Scholarly Publications - Political Science and Public Administration

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/11693/115517

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Gender segregation in parliamentary committees of Turkey: intermediary spaces of women's political representation
(Elsevier, 2023-02-15) Uçaray-Mangıtlı, Burcu; Yıldırım, Senem
Do the Turkish parliamentary committees exhibit gendered appointment practices? If so, what are the driving factors behind women's limited representation in some committees? Previous studies find a division of labor in committees based on the perceived gender roles: women legislators are over-represented in low-prestige committees with “feminine” themes such as family, health, and education, whereas they are under-represented in strategically key policymaking committees. These studies —mostly on Western democracies— explain this gender bias with the appointment practices of the conservative right-wing parties. Using an original dataset of appointments between 2002 and 2020, this paper examines the partisan effects on the under- and over-representation of women on certain committees in the Turkish context. We find that all parties except the small left-wing Peoples' Democratic Party (PDP) perform in a similarly biased way. We argue that parliamentary committees are gendered institutional spaces greatly affected by the institutional culture of political parties. Even though institutional culture is mostly shaped by ideological stances, political parties are still among institutional spaces where ideologies of masculinity are effectively shaping power relations. We conclude that institutionalizing mechanisms that enhance agential capacities and practices at the party level are vital for gender equality within the political sphere.
Open Access
Party change and cleavage shifting in the global South: the case of Ecevit’s CHP in Turkey
(Routledge, 2023-04-02) Uğur-Çınar, Meral; Açıkgöz, Ali; Esen, B.
This article explores the prospects of and limits to political party change through a case study of the Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP) under the leadership of Bülent Ecevit in the 1960s and 1970s. We demonstrate how the CHP, via a new generation of politicians led by Ecevit, gradually transformed its ideological programme and cadres in an effort to turn into a social democratic mass party, thereby maximizing its voter base in the 1973 and 1977 elections against the currents of the extant socio-political faultlines of Turkish politics. We claim that the potential for party change depends on the interplay between three factors: political entrepreneurs, the prevailing preferences and structures of a society, and the extant institutional setup. We conclude by discussing the implications of the findings for the prospects of party change as well as for the present and future trajectory of the CHP.
Open Access
The british and the turks: a history of animosity, 1893–1923
(Wiley, 2023) Salt, Jeremy
Open Access
The EU’s response to Brexit: United and effective
(Routledge, 2023-10-16) Sefer, Özlem
Open Access
Civic and political integration of migrants with minority backgrounds: Turkey-origin migrants in the United Kingdom
(Routledge, 2023-10-01) Kesgin, Meryem Ay
This study argues that minorities have higher in-group consciousness and adaptability developed through uneven interaction with the majority. Once migrated, their collective experiences are transferred to the country-of-residence with them, leading to higher civic and political integration in the country-of-residence than majority-migrants. Introducing a new civic and political integration model, it compares the majority and minority migrants from Turkey in the UK, by using ordinal logistic regression analyses. Findings show that Kurds are more involved in politics than Turks, however, they do not differ in terms of civic participation. Compared to Sunnis, Alevis feel more represented in the political system.
Open Access
Against Eurocentric narratives on militarism
(Routledge, 2023-06-06) Bilgin, Pınar
Aspects of the recent scholarship on militarism, especially those who focus on ‘militarization’ as a post-9/11 development, have met with criticism by scholars who have underscored that the violence incurred by everyday people in the hands of the(ir) state – be it in Belfast, Cairo, İstanbul, Paris, or Rio de Janeiro – is not new insofar as military practices of have always impinged upon everyday life. Even as I agree with the critics, I submit that substituting the notion of ‘militarization’ with ‘pacification’ or ‘martial politics’ may not suffice. For, the problem is not (only) with the concept of militarization but with Eurocentric historical narratives on militarism that have informed this conceptualization. Accordingly, I locate the problem with militarism and militarization at an epistemic level: our approaches to militarization have been informed by Eurocentric historical narratives that consider militarism as a problem that belongs to a past world, which incidentally includes our contem-poraries outside the ‘West’.
Open Access
Masculinities and displacement in the Middle East Syrian refugees in Egypt
(Duke University Press, 2023-07) Zadhy-Çepoğlu, Aminath Nisha
Open Access
How informal institutions matter: evidence from Turkish social and political spheres
(University of Michigan Press, 2023-09) Sarıgil, Zeki
In How Informal Institutions Matter, Zeki Sarigil examines the role of informal institutions in sociopolitical life and addresses the following questions: Why and how do informal institutions emerge? To ask this differently, why do agents still create or resort to informal institutions despite the presence of formal institutional rules and regulations? How do informal institutions matter? What roles do they play in sociopolitical life? How can we classify informal institutions? What novel types of informal institutions can we identify and explain? How do informal institutions interact with formal institutions? How do they shape formal institutional rules, mechanisms, and outcomes? Finally, how do existing informal institutions change? What factors might trigger informal institutional change? In order to answer these questions, Sarigil examines several empirical cases of informal institution as derived from various issue areas in the Turkish sociopolitical context (i.e., civil law, conflict resolution, minority rights, and local governance) and from multiple levels (i.e., national and local).
Open Access
Elections and democracy in Turkey: reconsidering competitive authoritarianism in the age of democratic backsliding
(Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2023-08-16) Uğur Çınar, Meral
This article reflects on the reasons why Erdoğan and the Justice and Development Party (AKP) could still win in the recent 2023 presidential and parliamentary elections in Turkey despite, among other daunting issues, the deep economic crisis and their unsuccessful handling of the February 2023 earthquake. The article discusses the role of state apparatus and the media under a neopatrimonial system, as well as the role of the EU, which turned Turkey into a rentier state with the refugee deals. The discussion considers whether Turkey could still be seen as a competitive authoritarian regime and points to the difficulties in determining whether regimes such as the Turkish one are competitive authoritarian or not until the election results are seen and the opposition candidates actually win.
Open Access
Out of the ivory tower: an explanation of the policy advisory roles of political scientists in Europe
(Palgrave Macmillan Ltd., 2023-08-01) Jungblut, Jens; Gouglas, Athanassios; Katz, Gabriel; Gill, Justyna Bandola; Brans, Marleen; Timmermans, Arco; Anderson, Alexandra; Aubin, David; Bakır, Caner; Bino, Blerjana; Bleiklie, Ivar; Blum, Sonja; Bölükbaşı, Hasan Tolga; Flinders, Matthew; Fobe, Ellen; Galanti, Maria Tullia; Kallestrup, Morten; Michelsen, Svein; Molnar, Gabor Tamas; Pattyn, Valerie; Pritoni, Andrea; Dato, Jose Real; Squevin, Pierre; Xhindi, Nevila
The relevance and impact of political scientists’ professional activities outside of universities has become the focus of public attention, partly due to growing expectations that research should help address society’s grand challenges. One type of such activity is policy advising. However, little attention has been devoted to understanding the extent and type of policy advising activities political scientists engage in. This paper addresses this gap by adopting a classification that distinguishes four ideal types of policy advisors representing differing degrees of engagement. We test this classification by calculating a multi-level latent class model to estimate key factors explaining the prevalence of each type based on an original dataset obtained from a survey of political scientists across 39 European countries. Our results challenge the wisdom that political scientists are sitting in an “ivory tower”: the vast majority (80%) of political scientists in Europe are active policy advisers, with most of them providing not only expert guidance but also normative assessments.
Open Access
Social Democracy in Turkey: Global Questions, Local Answers
(Routledge, 2023-04-25) Çınar, Meral Uğur; Açıkgöz, Ali
This article assesses the prospects of social democracy in Turkey in light of two prominent debates regarding social democracy: the challenge of populism and the proper balance between a politics of redistribution and a politics of recognition. By focusing on the Republican People’s Party (CHP), it shows that the main problem the party faces is to find ways of addressing the issues of recognition and redistribution. Success in addressing these issues would provide an effective alternative to the populist agenda of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and build channels for participatory democracy and institutions of accountability. We argue that social democracy, with its legacy of democratic rule and institutions, can serve as a significant anchoring point in such an effort. We point out, however, why current social, institutional, political, and cultural factors make the CHP’s task of pursuing a social democratic agenda in Turkey particularly difficult.
Open Access
Elite universities as populist scapegoats: Evidence from Hungary and Turkey
(Sage Publications, Inc., 2023-10-20) Grigoriadis, Ioannis N.; Canpolat, Ece Işık
This article explores the reasons for the recent populist assault against elite academic institutions in Hungary and Turkey. After exploring the literature on populism, social mobility, and social pluralism, it then focuses on the modalities of the attack against two elite academic institutions, established upon the U.S. liberal arts college tradition, the Central European University (CEU) and Boğaziçi University, respectively, and its implications for Hungarian and Turkish politics. Two arguments are put forward: First, such attacks have emerged in the context of a populist narrative against institutions facilitating social mobility. Social mobility undermines the “us versus them” populist narrative where the masses are permanently placed on the “losers” side and therefore depend on the charismatic populist leader. With social mobility facilitated through high-quality academic institutions, these “losers” have the chance to improve their material and non-material well-being through education. Second, these institutions promote social pluralism and critical thinking, cultivating a mode of reflection that contradicts the simplistic populist dichotomies and opposes democratic backsliding.
Open Access
From virtuous boy to murderous fanatic David Ben Gurion and the Palestinians
(Edinburg University Press, 2023-04-01) Salt, Jeremy
Open Access
Contradicting perceptions of women’s and men’s sexuality: evidence of gender double standards in Türkiye
(Springer, 2023-05-30) Savas, Gokhan; Yol, Fatma
Perceptions of individuals’ sexuality vary by culturally defined femininity and masculinity. Little research has examined people’s judgments for men’s and women’s sexual behavior. This quantitative research aims to investigate whether Turkish people have different judgments about the sexual behaviors of men and women. It utilized the “Values Module” in “Türkiye Survey 2015” that is a national dataset conducted by the Social Sciences University of Ankara including 2630 individuals, 18 years old or over, from 70 provinces. The present study finds that Turkish people have more positive attitudes towards males’ sexual behaviors, including premarital sex and extramarital sex. It also finds that not only men have more positive attitudes towards males’ sexuality, but also women hold similar attitudes.
Open Access
Residing without settling: housing market and tactics of Syrian forced migrants in Turkey
(John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2023-08-09) Kurfalı, Merve Akdemir; Özçürümez, Saime
How do forced migrants from Syria cope with structural barriers to housing in urban centres in Turkey? More than 3.6 million Syrian refugees have lived in different cities in Turkey since the closing of the temporary accommodation centres in 2018. This study examines the agency of Syrians and their housing pathways in securing accommodation in a neoliberal housing market amidst increasing unwelcoming attitudes by the local population, no social housing, high dependence on rental housing prone to price hikes, and “temporary protection” legal status. Based on analysis of data from 34 semi-structured interviews with forced migrant Syrians and 20 expert interviews in Gaziantep, a city close to the Turkey-Syria border with a substantial Syrian population, the research identifies four tactics that characterise housing pathways of Syrian forced migrants: (1) acting through local community members, (2) working with a Syrian mediator, (3) settling down in Syrian-only buildings or informal settlements, and (4) purchasing a house through circumventing the legal ban on property ownership. The study concludes by highlighting that while these tactics are necessary for meeting forced migrants’ immediate housing needs, they are far from sufficient in preventing exclusion in the Turkish housing market.
Open Access
On the biopolitics of legal education in Turkey
(Taylor&Francis, 2023-06) Deibel, Eric; Deibel, Talya
Open Access
Exploring the impact of teachers’ past migration experience on inclusive education for refugee children
(Routledge, 2023-06-14) Özçürümez, Saime; Tursun, Özgün; Tunç, Ahmet
Teachers play a key role in shaping students’ experiences in the learning environment. Studies on inclusive education in forced migration contexts, however, rarely examine what determines teachers’ positive behaviour and attitudes toward refugee students. This study examines how teachers’ past migration and occupational experiences impact their attitudes towards students who arrived through forced migration and whether they rely on teaching practices stemming from their past experiences to ensure a more inclusive school climate. Using both quantitative and qualitative methods, we collected 228 surveys and conducted 9 focus groups with secondary education teachers in 11 public schools in 5 different cities in Turkey where students of Syrian origin who arrived through forced migration are registered. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of ‘habitus’ and ‘social capital’, this study argues that teachers’ past migration experiences enable them to create a more inclusive classroom experience for Syrian refugee children.
Open Access
Islam, opinion climates, and immigrant party loyalties in Western Europe
(Routledge, 2023-05-12) Just, Aida
This article examines how religion – particularly Islam – and anti-immigrant opinion climates influence the patterns of partisanship among first-generation immigrants in Western Europe. It suggests that Muslim propensity to become partisans and identify with Christian democratic parties depends on anti-immigrant opinion climate in their host country. The analyses based on individual-level data from the European Social Survey (ESS) 2002–2019 in 19 West European democracies reveal that while Muslims are indeed less likely to become partisans in anti-immigrant host societies, the opposite is true in hospitable opinion climates. Moreover, compared to other immigrants, Muslims are less likely to identify with Christian democratic parties, but this relationship is substantively small and limited to highly anti-immigrant countries. In contrast, Muslims are more likely to align with socialist parties at all levels of anti-immigrant sentiment. These findings have important implications for debates on immigrant political integration and the future of electoral alignments in Western Europe.
Open Access
‘The question of the corset’: fashion, health and identity in late Ottoman history
(Routledge, 2021-08-05) Burçak, Berrak
This article examines discussions on the corset in the illustrated press, text-book for girls, and medical and advice literature in the reign of Sultan Abdülhamid II (1876–1909). The article argues that the corset functioned as a cultural benchmark establishing the terms of Ottoman Muslim female sartorial decorum in a larger medicalized public debate on modern indoor dress. Hamidian reformers responded to a set of intertwined but rather conflicting requirements placed upon Ottoman Muslim women’s bodies, then positioned as the central pillars in Muslim community building. Caught between consumer desires for fashion, and the health, of the Muslim population, and stalled by a traditional discourse to regulate female indoor dress, Hamidian reformers mobilized a medicalized discourse associating dress, health and patriotism. Debates over the corset insisted on authentic Ottoman Muslim femininity by drawing upon the binaries of fashion against health, foreign against Muslim, and beautification against beauty. Corset debates opened the path towards shifting female beauty and its preservation from an individually pursued private aesthetic into a scienticized public debate which represented moral virtue and patriotic duty towards the larger goal of communal and imperial wellbeing.
Open Access
Dissident labour activism in Vietnam
(Routledge, 2023-09-11) Pham Thi, Anh-Susann
Scholars of Vietnam have studied different forms of labour resistance such as wildcat strikes, petitions, complaints, work stoppages, and boycotts, with which workers demand higher wages and pensions, overall better working conditions, and the implementation of workers’ rights. This article pays attention to the small, yet not negligible group of dissident labour activists, who are subjected to much harsher state repression compared to labour resistance in and around the workplace. This article asks: What makes dissident labour activism a (real or perceived) threat to the state? A common and widely accepted explanation refers to the nature of the demands of dissidents, which includes independent trade unions, democratisation, and regime change. This article digs deeper and finds that dissident labour activists function as agents of an emerging epistemological third space, which permits the revitalisation of hidden knowledges about labour rights, the reclamation of the silenced idea of independent trade unions and the co-existence of critique of the status quo and imagination of an alternative future, which together threaten to endanger the Communist Party of Vietnam’s political legitimacy and, by implication, capital utilisation.