Friday, 30 September 2016 00:00

The Turkish Armed Forces Restructured

By Lars Haugom

September 30, 2016

The Turkish military is undergoing a comprehensive post-coup restructuring process. It is not difficult to understand the rationale behind increased civilian government control of the armed forces after the July 15 coup attempt. However, the Turkish government aims to increase civilian political control and oversight with the armed forces, and not civilian democratic control. There is a risk that the Turkish Armed Forces will become a more politicized and dysfunctional organisation, with greater internal rivalry between the branches and an even more restive officers’ corps as a result of some of these changes.

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Published in Articles

By Gareth H. Jenkins

July 22, 2016

Many of the details of the failed putsch in Turkey on July 15, 2016 still remain unclear. But, although it is possible that there was some form of involvement, there are problems with the narrative being peddled by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) that it was a purely Gülenist affair. What is clear is that, driven by a combination of opportunism and fear, President Tayyip Erdoğan has seized on the putsch to launch a massive crackdown that could severely destabilize an already very fragile country.

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Published in Articles
Friday, 24 June 2016 00:00

Après moi: Turkey after Erdoğan

By Gareth H. Jenkins

June 24, 2016

There is currently no clear indication as to when President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will leave power but Turkey is now deep into the final – and highly turbulent – stage of his domination of the country’s politics. Even though some features have remained unchanged, Erdoğan has undoubtedly left a lasting impression on both the Turkish state and Turkish society. The fear now is that, as he descends deeper into authoritarianism, Erdoğan will also cause severe damage not only to the social fabric but to what has always been an incipient rather than an established democracy.

 

Published in Articles

By Halil Karaveli

June 6, 2016

The celebration of the conquest of Constantinople 1453 is an expression of Turkey’s quest for purity. The “ideology of conquest,” the need to symbolically and repeatedly reclaim what has been Ottoman and Turkish for centuries, ultimately speaks of an existential unease with a historical legacy that is marked by a heterogeneity that is unsettling for an authoritarian state that seeks uniformity. The need to celebrate the conquest of the most important city of the land shows that Turkey is yet to become reconciled with its past. Such reconciliation calls for assuming the entirety of what is a multi-layered historical legacy. Recognizing that Turkey is the result, not so much of conquest, as of a history of continuous mixing and assimilation of aboriginal cultures and state traditions, is also the key to coming to terms with country’s ethnic and cultural diversity today and securing a democratic future for Turkey.

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Published in Articles
Thursday, 19 May 2016 00:00

Gültekin: The tragedy of the Islamists

The Islamists had dreams, writes Levent Gültekin in Diken. Islamism grew as a reaction against a secular republic that anti-democratically excluded pious people from commercial and political networks.  When they came to power, the Islamists were going to abolish the discrimination against the pious, and stand for freedom and equality. Yet, the hubris of power made them forget about being democratic. And unfortunately, they lacked a democratic culture in the first place. They replaced it with the worship of the leader. The leader has now purged all of his companions who had their origins in the Islamist ideology. The Islamists’ last hope, to whom they clung, was Ahmet Davutoğlu. Now, the vast majority of the Islamists in media, in the bureaucracy and in the party have been purged. Today, Islamist writers, journalists, intellectuals and politicians are in a state of great shock. It has now dawned on them that there’s no place left to them in the Turkey that they helped bring about.

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Joint Center Publications

Op-ed Halil Karaveli "The Rise and Rise of the Turkish Right", The New York Times, April 8, 2019

Analysis Halil Karaveli "The Myth of Erdogan's Power"Foreign Policy, August 29, 2018

Analysis Svante E. Cornell, A Road to Understanding in Syria? The U.S. and TurkeyThe American Interest, June 2018

Op-ed Halil Karaveli "Erdogan Wins Reelection"Foreign Affairs, June 25, 2018

Article Halil Karaveli "Will the Kurdish Question Secure Erdogan's Re-election?", Turkey Analyst, June 18, 2018

Research Article Svante E. Cornell "Erbakan, Kisakürek, and the Mainstreaming of Extremism in Turkey", Current Trends in Islamist Ideology, June 2018

Analysis Svante E. Cornell "The U.S. and Turkey: Past the Point of No Return?"The American Interest, February 1, 2018

Op-ed Svante E. Cornell "Erdogan's Turkey: the Role of a Little Known Islamic Poet", Breaking Defense, January 2, 2018

Research Article Halil Karaveli "Turkey's Authoritarian Legacy"Cairo Review of Global Affairs, January 2, 2018

 

The Turkey Analyst is a publication of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Joint Center, designed to bring authoritative analysis and news on the rapidly developing domestic and foreign policy issues in Turkey. It includes topical analysis, as well as a summary of the Turkish media debate.

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