As Islam becomes an increasingly salient element of political life in various countries around the world, there is a growing need to make sense of the new forms and meanings Islam assumes in its various manifestations. It is obvious by now that complex mechanisms surrounding the politics of Islam cannot be adequately understood by the employment of such broad and overgeneralizing categories as “reactionism”, “fundamentalism” or “conservatism.” Political Islam, far from being a unified social movement with a coherent political aim, is a fragmented, multi-faceted phenomenon which cannot, therefore, be adequately understood through singular categories.

Today Turkey is one of the few Muslim-majority countries in which same-sex sexual acts, counternormative sexual identities, and expressions of gender nonconformism are not illegal, yet are heavily constrained and controlled by state institutions, police forces, and public prosecutors. For more than a decade Turkey has been experiencing a “queer turn”—an unprecedented push in the visibility and empowerment of queerness, the proliferation of sexual rights organizations and forms of sociabilities, and the dissemination of elements of queer culture—that has engendered both scholarly and public attention for sexual dissidents and gender non-conforming individuals and their lifeworlds, while it has also created new spaces and venues for their self-organization and mobilization. At the point of knowledge production and writing, this visibility and the possible avenues of empowerment that it might provide have been in jeopardy: not only do they appear far from challenging the dominant norms of the body, gender, and sexuality, but queerness, in all its dimensions, has become a preferred target for Islamist politics, conservative revanchism, and populist politicians.

In the context of economic globalisation and the new international order taking shape after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Istanbul is assuming a new and strategic prominence in the world. What kind of city is Istanbul likely to become in its next phase of existence? What can we say of the urban culture and of the sense of urbanity that are now developing there? There are those who maintain that the new Istanbul is again becoming a cosmopolitan city, a cultural mosaic. What strike us most forcefully are the forces that are working to inhibit and undermine any such ideal. First, we consider the contemporary transformation in urban form, and then we shall go on to explore the changing cultural identity of the city.

This paper provides a critical assessment of Turkey's economic performance under the neoliberal economic policies which have been instrumental in generating a profound transformation in its socioeconomic structure since 1980. The paper draws special attention to the government's loss of policy autonomy and the democratic deficit at the initial and implementation stages of this transformation. It then evaluates Turkey's economic performance on the basis of indicators with medium and long-term impacts, such as investment, saving, industrialization, unemployment, and income distribution. This assessment shows that the neoliberal model has failed to fulfill its promises, with the Turkish economy failing to achieve performance equal to that under the previous import-substitution strategy or in comparable countries. The paper then identifies the main problem areas confronting the economy: the current account deficit, the labor market, insufficient industrial progress and income distribution, and poverty. To solve these problems, it calls for both a radical rethinking of the neoliberal policy regime and for proactive state intervention to stimulate saving and investment as part of a new development strategy, giving primary importance to industrialization, employment creation, and more equitable income distribution.

2001 was the 40th Anniversary of Turkish Migration to Germany, marking four decades after the first Turkish workers began joining the ranks of Italian, Spaniard, and other migrant laborers coming north in search of employment from countries around the Mediterranean. The anniversary was celebrated with meetings, panel discussions, concerts, radio shows, and almost endless articles and editorials in newspapers. The highlight of the year, one might say, was “Turkish Day,” bringing Turkish immigrants from all over Germany to Berlin for a parade.

This paper will concentrate primarily on the current Alevi resurgence in Berlin. While exposing the principal driving forces behind the resurgence of Alevism, three crucial aspects will be underlined. Firstly, it will be argued that Alevi resurgence in Berlin partly derives from the institutional structure of Berlin, which has “minoritised” and ethnicised Alevis in time through Ausländergesetz (Foreigners’ Law) and an ideology of multiculturalism. Secondly, it will be claimed that this ethnic revival leading to the construction of a community discourse among Alevis also springs from Alevis’ attempt to speak from the margin in a way that could reverberate more in the public sphere. Finally, the radicalising momentum, which Alevi revivalism in the diaspora context has recently gained, will be touched upon in relation to Sivas and Gazi Mahallesi incidences in Turkey.

In order to analyze the interdependent vicious circles of social exclusion and spatial relegation, this article will discuss the findings of fieldwork in the inner-city neighborhood of Tarlabaşı, İstanbul. The introductory section revolves around the concepts of poverty and exclusion, followed by a brief historical background of this locality. The core of the article is devoted to an analysis of different dimensions of exclusion—namely, economic, social, political, spatial and discursive dimensions. In the neighborhood of Tarlabaşı, it is possible to trace the signs of a transformation leading to the creation of a new type of urban poverty based on exclusion. This inner-city area, a territory of urban relegation par excellence, illustrates that informal activities no longer suffice to integrate socially; that the neighborhood is increasingly becoming polarized along lines of class, religion and ethnicity; that inner-city slums are no longer transitory places for rural-to-urban migrants, but perpetual spaces of relegation; and that the conflict-induced migrant Kurds are the primary candidates to become Turkey's “underclass.”

As you approach contemporary İzmir from the bay, the city that lies ahead of you invokes images of a fortress city. It is enveloped by an unbroken concrete wall made up of tall apartment buildings, one morphing into the other, only to be interrupted by narrow streets. Republic Square, located at the very tip of the bay, resembles a gate to this immense fortress. If you walk half a kilometer eastward through this opening, you will arrive at a large green space at the heart of the city, quite unusual for, modern cities in Turkey. This is the Kültürpark, where İzmirians go to jog, play tennis, have their wedding ceremonies, take their children to play, and watch theatrical and musical performances. Its trees and flower gardens infuse life in a city that has fallen prey to the invasion of concrete as a result of unplanned over-urbanization. Toward the end of each summer, the park becomes even livelier with the opening of the annual Izmir International Fair on the grounds. The Fair attracts some four million visitors every year, and even though the majority are İzmirians, people from other parts of Turkey also flock to İzmir to view the pavilions of Japan, China, U.S.A., and England, as well as those showcasing Turkey’s national firms (Fuar Kataloğu 2000).

No ideology needs history so much as nationalism. History is indispensable to its romantic narrative, essentialist conceptual structure and apocalyptic claim to truth. Nationalist discourse is historicist; it relies on genealogy for the legitimation of the nationalist cause, on the historicization of the national origin for the affirmation of the self and the denial of the other. But history is also the Achilles heel of nationalism. Nationalist historical discourse is repeatedly denounced by historians for distorting the truth, misrepresenting the historical reality of the formation of nations and nation-states. Nationalist historians are criticized for being subjective, partisan and ideological by “objective” and seemingly non-ideological historians who likewise construct historical narratives by selecting and at times inventing historical subjects and historicizing their thoughts and actions. Many of the charges levelled against nationalist historiography concern the epistemology of empiricist historiography in general, and all historiography which is concerned with extracting the truth from given facts on the assumption that they are identical with the real signified by them is by definition empiricist. This is as true as the errors of nationalist historiography.

Deeply rooted in “the great transformation” brought about by capitalism, industrialization and urban life, the history of modern architecture in the West is intricately intertwined with the rise of the bourgeoisie. Modernism in architecture, before anything else, is a reaction to the social and environmental ills of the industrial city, and to the bourgeois aesthetic of the 19th century. It emerged first as a series of critical, utopian and radical movements in the first decades of the twentieth century, eventually consolidating itself into an architectural establishment by the 1930s. The dissemination of the so-called “modern movement” outside Europe coincides with the eclipse of the plurality and critical force of early modernist currents and their reduction to a unified, formalist and doctrinaire position.

What is an archive, and how does it relate to our sense of history and, moreover, to our sense of the present? This question stands at the interstices of bureaucracy, historiography, and memory. Needless to say, it is also a highly political question. This article deals with the politics of archives, specifically as it manifests itself in Turkey. My aim in looking at the problem of archives is to further raise questions about the relation of history, memory, and truth. The politics of archives is a significant topic today, not only in Turkey, but also, for example, in many post-communist countries, regarding which past records of the old totalitarian regimes should be made public in the age of so-called democracy. In this respect, archives are not only the concerns of historians who are interested in recovering the past, but also of political rulers who aim to frame the past for present purposes.

In September 2009, Turkey experienced a major reform of its pharmaceutical expenditure and price policy. By introducing a global budget, Turkey saved some 20 billion TL in public pharmaceutical expenditure in the 2010–2012 period. The lion’s share of this was achieved by introducing stricter price controls that reduced the profit margins of pharmaceutical producers and distributors (the populist policy solution), rather than by privatizing the cost of medicines through, for example, raising out-of-pocket payments (the neoliberal policy solution). This is a puzzle, given the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) government’s usual preference for lenient and business-friendly regulation. This article explains the policy reform with reference to (i) the pronounced electoral interests of the AKP’s political leadership in not substantially reducing access to public health services, (ii) the absence of powerful business interests in high medicine prices, and (iii) the absence of a developmentalist commitment to an industrial policy strategy for the pharmaceutical sector. This case study holds important lessons for scholars of Turkish politics. It suggests that externally the AKP’s economic and social policies are driven by the interests of its two major constituencies (namely, lower-class voters and “Anatolian capital”), while internally they are shaped by two camps of policy makers (namely, neoliberal-minded technocrats and election-focused party leaders).

Within the context of the transformation of Turkey from a country of emigration to an immigration and transit country, the migration scene is becoming more heterogeneous, with both the formal and informal labor markets being increasingly internationalized. This paper focuses on de-qualification, defined as migrants taking on jobs that do not match their skills, which is a neglected issue within the migration literature on Turkey with the potential for further research. Based on open-ended interviews and participant observation in İstanbul, the paper elaborates on the different instruments of de-qualification. De-qualification is considered here as an important element of precariousness in the labor market, with different mechanisms functioning simultaneously; namely, accreditation problems, a language disadvantage, lack of information, and identity-based discrimination.

This study presents a new theoretical framework for understanding one of the ways in which populists generate support in elections. It argues that populist movements securitize elections by triggering perceptions of ontological insecurity among voters. Through this strategy, populist movements amplify voters’ negative image of the country they live in and the challenges they face, which contributes to populist movements’ electoral success. Building upon this theoretical framework, this study offers an explanation for the 2015 double general elections in Turkey. The Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) experienced disappointment after losing its parliamentary majority in the June 2015 elections. However, the AKP increased its votes by 8.6 percent in the November 2015 elections. Between these two elections, the AKP had used the Kurdish question to trigger perceptions of ontological insecurity, which enabled it to securitize the elections in November. This strategy helped the AKP win the November elections.

This article aims to explore the views of the Turkish elite on the state of polarization in Turkey. By identifying four political frames—namely, harmony, continuity/decline, conspiracy, and conflict—that selected Turkish political and civil society elites use in discussing the phenomenon of polarization in the country through their contributions to a workshop and in-depth qualitative interviews, the article finds that there is a considerable degree of polarization among the Turkish elite regarding their views on the presence of polarization in Turkey. Moreover, this overlaps with the divide between the government and the opposition in the country. An analysis of the justificatory arguments employed in constituting the aforementioned frames shows that, while those elites who deny the existence of polarization seek its absence in essentialist characteristics of society, in reductionist comparisons with history, or in internal/external enemies, those who acknowledge polarization’s presence look for its roots in political and institutional factors and processes. The article highlights how, given the denial of polarization by the pro-government elite and the substantial gap between the two camps’ justificatory narratives, the currently reported high rates of polarization in Turkey can, at best, be expected to remain as is in the near future, barring a radical change in political constellations.

In recent years. Turkey has initiated a proactive, multi-dimensional and constructive foreign policy in many areas, ranging from contributing to peace and stability in the Middle East, to playing an active role in countering terrorism and extremism, from becoming a new “energy hub” to acting as one of the architects of “the inter-civilization dialogue initiative” aiming at producing a vision of the world, based on dialogue, tolerance and living together. Thus, there has been an upsurge of interest in, and a global attraction to, Turkey and its contemporary history. Moreover, the global attraction to Turkey has stemmed not only from the geopolitical identity of Turkey, as a strong state with the capacity to function as a “geopolitical security hinge” in the intersection of the Middle East, the Balkans and the Caucasian regions, but also from its cultural identity as a modern national formation with parliamentary democratic governance, secular constitutional structure and mainly Muslim population. Furthermore, as the world has become more globalized, more interdependent and more risky, this new foreign policy identity entailed the employment of not only geopolitics but also identity and economy. Thus, geopolitics, modernity and democracy have become the constitutive dimensions of Turkish foreign policy today This paper explores the ways in which the increasing role and visibility of “soft power” in Turkish foreign policy operates, and suggests that to be sustainable, Turkish foreign policy, relying on soft power, should go hand in hand with the process of the consolidation of Turkish democracy, and also accept and put into practice Turkey-EU relations as the main axis of proactiveness and constructiveness.

The economic and political crisis which Turkey faced during 1977-1980 was resolved by an orthodox stabilization program adopted early in 1980, immediately followed by conventional structural adjustment measures and the military coup realized on September of the same year. The Turkish experience with orthodox stabilization and structural adjustment incorporates a number of specificities and it will be useful to recall them briefly.

First of all, the striking element of continuity in basic economic policy orientation which lasted from 1980 up till 1089 without any significant reversals should be emphasized. The personal role of Turgut Özal as Vice Premier in charge of the economy during 1980-1982 under the military governments and Prime Minister during 1984-1991, was a determining factor in this respect. Reversals and hesitations as observed in Latin American experiences due to differences between rival monetarist schools or between populist and right wing political groupings played practically no role for almost ten years in Turkey. The political pressures which resulted in a switch back to populism in 1989 —a theme to be investigated in this paper— marked, in our view, a drastic shift away from the policy model adopted in 1980.

Like in other parts of Europe and, indeed, the United States, early initiatives in the Ottoman Empire for higher education in business date back to the second half of the 19th century. After a number of aborted attempts, the opening of a commercial school in İstanbul (Hamidiye Ticaret Mektebi) in 1883 under the auspices of the Ministry of Trade marked the beginning of business education in the Empire, purportedly, at the “higher” level. The Commercial School was closed down in 1890 and re-opened in 1894, attached this time to the Ministry of Education. It went through a restructuring in 1915 that led to a demarcation between an upper and a junior division. The School served as the sole provider of business education till it was inherited by the Turkish Republic and remained so for more than another decade. From the second opening until the founding of the Republic, it had an average of around 12 graduates per year, which increased to about 24 in the period up to the mid-1930s.

Recent episodes of financial crises in emerging markets progressively highlighted the importance of a sound and well-functioning banking sector for macroeconomic stability and sustainable economic growth. The Asian crisis of 1997, in particular, drew attention to the fundamental role that a deficient banking system could play in terms of generating major financial crises with devastating repercussions on the real economy and with significant possibilities of contagion in an emerging market context. The recent twin economic crises experienced by Turkey in 2000 and 2001 illustrated in a rather dramatic fashion the strong correspondence between a poorly functioning and under-regulated banking system, on the one hand, and the sudden outbreak of macroeconomic crises on the other. Indeed, the Turkish experience shows that both public and private banks can contribute significantly to the outbreak of economic crises. In retrospect, it may be argued that private commercial banks played an instrumental role in the first of the twin crises experienced in November 2000, whilst, public banks emerged as the central actors in the context of the subsequent crisis of February 2001.

While there are no less than 51 ethnic groups in Turkey according to a recent and comprehensive study (Andrews 1989b, pp.53-178), there is little that is demonstratively known on their present numbers and spatial distribution. Even on the size of the second largest ethnic group, the Kurds, the estimates vary between 3 to 20 million (Özsoy, Koç and Toros 1992, pp.101-114; Abramowitz 1993, p.174; Dickey 1993, p.33; Pelletiere 1985, pp.15-16, 28-31; Bayrak 1993, p.585; van Bruinessen 1992, p.35; Burkay 1992, pp.22-25). Yet knowledge of the sizes of ethnic groups and their geographic location, especially of the Kurds, is of immediate public interest from the standpoint of search, design and implementation of policies towards the solution of what has come to be called the Kurdish or the Southeastern problem, depending upon the protagonist's ethnic affiliation or sympathies.