Erdogan’s ‘New’ Turkey Attempted Coup d’état and the Acceleration of Political Crisis

Demonstrating how Turkey’s politics have developed, this book focuses on the causes and consequences of the failed coup d'état of 15 July 2016. The momentous event and its aftermath challenges us to ask if the coup was the cause of Turkey’s present crisis, or simply an accelerant of trends already in motion, and thus a catalyst for the realization of Erdogan’s latent authoritarian impulses. Bringing together approaches from politics, sociology, history and anthropology, the chapters shed much-needed light on these crucial questions. They offer scholars and nonspecialists alike a comprehensive overview of the implications of the coup attempt and its aftermath on the issues of religion, democracy, the Kurds, the state, resistance and more besides. Its effects have been felt in almost every aspect of Turkish society from religion to politics, yet it came at a time when Turkey was already experiencing significant social and political turmoil under the increasingly authoritarian leadership of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Readers interested in contemporary politics, Turkish and Middle Eastern studies will find the volume useful, as they ponder other cases in this era of democratic retrenchment and global turmoil.

Introduction: Accelerating Political Crisis in Erdogan’s Turkey Nikos Christofis Part I Politics, Transformation and State (Re)Formation The Brutalisation of Turkey Hamit Bozarslan The AKP Rule and the Directorate of Religious Affairs Mustafa Sen On the Watch: Civil–Military Relations and Affective Politics in Turkey after the Failed 15 July 2016 Coup Attempt Sertaç Kaya Sen Becoming an Autocracy Under (Un)Democratic Circumstances: Regime Change Under AKP Rule Rosa Burç and Mahir Tokatli The Enduring Politics of State Capture in Turkey: Situating the AKP–Gülen Concordat in Historical Perspective Simon P. Watmough The Transformation of Citizenship Before and After the 15 July Coup Attempt: The Case of Civil Martyrdom Pinar Melis Yelsali Parmaksiz Part II Democracy, Solidarity and Hegemonic Politics Making sense: Uncertainties, Anxieties and the affective politics of Denial in post-coup attempt Turkey 15 July 2016 Aimilia Voulvouli Crisis of Hegemony, but no Counter-Hegemonic Project: Understanding the failed 15 July coup in Turkey Axel Gehring The Poverty of State Theory: How Marxists in Turkey Read the 15 July Coup Attempt Özgür Mutlu Ulus International Solidarity Perplexed: From the certainties of Gezi Park to post-coup complexities Leonidas Karakatsanis Conquering the State, Subordinating Society: A Kurdish perspective on the development of AKP authoritarianism in Turkey Joost Jongerden

Nikos Christofis is an associate professor in the Center for Turkish Studies and in the School of History and Civilization at Shaanxi Normal University, Xi’an, China. His work focuses on comparative historical analysis of Greece, Turkey and Cyprus. He has published extensively in Greek, English, Turkish, Chinese and Spanish. He is the author of Turkey in the Long Sixties: Left Politics and the Radicalization of the Student Movement (2020, in Greek); co-editor of Cypriots Nationalism in Context: History, Identity and Politics (2018), and editor of War and Resistance in Thessaly: Aspects of its History during the 1940s (2017) and Cyprus, the Left and Colonialism (2020) (both in Greek).