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Issues in Contemporary Turkey: Continuities and Transformation

1.404

Dozenten

Bediz Yilmaz-Bayraktar, Ph.D.

Beschreibung

This seminar series aims to offer a global view about contemporary Turkey which passed through drastic transformations during the 15 years of AKP in power, especially during the last three years that followed the Presidential Elections. At its arrival to power, AKP represented a challenge to the deficiencies of democratic ruling in a country with periodic coups and where the military reigned over democratic institutions. With a foundational declaration emphasising the need to end a “one-man’s ruling” system referring to Necmettin Erbakan, AKP entered the political scene in 2001 and was well embraced not only by liberal opponents of Turkey but also by the European Union. However, during the 15 years in power, AKP rapidly moved away from the path it first declared as attached to European values of democracy: it became more and more populistic, Islamistic, authoritarian and all within an all encompassing neoliberal-capitalism led by an omnipotent central government. Privatisations and confiscations, gigantic urban projects, ceaseless changes in the educational system, legal regulations related to women, policies concerning land and local administration... these led to a transformation of the society in all its institutions.
The summit of the transformation is to be found in the State of Emergency rule that followed the coup attempt of July 15th, 2016 which gave the ground to the executive power to take hold of the legislative power and the judicial power as well as silencing all opponent and dissident voices in the society by means of massive dismissals and arbitrary penalisations.
The topics will cover a broad range of key issues related to contemporary Turkey. Guest lecturers are chosen among the dismissed scholars who have signed the Peace Petition in January 2016 and been subjected to a purge since then and they are experts in areas crucial to an understanding of the main features of Turkey’s current transformation. The topics that are to be covered include ideological and institutional transformations, populism and authoritarianism, gender, religiosity, space, refugees and social movements.
The course is planned as a course for BA and also interested MA students in the social sciences. Each session is accompanied by mandatory (and further) readings, which will be discussed in the second half of the session. Students will be required to do the regular amount of assignments. Further, lectures are also open to the interested public. There will be a poster produced for the purpose of announcing the talks.

Weitere Angaben

Ort: 41/112
Zeiten: Mo. 14:00 - 16:00 (wöchentlich)
Erster Termin: Montag, 09.04.2018 14:00 - 16:00, Ort: 41/112
Veranstaltungsart: Seminar (Offizielle Lehrveranstaltungen)