An action research report on the rising democracy discourse in 2000's Turkey: does Eros contour the demos?

Abstract

This article conceptualizes gender equity and sexual liberty issues that most of the literature on democracy and democratization in Turkey fails to address. The major focus of the article is on the convergent and divergent positions of the rising democratization discourse in contemporary Turkey. When the democratization discourses of different political groups are analyzed, we see that the convergent points consist of legal and constitutional changes that aim at political and economic liberalization, while the divergent points include liberalization in the private sphere and engaging in gender equity and sexual liberty issues. Therefore, we argue that it is crucial to analyze gender equity and sexual liberty issues with more dynamic concepts such as globalization and the EU accession process of Turkey rather than the essentialist ones like Islam.