Turkey
Turkish Opposition Parties Grapple with the Kurdish Question
Özlem Kayhan Pusane argues that the Kurdish question in general, and the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) in particular, will occupy a critical place on the Turkish political agenda in the run up to the summer 2023 presidential and parliamentary elections. After the leader of Turkey’s mai
The Shifting Politics of Debt in Turkey
State-sponsored credit campaigns are not a new strategy for Turkish governments but the low-interest consumer loans that were extended to almost 7 million people in the first months of the Covid-19 pandemic surpassed all earlier financial inclusion programs. Inviting masses into the financial sector
The Shifting Politics of Debt in Turkey
State-sponsored credit campaigns are not a new strategy for Turkish governments but the low-interest consumer loans that were extended to almost 7 million people in the first months of the Covid-19 pandemic surpassed all earlier financial inclusion programs. Inviting masses into the financial sector
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
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
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
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
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,
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