By Lars Haugom

September 26,  2017

The secularist identity of the Turkish armed forces is being dismantled in piecemeal ways by the AKP government. There is a risk that the comprehensive changes that are now underway will further exacerbate ideological and political factionalism within the officers’ corps. Ultimately, the politicization of the military and the attempts at its traditional, secularist ethos could provoke a crossing of swords between religious-conservative and secularist factions. Since the coup attempt last year, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has taken steps to ensure the loyalty of the current military leadership, while guarding against the possibility of a more politically assertive military leadership in the future. However, it is uncertain if this strategy is also going to restore the internal cohesion of the Turkish armed forces.

By Gareth Jenkins

September 19, 2017

Since the failed coup of July 2016, Turkey’s spiralling descent ever deeper into authoritarianism has been characterized by arbitrary arrests and widespread abuses of even the draconian powers afforded the regime under the continuing State of Emergency. In addition, the government’s domination of the media has meant that, for the mass of the Turkish public, the reality of what is happening in the country is submerged beneath a cacophony of distortions, delusions, untruths and febrile conspiracy theories.

By Toni Alaranta

September 1,  2017

After fifteen years of Islamic-conservative state transformation, it is increasingly difficult to unmake the ideological-material powerbase that keeps the AKP in power. The state transformation project in Turkey has not only changed the circumstances within which any opposition group needs to operate, it has also, to a large extent, started to change the very language that can be used while addressing the most essential socio-political issues.  One of the most explicit indications of the AKP’s ability to redefine the sociopolitical horizons is the worrisome lack of Western-inclined forces in Turkey.  The Kemalist circles are arguably excessively nationalist. However, they, unlike the liberals, at least have a relatively coherent constituency and ideology for mass mobilization. And the liberals cannot hope to succeed in building a democratic society without a direct backing from some type of nationalist-inclined mass movement.