Losing a Foothold in a Dream: Turkey's Evacuation of Süleyman Shah
By Gareth Jenkins (vol. 8, no. 4 of the Turkey Analyst)
On the night of February 21-22, 2015, amid fears that it was in danger of being overrun by the ISIS, the Turkish military staged a cross-border rescue operation to evacuate the garrison that had been guarding the tomb of Süleyman Shah in northern Syria. In a move redolent with symbolism for the collapse of Ankara’s dream of transforming the Middle East into a sphere of neo-Ottoman Turkish influence, Turkish troops brought the three coffins in the tomb back to Turkey and detonated explosives to destroy the mausoleum in which they had been housed.
The AKP and Turkey’s Long Tradition of Islamo-Fascism
By Toni Alaranta (vol. 8, no. 3 of the Turkey Analyst)
Those who claim that democracy in Turkey has been handicapped because of the repressive “Kemalist” regime overlook that the conservative right has totally dominated Turkish politics. It is the traditions of the Turkish right that need to be scrutinized in the search for the matrix of current undemocratic practices. The Turkish Islamist poet and political ideologue Necip Fazıl Kısakürek is a key figure in this context. He propagated for a totalitarian Islamist-fascist regime in Turkey, to be ruled by an Islamic version of a Führer. And today representatives of the AKP point out that understanding Kısakürek is a precondition to understand the great “cause” (“dava”) that the AKP represents.
Can TÜSİAD Help Save Turkish Democracy?
By Halil Karaveli (vol. 8, no. 3 of the Turkey Analyst)
The historical record of TÜSİAD, The Association of Turkish Industrialists and Businessmen, as an agent for democratization is anything but encouraging. Today however, the interests of its members compel TÜSİAD to be a force for democracy and secularism. But mustering the force to defend these principles requires that the members of TÜSİAD break with a long tradition of bourgeois quietude and subservience to the state. But will they instead hunker down and seek salvation in adjusting to a capitalist model that does not depend on closer relations with the West?
The HDP's Election Gambit and Turkey's Tolling Alarm Bells
By Gareth Jenkins (vol. 8, no. 2 of the Turkey Analyst)
On January 13, 2015, Selahattin Demirtaş, the co-chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), announced that the HDP will run as a party in the June 7, 2015 general election. If the HDP fails to cross the 10 per cent national electoral threshold not only will the country’s Kurds no longer have their own voice in parliament but nearly all of the seats in predominantly Kurdish areas are likely to go to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), thus boosting President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s hopes of changing the constitution and introducing a presidential or semi-presidential system.
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Joint Center Publications
Op-ed Halil Karaveli "The Rise and Rise of the Turkish Right", The New York Times, April 8, 2019
Analysis Halil Karaveli "The Myth of Erdogan's Power", Foreign Policy, August 29, 2018
Analysis Svante E. Cornell, A Road to Understanding in Syria? The U.S. and Turkey, The American Interest, June 2018
Op-ed Halil Karaveli "Erdogan Wins Reelection", Foreign Affairs, June 25, 2018
Article Halil Karaveli "Will the Kurdish Question Secure Erdogan's Re-election?", Turkey Analyst, June 18, 2018
Research Article Svante E. Cornell "Erbakan, Kisakürek, and the Mainstreaming of Extremism in Turkey", Current Trends in Islamist Ideology, June 2018
Analysis Svante E. Cornell "The U.S. and Turkey: Past the Point of No Return?", The American Interest, February 1, 2018
Op-ed Svante E. Cornell "Erdogan's Turkey: the Role of a Little Known Islamic Poet", Breaking Defense, January 2, 2018
Research Article Halil Karaveli "Turkey's Authoritarian Legacy", Cairo Review of Global Affairs, January 2, 2018