MER Article “It is still early to write the history of Gezi” Mücella Yapıcı is an architect and activist, known for her work against urban renewal projects and environmental destruction in Turkey. She is the secretary and spokesperson of the activist group Taksim Solidarity, which was one of the leading organizations during the June 2013 Gezi Park protests. M Mücella Yapıcı • 8 min read
MER Article The Crisis of Religiosity in Turkish Islamism In 2017 İhsan Fazlıoğlu, an Islamist professor of philosophy at Istanbul Medeniyet University, was visited by a group of concerned teachers and parents from the İmam Hatip high school (a government-funded secondary school that trains Muslim preachers) he once attended. The visitors wanted his advice Mucahit Bilici • 9 min read
MER Article The AKP’s Problem with Youth Government-funded religious İmam Hatip schools have expanded considerably across Turkey since the Justice and Development Party (AKP) led by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan came to power in 2002: from 84,000 students in 450 schools in 2002 to 1.3 million students in over 4,000 schools by 2017. The Mi Ayça Alemdaroğlu • 9 min read
MER Article The Politics of Family Values in Erdogan’s New Turkey Often peppered with religious references, “family values” rhetoric has become a trademark of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan since his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in 2002. His frequent encouragement of early marriage and criticism of childless women illustrate an ever-exp Hikmet Kocamaner • 12 min read
MER Article The Contradictions of Turkey’s Rush to Energy The Turkish energy sector—companies involved in the exploration and development of oil or gas reserves, drilling and refining, or integrated power utility companies including renewable energy, coal or nuclear power—has experienced major and systemic transformation and growth since the early 2000s un Sinan Erensu • 11 min read
MER Article Unequal Turkey Under Construction Turkey has undergone major socio-economic transformations that have generated numerous contradictions since the 1980s. One of the most significant has been Turkey’s transformation from a predominately rural and agrarian society to a largely urban society as it enters the new millennium. The fast pac Volkan Yilmaz • 8 min read
MER Article Turkey’s Purge of Critical Academia Academic freedom has always been limited and under threat by the state in Turkey. But since the beginning of 2016, academic freedom in Turkey—and the broader field of higher education—has been subject to a sustained campaign of state repression that is unprecedented in the history of the Turkish Rep Muzaffer Kaya • 11 min read
MER Article The Failed Resolution Process and the Transformation of Kurdish Politics On March 21, 2013 in the symbolic Kurdish city of Diyarbakır, on the symbolic new year’s day of Newroz, in front of a crowd composed of almost a million people and broadcast live by most Turkish news channels, a letter from the imprisoned Kurdistan Worker’s Party’s (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan was r Cuma Çiçek • 16 min read
MER Article The AKP’s Foreign Policy as Populist Governance Turkish foreign policy throughout the Cold War was limited and largely predictable: narrowly focused on national security and preserving the sanctity of its borders while hewing to a predominantly Western orientation. Turkey’s foreign policy reflected the constraints of the bipolar international sys Evren Balta • 15 min read
MER Article Crisis of Capitalism, Crisis of the Republic Today, the crisis of Turkey is both a crisis of capitalism and a crisis of the Republic. To the extent that it is a crisis of capitalism, of a financialized regime of accumulation, its own internal business cycles are synchronous with the cycles of global capitalism. Even though the current economic Yahya M. Madra • 12 min read
MER Article Turkey’s Constitutional Coup Turkey has undergone a dizzying array of crises over the last five years. Beginning with the repressive crackdown against the Gezi Protests during the summer of 2013, the country has gone from being cited as a model Muslim democracy to taking pride of place on the growing worldwide list of democrati Aslı Bâli • 19 min read
MER Article Editorial Since the failed July, 2016 coup attempt, Turkey has weathered a series of measures aimed at consolidating the unfettered power of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). This rather erratic counter-coup has been undertaken through massive purges in the military, judiciary, media and academia— The Editors • 2 min read
