This article argues that Turkey’s contemporary political regime is competitive authoritarianism. Tracing the evolution of Turkey’s political system from tutelary democracy to its current state, it describes the developments that resulted in the dissolution of the army’s prerogatives in politics and the rise of a new form of authoritarianism in the country. Associating this substantive change with the global emergence of competitive authoritarianism, I argue that the competitive authoritarian regime of Turkey has been institutionalized by the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) and that, since the 2017 referendum, the regime has displayed a tendency toward full authoritarianism that may render elections non-competitive by narrowing the legal channels through which the opposition can contest for political power.

Where does Turkey’s performance in the health dimension of the Preston Curve stand with regard to comparable countries on the development ladder? When one observes the chronological progression of health and wealth values embedded in the Preston Curve for developing countries, one sees a near monotonic increase across the board, with only a very small number of downwardly mobile countries. In the face of this near-universal increase in health and wealth values, it is necessary to adopt a more comparative perspective in order to situate the Turkish state’s choices and performance within the general story playing out for developing countries in the second half of the 20th century. Utilizing just such a comparative framework, this article uses China’s experience between 1960 and 2010 as an alternative through which to understand Turkey’s development experience.

Attempts at common agreements to phase out fossil fuel subsidies (FFS) have been increasing, as the topic generated momentum through the Rio Dialogues prior to the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) and following the Paris Agreement in 2016. This study quantifies the magnitude and the relative importance of FFS in the Turkish economy and produces a relevant national FFS synthesis for policy design. FFS form a complex system of a self-contradictory nature that stands in stark contrast with the Turkish government’s statements regarding sustainable development. Based on available data from the 2000s, we find that Turkey provides state support for coal and the exploration of oil and natural gas that represents roughly 0.2 percent of its nominal GDP per year. Continuing to subsidize fossil fuels narrows down the fiscal options that could otherwise be used to support cleaner technologies and mitigation actions. Given the fact that fossil fuels have significantly negative implications for the environment and health, eliminating those subsidies has the potential to help combat environmental pollution, climate change, and related problems.

The Southeastern Anatolia Project (Güneydoğu Anadolu Projesi, GAP) is arguably the largest regional development project ever witnessed in Turkey. Begun in the 1970s, GAP initially aimed primarily at the construction of 22 dams and 19 hydroelectric power plants on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and of extensive irrigation networks to produce hydroelectric energy and water 1.8 million hectares of land in southeastern Turkey. Later, the scope of GAP broadened significantly as it became a more ambitious and comprehensive scheme of modernization and transformation. Following this expansion, the multidimensionality of GAP and its multifaceted implications became clearer at both the national and international level. The project grew more visible and influential not only in political and public discourses, but also in the GAP region itself. Despite these developments, however, the question of how the project’s characteristics, vocabulary, rationales, and mechanisms have changed since its inception remains underdiscussed. This article asks what GAP was in the past and what it has more recently become. It examines the gradual transformation of GAP over forty years by specifically taking into account the continuities and ruptures in development discourse, theory, and practice since the 1950s. In this way, the article aims to provide a new perspective regarding the stages through which the project has passed to reach its current form.

Islamic fashion and lifestyle magazines enable the global circulation and consumption of newly emerging images of, narratives about, and discourses on Muslim women across the globe. Such magazines also trigger debates by making visible the language of commodification and consumerism that is increasingly shaping Muslim subjectivities. In particular, Âlâ—the pioneering Islamic fashion magazine in Turkey—has been the target of extensive criticism by Islamic intellectuals and columnists. This study contextualizes these criticisms within the broader debate on veiling fashion and Islamic consumerism in the context of 2010s Turkey, a context in which the Islamic bourgeoisie has been strengthened and class cleavages among veiled women have been further sharpened. The study analyzes the opinion columns focusing on Âlâ published in the Islamic, pro-government newspaper Yeni Şafak, as well as the responses of Âlâ’s editors and producers to such criticisms. The findings demonstrate that the magazine is criticized for making visible the surge of consumerism among the Islamic bourgeoisie, for blurring the boundaries between Islamic and secular identities, and for fragmenting an idealized imagination of Islamic collectivity by emphasizing class cleavages among veiled women. I argue that these criticisms of Âlâ in Islamic circles reflect a concern with the erosion of the symbolic connotations of veiling in Turkey, particularly in terms of marking the boundaries that define the imagination of an Islamic collectivity.