Making Sense of (Anti) Politics In and Out of Crisis in Turkey: A Critical Intervention

CPS Visiting Research Fellow Pinar Donmez has just published a paper on the site of Centre for Policy and Research on Turkey (Research Turkey).

Abstract

This article discusses the recent developments within Turkish politics through a critical understanding of depoliticisation and (re-)politicization processes. In doing so the crisis-ridden capitalist social relations and their different forms of appearance are treated as the starting point of analysis. It problematises the intrinsic yet often disguised class character and capital logic behind the policy prescriptions in favour of further depoliticisation. It aims to equally highlight the gradual entrenchment of government-led politicisation and emergence of diverse forms of expression of societal discontent thanks to the expansion of the political terrain through prior government-led politicisation efforts and the politicising pressures arising out of the crisis. The nature of the interrelationship between the processes of depoliticisation in one policymaking area and politicisation in others at governmental and societal level has not yet been fully acknowledged or scrutinized, as the various literatures engaging with these phenomena have not been in communication with each other. This commentary aims to point out the scholarly as well as political importance of such a dialogue drawing on the case of Turkey. In this light it emphasises that the emerging and deepening authoritarianism of AKP government, which is now widely acknowledged across Turkey and beyond, finds its roots in the very permeation of capitalist social relations across the whole of society since the early 2000s that continually deepens the societal conflict, as initially observed with the June uprising in 2013, and evolving into diverse forms ever since.

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