“We are reformists, not revolutionaries”: The Muslim Brotherhood’s impossible rule in Egypt
FULYA ATACAN
This study will discuss the period of power of the Muslim Brotherhood, which has a strong social base in Egypt, beginning with the election of Mohamed Morsi as president in 2012 and ending with al-Sisi’s military coup just one year later. This period will be examined in conjunction with both the movement’s own historical background and tendencies and the dynamics of the uprising in Tahrir Square. While conducting research in the social sciences –in this article, specifically in Egypt– I will also discuss what it means to be a woman in the research process, what kinds of difficulties it entails, and what one might encounter in the data collection process. Therefore, in this article, I will first discuss what it means to be a female researcher in the field. I will then evaluate the Muslim Brotherhood’s power struggle alongside Mursi’s administration and share some of my reflections on their “inability to gain power” in the conclusion.
Keywords: Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt, Islamist movement, reformism, Tahrir Square.
From the settlement policy to the State Planning Organization: The rediscovery and redefinition of the Kurdish question in the 1960s
BAHTİYAR MERMERTAŞ
Although the State Planning Organization (SPO) is known as an institution carrying out various economic plans and projects, its function was not limited to this. As this article will demonstrate, one of the SPO’s goals was to find an economic and social solution to the “Eastern problem” and to implement the planned projects accordingly. Believing that the pragmatic discourses and practices of the political parties in electoral competition fueled Kurdism (Kürtçülük), the search for a supra- governmental, long-term, and planned policy began. The socio-political dynamism that emerged with the transition to the multi-party system, which saw politics permeating daily life in the Kurdish regions and parties involving tribal elites in central political processes in their quest for votes, was seen as a significant risk. In addition, Kurdish-language radio broadcasts from outside Turkey, concerns that scientific studies on Kurds would foster identity consciousness, and the growing strength of the Kurdish movement in Iraq all pointed to a situation in which internal and external threats intersected. A new method was sought against this emerging Kurdism, which was different from the Kurdism visible through violent incidents up until the late 1930s. The perception of Kurdism during this period largely encompassed the presence of aghas and sheikhs in the East and their consolidation of local power through their integration into the political system. Therefore, the SPO was conceived as a tool that would regulate the social structure in the region through long-term plans and economic methods, eliminate the agha and sheikh institutions and thus solving the Kurdish/Eastern problem. The way the Kurds were perceived as a society during the period, the understanding of social phenomena with economic determinism and the universal perspective of planned development defined the SPO’s boundaries. In line with this objective, the SPO sought to solve the Eastern problem in a structural manner through reports and development plans prepared as a result of scientific research. However, the most important transformation in the 1960s was the reconstruction of the Kurdish question, framed by themes such as regional backwardness and feudalism, through a problematization process centered on the SPO, a state institution, and involving various groups and actors. During this period, a historical bloc emerged that made these discourses on the Kurdish question possible, and these discourses, albeit in different forms, have persisted until recently.
Keywords: State Planning Organization (SPO), May 27, 1960, political history of Turkey, East/Kurdish question, regional underdevelopment, aghas and sheikhs, feudalism.
The AKP’s autocratizing practices and the problems of defining an authoritarian regime
REYHAN ÜNAL
Turkey has been under the governance of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) for the past twenty-two years, during which the party has maintained an uninterrupted reign. In the latter phase of this extended period, the AKP’s democratic
credentials have come under scrutiny. In this context, the 2023 parliamentary and presidential elections were perceived by certain opposition groups as a pivotal moment, a final opportunity to avert the consolidation of an authoritarian regime in Turkey. The government, which is itself perceived as the architect of this authoritarian shift, entered the elections under the banner of the slogan “Enough! It’s The Nation’s Call”, encapsulating a collective sentiment of resistance to the prevailing authoritarian one-party era in Turkey, where the aspirations of the populace were deemed to be misrepresented by the government. The slogan underscores the demand for a transition to a multi-party system, a fundamental tenet of the electoralcampaign. The present study will examine why the nation has not been able to exercise its democratic right since 2015, and the practices of law-making, institution- building, disrupting existing institutions, metamorphosis, neutralisation and partisanisation as tools used by the regime to consolidate its authoritarian character. A discussion will also be made on the conceptualisation of the emerging regime. The study is organised under three main headings: 1. Formal Political Arrangements, 2. Interventions (Legal, Institutional) against the Media, and 3. Social Opposition. The conclusion will analyse the autonomy of the regime in Turkey.
Keywords: Turkey, AKP, authoritarianism, democracy, rebuplicanism.
Contentious politics, social movements, and the labor movement in Turkey (1970-2016)
M. FUAT KINA
This article investigates the transformation of contentious politics in Turkey between 1970 and 2016, focusing on social movements and labor mobilization. Using the Global Contentious Politics (GLOCON) dataset, it analyzes nearly five decades of protest activity across ideological, organizational, and demographic dimensions. The findings reveal three major shifts: the expansion of social movement forms, increasing organizational fragmentation, and the ideological deradicalization of the labor movement. Militant conflict gives way to mass protest; collective action becomesless structured; and the labor movement shifts from the radical left toward the center. Addressing the limitations of case-based, qualitative research dominant in Turkish social movement scholarship, this article offers a rare longitudinal, quantitative perspective. By doing so, it contributes to a more comprehensive under standing of how mass mobilization evolves under authoritarian drift. While contentious politics has become more visible in recent decades, the study underscores that its capacity to generate lasting political transformation remains uncertain.
Keywords: social movements, contentious politics, labor movement, mobilization, GLOCON.
From fjords to flames: The rebirth of Romanticism in Nordic metal music
HASAN AKSAKAL
This essay examines how Nordic metal music reinterprets the literary, aesthetic, and philosophical legacy of nineteenth-century Scandinavian Romanticism and responds to the modern individual’s search for meaning. It argues that Nordic metal functions not merely as a musical genre but as a mythic, poetic, and philosophical form of expression. Engaging with themes such as nature, mythology, cultural memory, national identity, Dark Romanticism, and neo-paganism, the essay explores the Romantic imagination of nature and the self in Northern Europe and the cultural role of Norse mythology in identity formation. Drawing on a range of Nordic metal subgenres since the 1990s –including black metal, gothic metal, doom metal, Viking metal, and depressive metal– the study investigates the metaphysical dimensions of natural imagery and the function of myth and folk tradition in collective memory. It also discusses how Dark Romanticism and neo-paganism shape the countercultural aesthetics and ideological undertones of this music. In its final section, the paper considers Nordic metal’s role in constructing new myths as a form of existential and cultural resistance to both Christianity and modernity. Ultimately, it suggests that Nordic metal reconstructs Romantic aesthetics through the sacred and destructive aspects of nature, transforming mythological and cultural forms into a contemporary space of meaning that resonates with the metaphysical and historical yearnings of modern subjectivity.
Keywords: Nordic metal music, Romanticism, nature philosophy, Scandinavian mythology, Dark Romanticism, Viking legacy, neo-paganism.
Is social media an opportunity for “democracy”? The case of the Mahsa Amini protests
YELDA YÜREKLİ
Democracy involves not only analysing the relationship between society and politics but also understanding the connection between media and politics. Primarily, however, democracy is regarded as a political regime. A central phenomenon in discussions of democracy relates to various adjectives, such as liberal, direct, representative, and radical. This understanding, which is often indistinguishable from popular thought, ultimately renders democracy impossible. This study aims to explain the role that the author’s definition and understanding of democracy plays in the connection between media and politics. For this reason, this paper analyses the relationship between social media and politics, drawing upon the French philosopher
Jacques Rancière’s approach to democracy. His focus is on the link between the “political” and democracy. As democracy represents the possibility of the “political”, it is inherently a site of struggle. Rancière’s theory of democracy is analysed in depth through the “Mahsa Amini Protests”, which offer a crucial lens for discussing concepts such as politics, democracy, the political, and the people, especially in light of new phenomena like digital activism, hashtag activism, and hashtag wars, and their relationship with media and politics.
Keywords: Jacques Ranciére, democracy, the political, the people, digital activism
ABSTRACT (İngilizce Özetler)
ABSTRACT (İngilizce Özetler)
