Current Analysis Fear and Loathing in Turkey Shortly after the failed coup attempt of July 16, 2016 in Turkey, I received a frantic text message from a lifelong friend, Lale Kemal. Lale is a prominent freelance journalist with an impeccable 37-year record of non-partisan reporting and analysis. She is an internationally known expert on Turkish civil-military relations, Ümit Cizre • 17 min read
Current Analysis Turkey in a Tailspin The epic blunder of the military coup attempt on July 15 has sent Turkey into a tailspin. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the prime minister and cabinet, the parliament, the top military brass, the intelligence community and the police all became aware of the plot at the same time as ordinary Ümit Cizre • 16 min read
MER Article Financial Citizenship and the Hidden Crisis of the Working Class in the "New Turkey" Substantial political, economic and social changes have taken place in Turkey since the early 2000s. Much of this transformation has happened on the watch of the Justice and Development Party (best known by its Turkish acronym, AKP), which has been in power since 2002. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, founder of the Basak Kus • 12 min read
MER Article Letter from Ellinikon On a bright and sunny day in early April, outside a terminal at what was once the Ellinikon International Airport in Athens, I listened as Javad, 16, told the story of the second refugee flight of his life. Javad (not his real name) is a member of the Hazara ethnic Parastou Hassouri • 5 min read
Current Analysis Defending Academic Freedom Constraints on academic freedom or violations of it are not new in the Middle East and North Africa. Indeed, while there is certainly variation among the countries of the region, regime attempts to control what is studied, how it is studied, and what faculty and students may do and say both on and o Laurie A. Brand • 3 min read
MER Article Leadership Gone Awry In representative democracies, elections allow the peaceful replacement of leaders, infuse government with new blood, legitimize both winners and losers, and restore public faith in democracy. More importantly, “the people’s voice” is cast as the ultimate check on national leaders whose power has gr Ümit Cizre • 21 min read
MER Article Regional Responses to the Rise of ISIS Regional responses to the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, have varied depending on regime perceptions of threat, not only from ISIS itself, but also from other potential rivals, challengers or enemies. Despite the jihadi group’s extensive use of violence in Syria and Iraq and i Curtis Ryan • 14 min read
Current Analysis Youth in Turkey’s 2015 Elections On June 7, Turkish citizens went to the polls [http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/election/default.htmlhttp://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/election/default.html] to elect the 550 members of the Grand National Assembly. Although the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) won 41 percent of the vote, it Aydin Özipek • 3 min read
MER Article The Politics of Iran's Satellite Era “Once,” the Iranian comedian Mehran Modiri notes, “our marital relationships were formed over long distances. An Iranian man would explore the world abroad with his father’s money. When the money ran out, he would suddenly miss home-cooked qormeh sabzi and ask his family to send him a pure Iranian b (Author not identified) • 16 min read
Current Analysis Turkey’s AKP and Public Morality President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey is known for his strong pro-natalist sentiments. In 2012 his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP, by the Turkish acronym) passed a law to constrain women’s choice [http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jul/15/turkey-caesarian-ban-silence-hurts-w Evren Savcı • 3 min read
Current Analysis Ghosts of the Future Hatay -- a Turkish province on the border with Syria that is now flooded with Syrian refugees -- has a special status in Turkey. In the words of a Syrian doctor to whom we spoke in the summer of 2014 and who failed to get a residency permit to live there, “It’s like [the province] is not exactly par Nick Danforth, Noga Malkin • 9 min read
Current Analysis China's New Silk Road Strategy In the current issue [http://www.merip.org/mer/latest] of Middle East Report, we write about the strategic logic of China’s increasing investment in teaching Middle Eastern languages [http://www.merip.org/mer/mer270/chinas-strategic-middle-eastern-languages], particularly Arabic, Persian and Turkish I-wei Jennifer Chang, Haiyun Ma • 3 min read
