Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Politicisation as Governing Strategy Versus Resistance: Demystifying Capitalist Social Relations and the State in Turkey

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Comparing Strategies of (De)Politicisation in Europe

Abstract

This chapter argues that the recent developments in Turkey towards what some deem “authoritarian”/“illiberal” form of governing cannot be divorced from their relationality with the post-2001 depoliticisation strategy in economic policymaking or the large-scale politicisation of social relations since the summer of 2013. Proposing a critical approach to (de)politicisation within a broader understanding of the crisis and restructuring of social relations, the chapter presents an account of the progressive forms of politicisation that aim to demystify the capitalist and class character of social relations. Against this background, the chapter assesses the unfolding politicisation in counter-hegemonic form as manifested in Gezi protests as well as the enclosure of the political terrain with the governing strategy of politicisation in the post-2013 context.

Some of the preliminary ideas presented in this chapter are initially discussed in a commentary, Dönmez P. (2014) “Making Sense of (Anti) Politics In and Out of Crisis in Turkey: A Critical Intervention” (Vol. III, Issue 5, pp. 39–53), Centre for Policy and Research on Turkey, London, Research Turkey.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 119.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Acar, Y., & Ulug, M. (2014, January 9). The Body Politicized: The Visibility of Women at Gezi. In ROAR Symposium, Reflections on the Gezi Uprising. Reflections on a Revolution. Available at: https://roarmag.org/essays/women-gezi-park-protests/. Accessed 20 January 2017.

  • Akcay, U. (2009). Para, Banka, Devlet: Merkez Bankası Bağımsızlaşmasının Ekonomi Politiği. Istanbul: Sosyal Arastırmalar Vakfı.

    Google Scholar 

  • Amnesty International. (2013, October 2). Turkey: Gezi Park Protests: Brutal Denial of the Right to Peaceful Assembly in Turkey (Report). Available at: https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/EUR44/022/2013/en/. Accessed 10 August 2016.

  • Bakirezer, G., & Demirer, Y. (2009). Ak Parti’nin Sosyal Siyaseti. In I. Uzgel & B. Duru (Eds.), AKP Kitabı: Bir Donusumun Bilancosu (pp. 153–178). Ankara: Phoenix.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bakker, I. (2007). Social Reproduction and the Constitution of a Gendered Political Economy. New Political Economy, 12, 541–556.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bannerji, H. (2005). Building from Marx: Reflections on Class and Race. Social Justice, 32(4), 144–160.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barker, C., Cox, L., Krinsky, J., & Nilsen, A. G. (2013). Marxism and Social Movements. Leiden and Boston: Brill.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Baydar, G. (2015). Embodied Spaces of Resistance. Women’s Studies International Forum, 50, 11–19.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bedirhanoglu, P., & Yalman, G. (2010). Neoliberal Transformation in Turkey: State, Class, Discourse. In A. Saad-Filho & G. Yalman (Eds.), Economic Transitions to Neoliberalism in Middle-Income Countries: Policy Dilemmas, Economic Crises, Forms of Resistance. London and New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beveridge, R. (2017). The (Ontological) Politics in Depoliticization Debates: Three Lenses on the Decline of the Political. Political Studies Review. https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1478929916664358.

  • Bianet. (2013, June 1). Taksim Gezi Park Resistance Spreads Across Turkey. Available at: http://bianet.org/english/crisis/147106-taksim-gezi-park-resistance-spreads-across-turkey. Accessed 22 January 2017.

  • Bonefeld, W. (1992). Social Constitution and the Form of the Capitalist State. In W. Bonefeld, R. Gunn, & K. Psychopedis (Eds.), Open Marxism, Vol. 1: Dialectics and History. London: Pluto Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bonefeld, W. (2006). Social Constitution and Critical Economy. In A. Bieler (Ed.), Global Restructuring, State, Capital and Labour: Contesting Neo-Gramscian Perspectives (pp. 176–187). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Bonefeld, W., Brown, A., & Burnham, P. (1995). A Major Crisis? The Politics of Economic Policy in Britain in the 1990s. Aldershot: Dartmouth.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bozkurt, U. (2013). Neoliberalism with a Human Face: Making Sense of the Justice and Development Party’s Neoliberal Populism in Turkey. Science & Society, 77(3), 372–396.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burnham, P. (1990). Political Economy of Postwar Reconstruction. London: Macmillan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Burnham, P. (1996). Capital, Crisis and the International State System. In W. Bonefeld et al. (Eds.), Global Capital, National State and the Politics of Money. Basingstoke: Macmillan; New York: St. Martin’s Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Burnham, P. (2001, June). New Labour and the Politics of Depoliticisation. British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 3(2), 127–149.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burnham, P. (2002). Class Struggle, States and Global Circuits of Capital. In M. Rupert et al. (Eds.), Historical Materialism and Globalisation. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Burnham, P. (2006). Marxism, the State and British Politics. British Politics, 1, 67–83.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burnham, P. (2014). Depoliticisation: Economic Crisis and Political Management. Policy and Politics, 42(2), 189–206.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burnham, P., Gilland, K., Grant, W., & Layton-Henry, Z. (2004). Research Methods in Politics. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Casier, M., Jongerden, J., & Walker, N. (2011). Fruitless Attempts? The Kurdish Initiative and Containment of the Kurdish Movement in Turkey. New Perspectives on Turkey, 44, 103–127.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cengiz, O. K. (2013). New Kurdish Party Could Impact Local Turkish Elections. Al-Monitor. Available at: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/10/new-kurdish-party-could-impact-turkey-elections.html#ixzz4Y1id2ZPZ. Accessed 22 January 2017.

  • Central Bank of Turkey Annual Reports 1996–2001; 2004–2009. Available at: http://www.tcmb.gov.tr/wps/wcm/connect/EN/TCMB+EN/Main+Menu/Publications/Reports/Annual+Reports/. Accessed 29 April 2018.

  • Clarke, S. (1988). Keynesianism Monetarism and the Crisis of the State. Aldershot: Edward Elgar.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clarke, S. (1991). The State Debate. London: Macmillan.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Clarke, S. (1992). The Global Accumulation of Capital and the Periodisation of the Capitalist State Form. In W. Bonefeld, R. Gunn, & K. Psychopedis (Eds.), Open Marxism: Dialectics and History (Vol. 1). London: Pluto Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Commission of the European Communities (CEC). Regular Reports on Turkey’s Progress Towards Accession, 2003–2005. Available at: https://www.avrupa.info.tr/en/regular-reports-turkey-744. Accessed 29 April 2018.

  • Democracy Now. (2013, June 19). Defiant Turkish Demonstrators ‘Finding New Ways to Protest’ in Face of Relentless State Crackdown. Available at: https://www.democracynow.org/2013/6/19/defiant_turkish_demonstrators_finding_new_ways. Accessed 22 January 2017.

  • Dinerstein, A. C. (2003). Power or Counter Power? The Dilemma of the Piquetero Movement in Argentina Post-crisis. Capital & Class, 27(3), 1–8.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dinerstein, A. C. (2007). Workers’ Factory Takeovers and New State Policies in Argentina: Towards an ‘Institutionalisation’ of Non-Governmental Public Action? Policy & Politics, 35(3), 529–550.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dönmez, P. (2014a). Making Sense of (Anti) Politics in and Out of Crisis in Turkey: A Critical Intervention (Vol. III, Issue 5, pp. 39–53), Centre for Policy and Research on Turkey, London, Research Turkey.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dönmez, P. (2014b). Crisis and Regional Governance Attempts: the Curious Case of Turkey in Critical Perspective. In T. Haastrup & J. Eun (Eds.), Regionalising Global Crises: The Financial Crisis and New Frontiers in Regional Governance. International Political Economy Series. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Dönmez, P., & Sutton, A. (2016). Revisiting the Debate on Open Marxist Perspectives. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 18(3), 688–705.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dönmez, P., & Zemandl, E. (2018). Crisis of Capitalism and (De-)Politicisation of Monetary Policymaking: Reflections from Hungary and Turkey. New Political Economy. https://doi.org/10.1080/13563467.2017.1421624.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ercan, F. (2002). The Contradictory Continuity of the Turkish Capital Accumulation Process: A Critical Perspective on the Internationalization of the Turkish Economy. In N. Balkan & S. Savran (Eds.), The Ravages of Neo-Liberalism: Economy, Society and Gender in Turkey. New York: Nova.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ercan, F., & Oguz, S. (2006). Rescaling as a Class Relationship and Process: The Case of Public Procurement Law in Turkey. Political Geography, 25, 641–656.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ercan, F., & Oguz, S. (2015). From Gezi Resistance to Soma Massacre: Capital Accumulation and Class Struggle in Turkey. Socialist Register, 15, 114–135.

    Google Scholar 

  • European Commission. (2016, November 9). Commission Staff Working Document (Turkey 2016 Report). Available at: https://ec.europa.eu/neighbourhood-enlargement/sites/near/files/pdf/key_documents/2016/20161109_report_turkey.pdf. Accessed 20 January 2017.

  • Everywhere Taksim, Online Archive of Gezi Protests. Available at: http://everywheretaksim.net/. Accessed 22 January 2017.

  • Federici, S. (2004). Caliban and the Witch. New York: Autonomedia.

    Google Scholar 

  • Financial Times. (2006, February 22). Seeing It Through: How Turkey Is Making Exports a Doorway to Economic Expansion. Available at: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/31180508-9b42-11d9-af0f-00000e2511c8.html. Accessed 6 July 2010.

  • Gramsci, A. (2006 [1971]). State and Civil Society. In A. Sharma & A. Gupta (Eds.), The Anthropology of the State: A Reader (pp. 71–85). Malden, Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gurcan, E. C., & Peker, E. (2014). Turkey’s Gezi Park Demonstrations of 2013: A Marxian Analysis of the Political Moment. Socialism and Democracy, 28(1), 70–89.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hay, C. (2007). Why We Hate Politics? Cambridge: Polity.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hay, C. (2014). Depoliticisation as Process, Governance as Practice: What Did the ‘First Wave’ Get Wrong and Do We Need a ‘Second Wave’ to Put It Right? Policy & Politics, 42(2), 293–311.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heper, M. (2013). Islam, Conservatism, and Democracy in Turkey: Comparing Turgut Özal and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Insight Turkey, 15(2), 141–156.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heper, M., & Keyman, E. F. (1998). Double-Faced State: Political Patronage and the Consolidation of Democracy in Turkey. Middle Eastern Studies, 34(4), 259–277.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hetland, G., & Goodwin, J. (2013). The Strange Disappearance of Capitalism from Social Movement Studies. In C. Barker et al. (Eds.), Marxism and Social Movements. Leiden and Boston: Brill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Holloway, J., & Picciotto, S. (1991). Capital, Crisis and the State. In S. Clarke (Ed.), The State Debate. London: Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hurriyet, Newspaper Online Archive. Available at: http://hurarsiv.hurriyet.com.tr.

  • IMFC. (2000, April 16). Statement by H. E. Didier Reynders, Minister of Finance of Belgium. IMFC, Washington, DC. Available at: http://www.imf.org/external/spring/2000/imfc/bel.htm. Accessed 21 August 2016.

  • Independent Social Scientists Alliance (ISSA). (2008). 2008 Kavsaginda Türkiye: Siyaset, İktisat ve Toplum. Istanbul: Yordam Kitap.

    Google Scholar 

  • Independent Social Scientists Alliance (ISSA). (2009). Turkiye’de ve Dunyada Ekonomik Bunalım: 2008–2009. Istanbul: Yordam Kitap.

    Google Scholar 

  • Işıkara, G., Kayserilioğlu, A., & Zirngast, M. (2015, September 13). Erdoğan’s Violent Last Resort. Jacobin Magazine. Available at: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/09/erdogan-akp-hdp-isis-suruc-gezi/. Accessed 20 January 2017.

  • Jessop, B. (2014). Repoliticising Depoliticisation: Theoretical Preliminaries on Some Responses to the American Fiscal and Eurozone Debt Crises. Policy & Politics, 42(2), 207–223.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Karakayali, S., & Yaka, O. (2014). The Spirit of Gezi: The Recomposition of Political Subjectivities in Turkey. New Formations, 83(83), 117–138.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kaya, Y. (2011). ‘Turkey’s Turn to the East’ and the Intra-Class Contradictions in Turkey. Global Discourse, 2(2), 81–95. Available at: http://globaldiscourse.com/contents.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kettell, S. (2004). The Political Economy of Exchange Rate Policy-Making: From the Gold Standard to the Euro. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kettell, S. (2008). Does Depoliticisation Work? Evidence from Britain’s Membership of the Exchange Rate Mechanism, 1990–1992. British Journal of Politics & International Relations, 10(4), 630–648.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Koc, Y. (2010). Turkiye İşci Sınıfı Tarihi: Osmanlı’dan 2010’a [History of the Turkish Working Class: From the Ottoman Era to 2010]. Ankara: Epos Yayınları.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kose, B. (2014, January 7). The Culmination of Resistance Against Urban Neoliberalism. ROAR Symposium, Reflections on the Gezi Uprising, Reflections on a Revolution. Available at: https://roarmag.org/essays/resistance-urban-neoliberalism-turkey/. Accessed 20 January 2017.

  • Mardin, S. (1973). Centre-Periphery Relations: A Key to Turkish Politics? Daedalus, 102, 169–190.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marx, K. (1990). Capital: A Critique of Political Economy (Vol. 1). Harmondsworth: Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Muftah. (2014). An Interactive Timeline of Turkish Dissent: One Year Since Gezi. Jay Cassano. Available at: http://muftah.org/interactive-timeline-turkish-dissent-one-year-since-gezi/#.WIUdVX3rl_k. Accessed 22 January 2017.

  • Oğuz, Ş. (2011). Krizi Fırsata Dönüştürmek: Türkiye’de Devletin 2008 Krizine Yönelik Tepkileri. Amme İdaresi, 44(1), 1–23.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oncu, A. (2003). Dictatorship Plus Hegemony: A Gramscian Analysis of the Turkish State. Science and Society, 67(3), 303–328.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Onis, Z., & Guven, A. B. (2011). Global Crisis, National Responses: The Political Economy of Turkish Exceptionalism. New Political Economy, 16(5), 585–608.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ozden, B. A., Bekmen, A., & Akca, I. (2018). Passive Revolution: Beyond a Politicist Approach. Development and Change, 49(1), 238–253.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Parliamentary Deliberations, 1996–2001, October–December 2008, January 2009. Available at: https://www.tbmm.gov.tr/tutanak/tutanaklar.htm.

  • Patton, M. J. (2007). AKP Reform Fatigue in Turkey: What Has Happened to the EU Process? Mediterrenean Politics, 12(3), 339–358.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Prime Ministry Press Centre. (2003, May 29). Prime Minister’s Speech. Available at: http://www.bbm.gov.tr/forms/p_main.aspx.

  • Prime Ministry Press Centre. (2009, June 4). Prime Minister’s Speech. Available at: http://www.bbm.gov.tr/forms/p_main.aspx.

  • Rajaram, P. K. (2016). Europe’s Hungarian solution. Radical Philosophy, 197, 2–7.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rioux, S. (2015). Embodied Contradictions: Capitalism, Social Reproduction and Body Formation. Women’s Studies International Forum, 48, 194–202.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Saracoglu, C., & Demirkol, O. (2015). Nationalism and Foreign Policy Discourse in Turkey Under the AKP Rule: Geography, History and National Identity. British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 42(3), 301–319.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Senses, N., & Ozcan, K. (2016). Countering Hegemony Through a Park: Gezi Protests in Turkey’s Migrant Neighbourhoods. In O. G. Agustin & M. B. Jorgensen (Eds.), Solidarity Without Borders: Gramscian Perspectives on Migration and Civil Society. London: Pluto Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Standring, A. (2018). Depoliticising Austerity: Narratives of the Portuguese Debt Crisis, 2011–2015. Policy and Politics, 46(1), 149–164.

    Google Scholar 

  • Strauss, K. (2013). Unfree Again: Social Reproduction, Flexible Labour Markets and the Resurgence of Gang Labour in the UK. Antipode, 45(1), 180–197.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tekdemir, Ö. (2015). Agonistic Imagination of Podemos in Andalusia and HDP in Anatolia: The Radical Citizenship Project for the European and the Middle-Eastern Demos (Vol. 4, Issue 7, pp. 6–18). Centre for Policy and Research on Turkey, London, Research Turkey.

    Google Scholar 

  • The Economist. (2005). Various Issues, January–September; 22 January, 43; 19 March, 14; 22 June, 16; 17 September, 72.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thompson, E. P. (1966). The Making of the English Working Class. New York: Vintage Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tugal, C. (2009). Passive Revolution: Absorbing the Islamic Challenge to Capitalism. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tugal, C. (2013). ‘Resistance Everywhere’: The Gezi Revolt in Global Perspective. New Perspectives on Turkey, 49, 147–162.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tugal, C. (2016, July 18). Turkey Coup Aftermath: Between Neo-Fascism and Bonapartism. Open Democracy. Available at: https://www.opendemocracy.net/cihan-tugal/turkey-coup-aftermath-between-neo-fascism-and-bonapartism. Accessed 20 July 2016.

  • Turkish Medical Association (TTB). (2013, September). Report on the Assessment of Health Problems in Persons Exposed to Chemical Riot Control Agents, Ankara.

    Google Scholar 

  • Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK). Foreign Trade Statistics Data. Available at: http://www.tuik.gov.tr/VeriBilgi.do?tb_id=12&ust_id=4. Accessed 22 June 2010 and August 2011.

  • Turkmen, B. (2015, July 1). From Gezi Park to Turkey’s Transformed Political Landscape. Open Democracy. Available at: https://www.opendemocracy.net/buket-t%C3%BCrkmen/from-gezi-park-to-turkey%E2%80%99s-transformed-political-landscape. Accessed 22 January 2017.

  • Whiting, M., & Kaya, Z. N. (2016, February 25). Floating or Sinking? The State of Democracy in Turkey and the Rise of the HDP. Open Democracy.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yaka, O. (2015). Hegemony in the Making: TÜSİAD’s Hegemonic Role in the Context of Turkey’s EU Membership Process. Spectrum: Journal of Global Studies, 7(1), 91–114.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yalman, G. (2002). State and Bourgeoisie in Historical Perspective: A Relativist Paradigm or a Panoply of Hegemonic Strategies? In N. Balkan & S. Savran (Eds.), The Politics of Permanent Crisis: Class, State and Ideology in Turkey. New York: Nova Science.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yalman, G. (2004). Responding to Financial Crisis With or Without IMF: A Comparative Analysis of State-Capital Relations. IDEAS, Featured Articles. Available at: http://www.networkideas.org/featart/sep2004/fa06_Capital_Relations.htm.

  • Yalman, G. L. (2006, December 8–10). State and Capital in the Context of Globalisation-Cum-Europeanisation: Reflections on the Turkish Case. Paper Presented at Historical Materialism Conference 2006: “New Directions in Marxist Theory”, SOAS and Birkbeck College, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yoruk, E. (2014). The Long Summer of Turkey: The Gezi Uprising and Its Historical Roots. The South Atlantic Quarterly, 113(2), 419–426.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yoruk, E., & Yuksel, M. (2014). Class and Politics in Turkey’s Gezi Protests. New Left Review, 89, 103–123.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wood, E. M. (1981). The Separation of the Economic and the Political in Capitalism. New Left Review, I(127), 66–95.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wood, E. M. (1995). Democracy Against Capitalism. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Wood, M. (2015, December 11). Politicisation, Depoliticisation and Anti-politics: Towards a Multilevel Research Agenda. Political Studies Review. https://doi.org/10.1111/1478-9302.12074.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wood, M., & Flinders, M. (2014). Rethinking Depoliticisation: Beyond the Governmental. Policy & Politics, 42(2), 151–170.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Central European University, Budapest, Hungary

    Pınar E. Dönmez

Authors
  1. Pınar E. Dönmez
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Pınar E. Dönmez .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of York, York, United Kingdom

    Jim Buller

  2. Central European University, Budapest, Hungary

    Pınar E. Dönmez

  3. Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal

    Adam Standring

  4. University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom

    Matthew Wood

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Dönmez, P.E. (2019). Politicisation as Governing Strategy Versus Resistance: Demystifying Capitalist Social Relations and the State in Turkey. In: Buller, J., Dönmez, P., Standring, A., Wood, M. (eds) Comparing Strategies of (De)Politicisation in Europe . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64236-9_7

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation