguistics. Both Turkish and Japanese are agglutinative languages, and speakers of both languages prefer the subjective construal. So, if the typology of a language might be related to its perception, the (...) conceptualization of ‘polite’ and the perception of politeness in that language may be alike. (shrink)

The Democratic Party government, covering the period 1950-60, is seen as one of the most important stages on the road to democracy in Turkey. The Republican People’s Party, which ruled the country from the proclamation of the republic in 1923 to the end of World War II, found itself in opposition for the first time after the 1950 elections, and thus Turkish democracy was given a first chance to stand on its own feet. This work aims to read the (...) era through the eyes of French diplomats, giving an external and disinterested perspective on DP power and the Menderes government, a critical time in the history of Turkish democracy. The study is based on the thoughts and analysis about the DP’s representation of democracy and attitudes towards opposition from 1956 to the coup on May 27, 1960 written down by the 69th and 70th French ambassadors to Turkey, Jean Paul Garnier and Henry Spitzmuller. The reports that Garnier and Spitzmuller sent to Paris contain harsh criticism of the Menderes government for its authoritarian and anti-democratic practices and for its religious policies. These criticisms provide us with important clues about the ways in which the DP transformed the fundamental principles and policies of the Atatürk era. (shrink)

This article seeks to explain how Bergson's philosophy was translated into a genuine political position in the Ottoman-Turkish context. I first overview the impact of Bergson's philosophy on continental politics at the beginning of the twentieth century; I then try to explain how Bergson's philosophical claims acquired definite political connotations; and lastly, I aim to display how political Bergsonism became a border language between republican radicals and conservatives in Turkey in the 1920s. I argue that, at the crossroads (...) of all currents of European modernity, political Bergsonism heralded the birth of a new vision of conservative modernity that molded the underlying values and principles of the transformation of Turkey into a modern society. (shrink)

Only months following the declaration of the Turkish Republic in October 1923, Turkey’s newly appointed Minister of Public Instruction, Sefa Bey, invited U.S. philosopher and educator John Dewey to survey his fledgling country’s educational system. Having just emerged from a brutal war for independence, Turkey was beginning a process of rapid modernization under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal “Atatürk,” and government officials looked to Dewey for recommendations on how to make Turkish schools agencies of social reform that would (...) advance their state’s identity as a democratic republic. Dewey traveled for two months throughout the country with his wife, Alice, and met with teachers and government officials in .. (shrink)

This article examines the treatment of Armenians by the late Ottoman and Turkish republican state with a special focus on the social and political roles of the Armenian clergy, especially the patriarch. After giving a brief account of the historical evolution of the millet system – the principles and practices applied by the Ottoman state in its treatments of non-Muslims – the article tries to understand whether the new regime kept it or adopted a modern approach during the transition (...) from empire to nation-state. It concludes that the republican state has created a deliberate inconsistency in its treatment of the Armenian community and patriarch. Although it has avoided recognizing them as a group and their group’s rights it continuously discriminated against them because of their group identity. The republican state has tried to downgrade the patriarch to a mere religious figure without any social or political role which is defined de jure. However, it has continued to accept him as de facto leader of the Armenian community on some occasions. (shrink)

This paper investigates the Turkish Constitutional Court (TCC)’s treatment of legal challenges brought against Turkey’s legal responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on a detailed examination of the TCC’s institutional features, political origins and jurisprudential trajectory, and taking three politically salient judgments of the TCC concerning Turkey’s executive-dominated pandemic control as the point of departure, the paper argues that the TCC chose to exercise judicial restraint both in protecting fundamental rights and reviewing pandemic policies of the executive. It also (...) argues that the TCC’s judicial restraint during the pandemic was simply the re-manifestation of its ‘play-it-safe’ strategy — a judicial stance the TCC willingly adopted in the aftermath of the 2016 attempted coup despite possessing strong constitutional powers of judicial review, and its established attitude of assertive scrutiny in the past. From a more theoretical perspective, the analysis also explores how the passive role to which the TCC is consigned in an increasingly authoritarian regime since the 2016 failed coup relates to the global phenomenon of judicialization of authoritarian politics. (shrink)

Bath structures, which emerged as a result of the importance given to washing since ancient times and which mean "place to wash", provided continuity with the style created in the Roman and Byzantine periods. Turkish baths, shaped on the bath tradition of the Roman and Byzantine periods, gain a unique form in time, especially after the adoption of Islam. It is seen that with the differences with the beliefs and behaviours brought by Islam the important changes in the structure (...) of the Turkish baths emerged with the new arrangements made of the plan typology in the Ottoman period. In addition, some another various functions are attributed to these structures in the Ottoman Empire and baths are generally built for income. After the Ottoman-Russian war between 1828-1829, the "Turkish Bath" built by the Russian Tsar Nicholas as a message for his own political purposes carries traces of the aforementioned Ottoman baths. The Turkish bath, which the tsar ordered to be built in the park of Ekaterinburg, becomes a product of the project on which the important Russian architect Monigetti meticulously emphasized. Although the structure in question differs from the Ottoman bath formation, it has similar features in terms of function and decoration details. However, the external appearance of the work, which is the subject of our study, with the form of the minaret next to it, resembles the Turkish Mosque architecture. In terms of decorative features, an oriental arabesque style of decoration dominates the building. As a matter of fact, our aim in this study is to first explain the characteristics of a Turkish structure built in Russian and completely from a Russian point of view, and then reveal the similarities and differences between both the two constructions. (shrink)

Cinema is not only a space in which directors act with the aim of making art, but they also reflect their own testimonies and political perspectives; this study, which claims to be related to representation strategies that contain various interests and desires; It is of the opinion that different ideological approaches are reflected on the screen by political and cultural elites in line with the construction, legitimacy and movement of identities and images. In this study, which examines the Türkiye’nin Kalbi (...) Ankara movie, which was shot in the intense socio-political atmosphere of the 1930s and was shot to tell Turkey's nationalization process and modernization experience through the capital Ankara; the manifestation of the Turkish nation-building process in cinema is discussed through the relationship between nationalism and cinema. (shrink)

Eşrefoğlu Rumi and Ümmî Kemal are prominent practitioners of Ottoman Sufi poetry—literature that emerged from the environment of Anatolian Sufi orders. The parallel histories of the transmission of their two divans help clarify details of the poets’ lives. Conversely, biographical facts may help explain details and oddities of those transmission histories, which themselves may also illuminate features of the late fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Ottoman religious and political landscape of increasing theological rigidity in the face of Safavid pressure and probable persecution (...) of those deemed beyond the pale, features that are still poorly understood. In light of a recent essay by Walter Andrews on prevailing editing practices in Ottoman literature, I offer a critique of the recent handling of both divans. After noting previously unrecognized copies of each, I also make suggestions for further study of their poems. (shrink)

Relations between Turkish authorities and their Kurdish minority have been a source of conflict for decades. On 11 April 2015, in the run-up to Turkey’s parliamentary elections, a gunfight broke out in the south-eastern province of Ağrı, resulting in six Kurdish people being killed and four Turkish military personnel wounded. Although skirmishes like this are not unusual, this caught the public imagination as it became clear that Kurdish civilians had helped wounded Turkish soldiers after the shoot-out. The (...) government denied such help and was keen to place the blame for the fight on the Kurdish opposition in its attempt to dissuade the public from voting for Kurdish-oriented parties, thereby increasing their chances of securing a parliamentary majority. The Kurds were keen to do the same to the government for the sake of votes, while the mainstream opposition saw this as an opportunity to represent the government and Kurds as poor voting options. The Turkish media, polarised and closely aligned to political interests, recontextualised events in ways which showed their political ties. This article uses critical discourse analysis to show how this was done in three national newspapers. Furthermore, the article argues that representations as such do nothing to aid in solving the decades-old problem of how Turks and Kurds can coexist peacefully. (shrink)

Social change does not occur in the same form and direction in every social structure. In this context, every society experiences the modernization process with its own dynamics. These dynamics started with an intervention either from the top or from outside for the countries that want to be included in the modernization process. Due to the government's modernization initiatives, many differences have been made in the individual and social structure. Because, with the changes in the powers governing the state many (...) times in the short term, the society on the way to modernization has faced a new mentality and modernization steps accordingly. However, this difference has not always been in the way the state predicted and organized it. In this sense, the society sometimes accepted the foreseen change and continued it, and sometimes showed resistance to the change. The failure to legitimize the change successfully in the eyes of the people, however, the fact that it was put to work with various sanctions caused the new norms to not be internalized among the people. The modernization movements that could not be internalized by the society were tried to be applied superficially and formally. However, as a result of the development of information opportunities over time and the convergence of the levels in the state on both political and social planes, modernization has started to take its own motivation from internal processes. Thus, an eclectic culture has emerged between the east and the west, but with its own unique motifs. Individuals who grew up in this line have also applied the patterns of the society while living their own modernization experience. These patterns formed in society have changed the emotional and embarrassment thresholds of individuals. Thus, the sense of control, which started from the outside, descended to the core while human beings were civilized. Based on this background, the aim of our study is to read through clothes, within the scope of Elias' theory of civilization, how the change brought about by Turkish modernization has changed the emotional threshold of a single person in social and individual terms. Literature review was preferred for the progress of the study. The research is limited to dress as a subject. Temporally ıt was limited to the period from the II. Mahmud period to the early Republican period. Thus, the study made inferences about today by going back to the Turkish modernization adventure, which dates back 200 years. The study has been divided into three main parts. While these sections were being presented, the topics were often associated with the "religion" theme. (shrink)

After the outbreak of the Arab Spring and, above all, the intensification of the Syrian crisis with Ankara starting to engage in a political confrontation with Assad’s Syria, Tehran tried to exploit its historic strategic alliance with Damascus in a search for projecting its influence abroad. As Turkey has been facing more and more hardships and experiencing political isolation, Iran seemed to be more comfortable with its external environment, benefiting from a convergence of interests with Russia. However, the advent of (...) ISIS created further disarray in the region, presenting opportunities for countries to cooperate especially for Erdogan’s new Turkey which was still focused on fighting Kurds. (shrink)

This study investigates to what extent Turkish formal complaint letters followed the ‘Problem-Solution Pattern’, and on how the writers expressed their wishes when they explained their problem and asked the authorities to amend a mistake. The study is based on a corpus of 134 Turkish complaint letters. It draws upon Flowerdew’s approach to the problem-solution pattern and the role of clause relations in this text pattern. Results showed that age-old Turkish rhetorical norms led writers’ choice of lexico-grammatical (...) patterns in reflecting politeness in order to maintain their own and the recipients’ faces. The speech acts in the ‘Problem and Solution’ parts below were hedged and impersonalized. The Turkish traditional rhetorical formula that was used in the request does not explicitly ask the reader to do something; in this way, the writers attempt to protect both their own face and that of the reader. (shrink)

It is the intention in this article to explain the electoral stagnation of the Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP) in the light of the 2015 parliamentary elections in Turkey. Drawing on theories of voting behavior, the article uncovers the organizational shortcomings within the party and the problem of credibility that have emerged as significant impediments to the party in addressing long-term historical-structural issues, mainly the division of Turkish society between the religious periphery and the secular center. Furthermore, (...) the strong identification between the ruling Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) and its partisans have made party-switching difficult, having been achieved, above all, through the provision of economic benefits and public services and the consolidation of party identification through growing polarization and division in Turkish politics. Last but not least, the changes to the political environment between the June 7 and November 1, 2015 elections, pushed stability and security to the top of the agenda, as well as AKP’s electoral adjustments in the run-up to the November 1 elections inhibited any possible flow of votes to the CHP. (shrink)

This paper presents a cross‐cultural comparison of Protestant work ethic characteristics of practising Protestant British and practising Muslim Turkish managers using Mirels and Garrett’s Protestant work ethic scale. Max Weber’s Protestant work ethic thesis is used as the conceptual framework in this study. The nature of the Protestant work ethic thesis and its relationship with organisation culture is discussed. Multivariate and univariate analysis of variance were used to analyse the data. The results suggest that there is a significant difference (...) between practising Muslim Turkish managers and practising Protestant British managers: the Turkish group showed relatively higher Protestant work ethic scores than their Protestant counterparts. Possible reasons for the difference between British and Turkish groups are advanced in the light of Turkish economic, social and political developments. It is argued that representative Islamic sources also support the results of this research by pointing to the important role of a work ethic in Islam. (shrink)

Shifts to structurally new political formations or at times even governmental changes usually engender new representations of the past. This process generally involves the creation of official national histories or revisions to the existing narratives. These histories are ultimately tied to collective memory engineering and identity building to legitimize the new political formations and to ensure loyalty to them. Public education mostly provides a vital channel for the dissemination and the validation of the collective memory sanctioned by the ruling elite. (...) The rise of the Turkish Republic as a nation-state and the national historiography and educational system it established during the 1930s exemplify one of such cases. The consensus opinion in current scholarship argues that the early official historiography virtually circumvented the Ottoman and Islamic eras by curbing or even repealing their role by favoring strong accent on a remote pre-Islamic Turkish past. Although this view is warranted with regard to the state’s primary ideological emphasis on Turkishness, this approach at the same time misses the intricate subtleties involved in the official national narrative and potentially indicates a total exclusion or denunciation of these subjects. This article aims to assess the new national historical narrative reproduced in the new history textbooks in a more nuanced way with an exclusive concentration on the ideology, religion and history education triangulum. It aspires to unveil what it articulated about the supposedly avoided topic of the Islamic past and especially focus on the officially endorsed view of Islam as a religion. (shrink)

The concept of taqiyyah (التَّقِيَّة) is often associated with Shiah. It is even claimed that Shiah has been fighting politically for a long time using this concept. This paper, based on 20th century Turkish thinker Abdulbaqi Golpinarli’s findings, shows that taqiyyah emerged in the early days of Islamic history. Thus, it is undeniable that those events that resulted in taqiyyah and are recorded in the Quran occurred during the Prophet’s lifetime. Even Golpinarli considers the order to the Prophet saying (...) “turn away from disbelievers and hypocrite” as a kind of taqiyyah. According to him, although in the early days of Islam the Prophet ordered companions to endure the violence of disbelievers and asked weak companions to engage in taqiyyah, as Islam became stronger, it responded to their attacks with jihad. Moreover, the researcher, justifying that taqiyyah concept was available in the Quran and in the hadiths narrated from the Prophet Muhammad, explained the attitude towards it in Twelver Imam Shiah. It becomes clear that taqiyyah notion appeared as a means to protect the life, property and religious fellows of believers from real danger. According to Golpinarli, being a shield against danger, taqiyyah ought to be considered a permission bestowed upon believers by God. However, the conditions for using taqiyyah are essential and could change depending on the situation. Especially, it should be noted that taqiyyah is one of the means of protecting the right and achieving justice, not bowing down to oppression and oppressor, silence, and hypocrisy. (shrink)

Since the 1970s and more rigorously since the 1990s, many countries have regulated data protection and privacy laws in order to ensure the safety and privacy of personal data. First, a comparison is made of different acts regarding genetic information that are in force in the EU, the USA, and China. In Turkey, changes were adopted only recently following intense debates. This study aims to explore the experts’ opinions on the regulations of the health information systems, data security, privacy, and (...) confidentiality in Turkey, with a particular focus on genetic data, which is more sensitive than other health data as it is a permanent identifier that is inherited to next of kin and shared with other family members. Two focus groups with 18 experts and stakeholders were conducted, discussing topics such as central data collection, legalized data sharing, and the management of genetic information in health information systems. The article concludes that the new Turkish personal data protection law is problematic as the frame of collectible data is wide-ranging, and the exceptions are extensive. Specific laws or articles dedicated to genetic data that also overlook the dimension of discrimination based on genetic differences in Turkey should be taken into consideration. In broader terms, it is intended to put up for discussion that in addition to ethical aspects, economic aspects and legal aspects of health should be included in the discussion to be carried out within the framework of socio-political analyses with culture-specific approaches and cross-culture boundaries simultaneously. (shrink)

In this article the authors would like to present a history of the Turkish feminist movement. The roots of the feminist movement go back to the last decades of Ottoman Empire in Turkey when westernisation had started to take place. During the firts decade of the Republic many steps were taken to enable women to get involved in public, political and professional life and to encourage more equality in family matters. Women’s emancipation became a significant symbol of modernity. Kemalist (...) reforms attemted to create a new woman who could take place in public sphere with the men. During the 1970’s the movement of women almost disappeared in nationalist and socialist movements. After the military intervention in 1980 new female actors started to present new demands and change the nature of feminist movement in Turkey. (shrink)

On May 13, 2014, a fire due to the combustion of accumulated methane gas in the Soma Eynez Mine in Turkey killed 301 miners. This case chronicles the events on the day of the accident and investigates the factors leading up to it. It depicts the chaos and confusion resulting from missing emergency protocol, inadequate responses of major stakeholders such as safety experts in the mine, company executives, and the political leadership at the ministry and prime ministry levels. It shows (...) how the interplay of a culture of leniency towards mining safety, insufficient mining policies and even less effective inspections coupled with nepotism and the local population’s desperation for work, all led to serious neglect in a major mine resulting in needless deaths. The Soma Eynez Mine disaster highlights how corporate greed fed into breaches of mining protocol and ethical conduct, eventually leading to the bankruptcy of a mining conglomerate and the imprisonment of 14 men. (shrink)

Recently, some have read Turkish political developments from the perspective of Carl Schmitt’s political theory. This paper aims to modify aspects of these readings and offer in response a Schmitti...

In this paper, we report on the orientations of Turkish college students to interpersonal arguing and compare them with American students’ predispositions for arguing. In measuring the argument orientations, a group of instruments was utilized: argument motivations, argument frames, and taking conflict personally. Turkish data come from 300 college students who were asked to complete self-report surveys. Analyses contrast the mean scores of the Turkish and American respondents, offer gender-based comparisons in the Turkish data, and show (...) whether religiosity has an effect on Turkish students’ arguing orientations. In order to give an explanatory account of the argument motivations of Turkish college students, the relevant socio-cultural and political facts about Turkey were also considered. Our investigation has revealed that Turkish students have more advanced and positive understandings of interpersonal arguing compared to American ones. We have also found clear sex-typing between Turkish male and female students, and have discovered some limited evidence for religiosity’s relevance to interpersonal arguing. (shrink)

In the late 1980s workforce became more diverse in terms of demographic changes, cultural differences and other characteristics of organizational members. This diversity was a reflection of changing global markets. Workforce diversity has both positive and negative effects on organizational performance. Therefore, it is becoming important especially for medium- and large-scale businesses. In order to manage increasingly workforce diversity and to prevent discrimination, diversity management is now considered as a major part of strategic human resource management. The purpose of this (...) study is to establish the dimensions of discrimination that occur due to demographic differences in Turkish manufacturing industry. The findings of the research indicate that demographic characteristics, socio-cultural structure, managerial policy and behaviors, union tendency and regional differences, laws and local community, gender, educational and age differences, and political opinions have influence on discrimination. According to the results, discrimination has been observed mostly in job processes such as promotions and appointments, human resource selection, job/employment examination and interviews, and performance appraisal. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to consider the prospects of a liberal conception of religious freedom in some Muslim-majority states. Part I offers a brief sketch of three approaches to religious freedom that inform my view. Part II then presents a liberal framework for religious toleration that draws ideas from Rainer Forst’s Toleration in Conflict, as well as some perennial themes in classical liberal thought. I briefly examine three case studies in Part III: the Turkish Republic; the Arab (...) Spring states; and the post-Soviet republics of Central Asia. This is followed by a short conclusion. (shrink)

The paper presents my first findings and reflections on how ordinary people may opportunistically and unpredictably respond to Internet censorship and tracking. I try to capture this process with the concept of ‘hacking multitude'. Working on a case study of the Turkish government's block of the social media platform Twitter, I argue that during systemic data choke-points, a multitude of users might acquire a certain degree of reflexivity over ubiquitous software of advanced techno-capitalism. Resisting naïve parallels between urban streets (...) and virtual global streets, the article draws on Fuller's ‘media ecologies' to make sense of complex and dynamic interactions between processes and materialities, strategies of communication and mundane practices. Such a dense space is mostly invisible to network and traffic analysis, although it comes alive under the magnifying lens of digital ethnography. As the Turkish government tried to stop protesters on both the urban and the Twitter spheres, alternative material configurations and new hybrid formations and practices emerged. I try to bring this process alive following the traces – that is, a combination of digital data and materialities – of a social space between the protest for Twitter access, the ‘digital coup' and the interactions that this situation determined. In the final section, I briefly explore two research trajectories which can further develop my initial formulation of a ‘hacking multitude'. I argue that a generalisation of hacking/multitude is problematic for the political, cultural or economic processes more directly associated with Big Data. (shrink)

This article is based on the premise that the constructed image of the national self is a fundamental criterion shaping the conceptions of history teaching in the Turkish educational system. In this regard, I argue that examining how particular ethno-religious groups are discursively positioned in relation to the idealised self-image can reveal whether and how history textbooks can be revised. Having described the historical and political context for the only curriculum revision occurred in 2013 concerning a non-Muslim community, the (...) Assyrians, the article demonstrates that specific discursive strategies are used to position the Assyrian community in relation to the favourable national self-image, rather than a fixed categorization for non-Muslim communities. Adopting the methodological framework of critical discourse analysis, the author examines the portrayal of the Assyrian community in the secondary school Turkish history textbooks taught over the last three decades and identifies how the topoi of justice and tolerance, as well as allegiance and betrayal allow a particular group to be a member of the larger body of ‘acceptable citizens.’. (shrink)

This book explores the religious experiences of two notable figures who endured severe trials under authoritarian regimes: Bediuzzaman Said Nursi (1877–1960) within the Islamic tradition, and Aleksander Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) within the Russian Orthodox Christian tradition. Against the tumultuous backdrop of the twentieth century’s spiritual, social, political, and intellectual upheavals, both Nursi and Solzhenitsyn grappled with immense hardships because of their beliefs. Despite immense tribulations, both individuals demonstrated unwavering faith and resilience in the face of adversity, continuing their scholarly and literary (...) activities. The current study centers on the dichotomy of spiritual confinement and expansiveness, illustrating how people can experience spiritual distress even without physical restraints. It explores the historical and conceptual aspects of imprisonment within Christian and Muslim perspectives, explores the reasons for Nursi and Solzhenitsyn's incarceration, examines their coping mechanisms in the face of hardship, and underscores the role of faith and spirituality. The author integrates personal experiences, particularly his own incarceration during the aftermath of the 2016 Turkish staged coup attempt, within the context of the narratives of Nursi and Solzhenitsyn. The book addresses court proceedings, release, departure from Turkey, and resettlement in Australia. Throughout, the author draws parallels between their own observations and those of Nursi and Solzhenitsyn, contributing to the broader discourse on individual spirituality and collective consciousness. The book offers insights into spiritual resilience in the face of adversity, utilizing the lives of these figures to illuminate shared human experiences. A unique collation of personal narration and scholarly reflection, it is relevant to academics and students in history, political science, sociology, Islamic and Middle Eastern studies, and to social scientists researching the phenomenon of exile and prison in different countries across the world. It also speaks to the work of activists and policymakers in human rights. (shrink)

More’s Utopia has been translated a number of times into Turkish and continues to be translated as a classical, significant text. It is taught academically in disciplines such as political science, philosophy, history, sociology, and literature as part of the curriculum for both undergraduate and graduate university levels. In addition to responding to academic demand, different publishing houses continue publishing the novel in the interest of the general reader. Most of the translations are based on English editions such as (...) Ralph Robinson’s translation, Gilbert Burnet’s translation, Paul Turner’s translation, and the Everyman’s Library version. The Turkish translations... (shrink)

The modern republican history of Turkey and its relation with the question of ethnic diversity could be understood via the tension between the processes of system integration and social integration. This article, based on Jürgen Habermas’ conceptual framework, draws the sources of such tension with reference to the Kurdish identity in Turkey since the early republican era. For this purpose, from the 1920s to the 2000s, policies and discourses of system integration aiming at a certain degree of ethnic homogenization to (...) eliminate ‘possible threats’ to territorial integrity and national unity are discussed in detail. While system integration processes reflect an exclusionary and assimilative-securitist logic of state practices regarding the Kurdish question, this article argues that the Kurdish challenge to republicanism and to its system integration logic promises more for the dynamics of social integration. Especially since the 1990s, while processes of system integration are still in force; national, regional and diasporic achievements of Kurdish politics and its call for a democratic transformation of the republic based on decentralist, participatory and multiculturalist values have become much more visible. This new focus on democratic transformation demands more for social integration through internalization of roles as well as through promotion of an active communication between citizens by raising the claims of active participation to social and political spheres as well as by making identity visible in different aspects of socio-cultural life. Degree of social integration and its success vis-à-vis system integration will be decisive in the democratic transformation of Turkey in the future. (shrink)