Browsing by Subject "Governmentality"

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7

Open Access
Governing aging in Turkey: municipal active aging discourses and the construction of the desirable older subject
(2022-12) Yazar, Damla
This thesis examines active aging discourses through the lens of governmentality theory of Foucault. The focus is on how active aging discourses, which primarily promote an autonomous and productive older subject as desirable, are shaped by the broader policy and welfare context in Turkey. In the Western context, active aging functions as a tool of neoliberal governmentality which responsibilize older individuals for managing their own welfare and aging process through specific conducts and self-technologies, mainly reflecting Western middle-class values. This promote the autonomous and productive desirable older subject in response to the negative construction of aging as a demographic ‘crisis’ associated with increasing public expenditures in a neoliberal context of the decreasing roles of the welfare state. In Turkey, neo-conservativism and neo-liberalism articulate each other in a context where the welfare regime historically and still predominantly relies on family; thus, the rationalization of active aging discourses are expected to differ from those in the Western context. Focusing on the municipal discourses on active aging, this thesis looks at how problematizations of aging vary at local level. It considers how municipalities problematize aging and how those problematizations are addressed by active aging discourses. Based on in-depth interviews conducted with 15 people from 11 municipalities across the country, the research finds that population aging in Turkey is problematized in line with the transformation of families and their decreasing caregiving capacity—namely, as a care crisis. Within this framework, various distinctions and commonalities across the regional and socio-economic development level are observed and overall it is found that Turkish municipal active aging discourses promote an autonomous, self-reliant older subject as desirable in order to compensate for the decreasing welfare potential of families.
Open Access
Managementality: management as a political mentality
(2000) Altunok, Gülbanu
This thesis is an attempt to explain and explore the social and political implications o f ‘management’ as a practice and theory of knowledge. In this respect the historical formation of management discipline, its basic principles, and its functioning are investigated. It is argued that management as a business administration operates as a control mechanism within the workplaces. However, management as an administrative practice is not limited to business organizations but spread through the public institutions in the post war years. In other words, the mentality of management infiltrated into public institutions and eventually influenced the relations between the state and citizens. Then, this thesis argues that management as a control mechanism has expanded into society at large. In order to investigate the social and political significance of management both in private and public organizations two concepts of Michel Foucault will be applied: one is Panopticism. It shows how management works as a disciplinary mechanism. The other is Governmentality. This concept is useful in analyzing the expansion of the mentality of management into social and political life in contemporary societies.
Open Access
Neoliberal globalization, citizenship and subject constitution in Turkey
(2012-09) Yedekçi, Ayşe
This thesis discusses the extent to which neoliberal globalization has had an impact on citizenship in general, and citizenship in Turkey in particular. Academic debates on citizenship usually revolve around the question of identity rights, overlooking political-economy dimensions that significantly influence the scope of rights enjoyed. By defining neoliberalism in a twofold way as policy framework and governmentality, the study shows both the ways through which neoliberalism has affected the practice of social rights, and how individuals are constituted as neoliberal subjects through different governmental techniques. The thesis aims to adapt the conceptual-theoretical framework by analyzing how the neoliberalization process is experienced in Turkey.
Open Access
“The (not so) queer art of flopping”: makeover shows and the formation of neoliberal subjectivity
(2020-12) Turan, Orçun
This thesis examines the integral part makeover shows play in the formation of neoliberal subjectivity. The hegemonic neoliberal ideology demands citizens to claim responsibility for the social welfare services and offerings that the states cease to provide. The idealized citizenship in this system is a self-enterprising, responsible, and autonomous one who has or strives to have self-esteem in order to become and remain the best version of oneself. The subjectivity neoliberalism (re)constructs and promotes can be seen in cultural products, too. Television, particularly makeover reality television, has an informative part in the formation of this subjectivity. The experts makeover shows employ portray and eventually teach the audience how to conduct themselves without the help -social welfare- the states are supposed to offer. Borrowing Michel Foucault’s conceptualization of “governmentality”, the conduct of conduct for the citizen, this research aims to reveal the neoliberal governmentality displayed in makeover shows through experts’ tutorials of the idealized neoliberal lifestyle and consumership. While doing so, this thesis uses the American makeover reality show, Queer Eye as its context. In addition to drawing from the critical governmentality literature, the thesis uses Halberstam’s low theory in order to provide an alternative understanding of success/failure that is beyond the binary neoliberal definition of these terms, and questions the possibility for a (queer) alternative way of being.
Open Access
Ottomentality : neoliberal governance of culture and neo-ottoman management of diversity
(Routledge, 2017) Erdem, Chien Yang
This essay proposes an alternative concept–Ottomentality–in order to more adequately assess Turkey’s growing neo-Ottoman cultural ensemble. This concept is deployed here to underscore the convergence of neoliberal and neo-Ottoman rationalities and the discursive practices that are developed around them for governing culture and managing a diverse society. The essay contends that the convergence of these two rationalities has significantly transformed the state’s approach to culture as a way of governing the social, constituted a particular knowledge of multiculturalism, and a subject of citizenry increasingly subjected to exclusion and discipline for expressing critical views of this knowledge.
Open Access
Ottomentality: neoliberal governance of culture and neo-Ottoman management of diversity
(2017-09) Yang Erdem, Chien
Since the 2000s Turkey has witnessed a growing array of cultural productions and sites ranging from television series to history museums featuring the magnificence of the Ottoman legacy. Contemporary cultural analyses often interpret this phenomenon as cultural expressions of the Justice and Development Party’s (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi; AKP) Islamist ideology and foreign policy known as neo-Ottomanism. Nonetheless, this interpretation tends to overlook the complexity and underestimate its socio-political implications. This study draws attention to the analytical limitations of neo-Ottomanism and develops an alternative concept—Ottomentality—in order to more adequately assess Turkey’s renewed Ottoman motto. By incorporating the Foucauldian perspective of governmentality, the study proposes to look beyond the “ideology” and “foreign policy” interpretations and reconceptualize neo-Ottomanism not only as a distinct form of governmentality, but also in collaborative terms with neoliberal governmentality. Ottomentality is deployed here to underscore the discursive governing practices that are generated by the convergence of neoliberalism and neo-Ottomanism as a means of cultural intervention. By critically engaging with the areas of history museums, television, and cinema, this study aims to examine the AKP’s neoliberal approach to culture and neo-Ottoman management of diversity. The study contends that the convergence of these two rationalities has significantly transformed the state’s approach to culture as a way of governing the social, produced a particular knowledge of Ottoman-Islamic multiculturalism, and constituted a citizen-subject who is increasingly subjected to exclusion and discipline for expressing critical views of this knowledge.
Open Access
Shifting responsibility in governing aging: municipal active aging discourses in Turkey
(Taylor & Francis, 2022-12-28) Erman, Tahire; Yazar, Damla
This article investigates active aging as a tool of governing the aging population at the municipal level. Using Foucault’s framework of governmentality, it explores the techniques of governing aging via the construction of the desirable older subjectivity, reflecting upon the role of the family in caregiving. Conducting in-depth interviews with municipal officials in charge of aging programs, we illustrated that, despite regional differences in socio-economic development levels connected to urban/modernized and rural/traditional cultural frames, all municipalities in our study embrace active aging in which older people are responsibilized for leading an active life to avoid being a burden on the family. We argue that neoliberal active aging discourses are mobilized to substitute the decreasing welfare function of conservative familialism in Turkey and the individualistic self-technologies are instrumentalized for familialist conducts. This reveals that the coexistence of multiple rationalities in the governing process can unsettle habitual consistencies between problematizations, conducts and self-technologies.