In my last post in this series, I discussed Turkey of the 1970s, starting with the 1971 Coup by Memorandum. Now I will move onto the Turkey of the 1980s, starting with the 12th September Coup in 1980, its impact and the foundations of civilian politics after the military left government. The coup was in … Continue reading Ottomanism, Nationalism, Republicanism X
After a break dealing with proofs and indexes of two forthcoming books, a process that overlapped with getting a new university semester started, I can return to this series, which I last added to here. I set the scene of the late 1960s in Turkey, so I will turn to the next big upheaval, the … Continue reading Ottomanism, Nationalism, Republicanism IX
Continuing from Ottomanism, Nationalism, Republicanism VII. The Democrat Party returned to power under the name of Justice Party (a name possibly referring to ‘justice’ for Adnan Menderes, who was certainly executed as the result of a very politicised trial, but was no genuine martyr of democracy) in 1965. This hint at an enduring idealisation of … Continue reading Ottomanism, Nationalism, Republicanism VIII
Now this series moves onto the first government that resulted from a peaceful electoral transfer of power in Turkish and Ottoman history, the government of Adnan Menderes and the Democrat Party (DP), which came to power in 1950. The DP was more open to religious conservative sentiment and more free market oriented, though that has … Continue reading Ottomanism, Nationalism, Republicanism VII
In the last post, I gave some historical background on how the Ottoman state, whether in reformist or repressive mode (or some combination of the two), was on a road, at least from the early nineteenth century, that was very likely to end in a nation-state for the Turks of Anatolia and the Balkan region … Continue reading Ottomanism, Nationalism, Republicanism II
My last post established the party structure in Turkey. The flow of events since the attempted coup of fifteenth July and the emergency regime instituted on twentieth July is that of a government assault on opposition. Democracy as liberal democracy continues to give way to illiberal majoritarianism. Liberal democracy has never existed in its purest … Continue reading Coup and Counter Coup III (Gülenists and Kemalists)
On July 15th 2016, a group of army officers up to at least the Brigadier General (one star general) level attempted to seize control of the Turkish state. On the morning of the 20th it was evident that the coup had collapsed though the government, along with its allies in the media, social media, think … Continue reading Coup and Counter Coup in Turkey (first of a series of posts on Turkey since 15th July 2016 and background topics)
Notes On Liberty 