Current Analysis

Multiculturalism, Democracy and Turkification in Netflix’s The Club

The Club (Kulüp), produced by Netflix, is set in the mid-1950s among the cast, crew and management of a trendy nightclub in the Beyoğlu district of Istanbul. In addition to the use of Ladino, the language of Turkey’s Jewish population, the show uniquely represents Istanbul's minority populations, th

James Ryan • 10 min read

Current Analysis

Wildfires Ignite Political Debate in Turkey

Although wildfires in Turkey's Mediterranean forests are not unusual, the ferocity of last summer's fires sparked new political debates around the issues of government forest management and post-fire restoration. Turkish forestry experts and the public are now questioning conventional solutions prom

Ekin Kurtiç • 13 min read

Current Analysis

Manufacturing the AKP in Turkey

The AKP's decades-long electoral success in Turkey has been made possible by their strategic alliance with the country's small industrialists. Utku Balaban analyzes the connection between Islamism and industrialization since the rise of these urban manufacturers in the 1980s and explains the nuances

Utku Balaban • 15 min read

MER Article

Rethinking Whiteness in Turkey Through the AKP’s Foreign Policy in Africa South of the Sahara

There is a new investment in whiteness in contemporary Turkey, and it is not by those who have traditionally been identified as “White Turks,” but by their long-standing critics, the so-called Black Turks.

Ezgi Güner • 11 min read

Current Analysis

Intellectual Traditions and the Academy in Turkey — An Interview with Evren Altınkaş

MERIP editors interview Evren Altınkaş, a Turkish scholar who was pushed out of his academic position by his university’s administration as a consequence of participating in the Gezi Park protests of 2013. Altınkaş discusses his work on the intellectual tradition in Turkey, the role of the ruling AK

Ayça Alemdaroğlu, Elif Babül, Nabil Al-Tikriti • 11 min read

Current Analysis

Designing Nationhood in Turkey’s Universities

Begüm Adalet reviews Burak Erdim's "Landed Internationals: Planning Cultures, the Academy, and the Making of the Modern Middle East." As in past decades, universities in Turkey are venues of contestation between authority and resistance, with the government imposing its singular vision of a “pious,

Begüm Adalet • 8 min read

Current Analysis

Humanism in Ruins – An Interview with Aslı Iğsız

Aslı Iğsız discusses her book Humanism in Ruins, which examines the long-lasting impacts of the 1923 Greek-Turkish Population Exchange Agreement. Challenging the common portrayal of the population exchange agreement as a success story, she unveils how the discourses of liberal humanism and coexisten

Burak Başaranlar • 12 min read

Current Analysis

Church, Mosque, Museum? Reflections on Monuments in Turkey and Spain

On July 24, 2020 the Turkish government opened Hagia Sophia in Istanbul to prayer for the first time in 86 years, reverting the building’s status from museum back to mosque. Blessing and Yaycıoğlu explain the politics behind this decision and explore the ramifications for Hagia Sophia and other monu

Patricia Blessing, Ali Yaycıoğlu • 15 min read

Current Analysis

Boğaziçi Resists Authoritarian Control of the Academy in Turkey

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's appointment of Melih Bulu as the new rector of Boğaziçi University on January 1, 2021 provoked outrage among students and faculty in Turkey. Alemdaroğlu and Babül explain the anger behind the continuing protests and how Boğaziçi's struggle fits into a long history of

Ayça Alemdaroğlu, Elif Babül • 15 min read

MER Article

Syrian Refugees Navigate Turkey’s Shifting Health Care Terrain

Registered Syrian refugees in Turkey are allowed to access free state health care. But the language barrier, registration difficulties and prejudice led to the emergence of informal clinics run by refugee doctors. Although the government has opened Migrant Health Centers to ease access and replace i

Nihal Kayali • 14 min read

Current Analysis

Syrian Refugees Navigate Turkey’s Shifting Health Care Terrain

Registered Syrian refugees in Turkey are allowed to access free state health care. But the language barrier, registration difficulties and prejudice led to the emergence of informal clinics run by refugee doctors. Although the government has opened Migrant Health Centers to ease access and replace i

Nihal Kayali • 14 min read

MER Article

“Turkey Wants to be Part of the Nuclear Club” An Interview with Can Candan

Kenan Behzat Sharpe spoke with Candan about his latest film project Nuclear alla Turca, a documentary on the history of atomic energy in Turkey, a country on the verge of building its very first nuclear plant despite a growing anti-nuclear movement.

Kenan Behzat Sharpe • 12 min read