This paper seeks to assess the feasibility of utilizing Bitcoin as a currency within Türkiye. To achieve this, the research analyzes long-term cointegration relationships between Bitcoin and both the US Dollar and Euro, employing monthly data from November 2017 to February 2025 and utilizing the Fourier Shin cointegration test. The results of the cointegration tests, bolstered by Fourier series analysis, reveal significant long-term cointegration relationships between Bitcoin and both the USD and Euro. The DOLS analysis indicates that a 1% rise in Bitcoin leads to a 14% decrease in the USD price and a 17% increase in the Euro. These results imply that Bitcoin exhibits a high sensitivity to ex-change rates, positioning it as a speculative investment in the short term. The pronounced inverse correlation between the US Dollar and Bitcoin raises the possibility of Bitcoin serving as a substitute for the US Dollar.
This article explores how Thai men construct and perform masculine identities through cryptocurrency trading, using the concept of crypto-masculinity to examine how digital finance becomes a site for gendered self-making. While existing scholarship on masculinity in financial contexts often centers on transnational business masculinities in Western corporate settings, little attention has been paid to how masculinity is enacted in decentralized, digital financial spaces, particularly in non-Western contexts. Addressing this gap, this article draws upon in-depth interviews with 21 male traders in Thailand to analyze how masculinity is shaped by the internal instability of masculinity and local cultural norms. This study identifies three key themes through which Thai men's subjectivity is negotiated: valorizing failure, homosociality, and ‘becoming a good Thai man.’ As a result, this article challenges assumptions about the naturalized links between men and finance, suggesting the need for further research on how exclusions within digital finances are taking place to better support equality on crypto platforms.
Bu çalışmada, kripto para piyasasında en yüksek işlem hacmine sahip varlıklar arasında yer alan Bitcoin, Ethereum ve Binance Coin’in günlük kapanış fiyatları incelenmiştir. Çalışmada ele alınan kripto para getirilerinin uzun hafıza özelliği gösterip göstermediğinin belirlenmesi ve uygun model tahmininin yapılması amaçlanmıştır. Getiri serilerinin uzun hafıza özelliğinin tespit edilmesi için literatürde sıklıkla ele alınan Hurst katsayısı, Geweke ve Porter-Hudak testi ve Yerel Whittle Tahmincisi kullanılmıştır. Ayrıca uzun hafızanın tespitine yönelik klasik testlerin yanı sıra, çok değişkenli yerel Whittle Skor tipi test ve Qu (2011) tarafından önerilen uzun hafıza testleri de yapılmıştır. Elde edilen bulgulara göre üç kripto para biriminin de uzun hafıza özelliği gösterdiği tespit edilmiştir. Ardından uzun hafızanın varlığı dikkate alınarak getiri ve koşullu varyansın modellenmesi için Otoregresif Kesirli Bütünleşik Hareketli Ortalama (ARFIMA) ve Kesirli Bütünleşik Genelleştirilmiş Otoregresif Koşullu Değişen Varyans (FIGARCH) modelleri tahmin edilmiştir. Tahmin edilen FIGARCH modellerinde kesirli fark parametresi 0
Kamilla Nazirkhanova, Vrushank Gunjur, X. Pilli Cruz-De Jesus, Dan Boneh
Ensuring the privacy of votes in an election is crucial for the integrity of a democratic process. Often, voting power is delegated to representatives (e.g., in congress) who subsequently vote on behalf of voters on specific issues. This delegation model is also widely used in Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs). Although several existing voting systems used in DAOs support private voting, they only offer public delegation. In this paper, we introduce Kite, a new protocol that enables $\textit{private}$ delegation of voting power for DAO members. Voters can freely delegate, revoke, and re-delegate their power without revealing any information about who they delegated to. Even the delegate does not learn who delegated to them. The only information that is recorded publicly is that the voter delegated or re-delegated their vote to someone. Kite accommodates both public and private voting for the delegates themselves. We analyze the security of our protocol within the Universal Composability (UC) framework. We implement Kite as an extension to the existing Governor Bravo smart contract on the Ethereum blockchain, that is widely used for DAO governance. Furthermore, we provide an evaluation of our implementation that demonstrates the practicality of the protocol. The most expensive operation is delegation due to the required zero-knowledge proofs. On a consumer-grade laptop, delegation takes between 7 and 167 seconds depending on the requested level of privacy.
Emerging market governments increasingly prioritize the defense of monetary sovereignty over the liberalization of financial innovation, particularly under conditions of macroeconomic fragility, high inflation, and geopolitical uncertainty. This study analyzes Türkiye's post-COVID financial landscape as a critical case through which to examine state strategies aimed at resisting the systemic adoption of cryptocurrencies. Despite escalating grassroots demand for digital assets-driven by Lira depreciation, inflationary pressures, and declining institutional trust-the Turkish government has leveraged a combination of regulatory, monetary, and legal instruments to preserve the Lira's role as the exclusive legal tender. Utilizing theories of monetary sovereignty and financial statecraft, alongside recent literature on crypto regulation in emerging markets and empirical insights from IMF and BIS analyses on FX interventions, this paper formulates a structured set of research questions and hypotheses to interrogate the relationship between cryptocurrency adoption, FX volatility, and institutional resistance. Methodologically, the study employs ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions with Newey-West corrections, lagged models, and event studies centered on Türkiye’s key regulatory milestones (2021–2024) to capture causal dynamics and policy feedback loops. Findings demonstrate a robust correlation between increased BTC/TRY volumes and TRY/USD volatility, underscoring the self-reinforcing nature of speculative feedback loops in fragile monetary environments. The evidence shows that heightened crypto adoption amplifies FX volatility through TRY Volatility Feedback Effects (TFF), particularly during geopolitical crises such as the June 2025 Middle East conflict, where BTC’s decline and USD’s appreciation reaffirmed the persistence of traditional safe-haven behaviors. Türkiye’s institutional response intensified proportionally through bans on crypto payments, licensing regimes, enhanced FX market interventions, and rhetorical strategies aimed at reaffirming sovereign monetary control. Although cryptocurrencies function as informal hedging mechanisms for households, this study confirms they cannot sustainably displace fiat currencies where sovereign defenses remain actively enforced. Instead, they exacerbate volatility, prompting reactive state interventions. This research contributes to broader debates on financial sovereignty in emerging markets by offering Türkiye as a paradigmatic example of how states leverage legal, monetary, and infrastructural tools to constrain decentralized finance amid persistent macroeconomic vulnerabilities. Moreover, the study introduces ValueMesh™, a novel sovereign-aligned alternative developed within Türkiye’s emerging financial ecosystem through the DevPay Türkiye platform. ValueMesh bridges the gap between public demand for high-yield, participatory finance and state imperatives of monetary sovereignty by offering regulated, project-specific micro-equity participation without reliance on blockchain-based assets. This innovation demonstrates that the psychological appeal of crypto speculation can be redirected into legally sanctioned, productive, and sovereign-controlled fintech architectures. Ultimately, Türkiye’s experience illustrates that the future of financial innovation in fragile economies lies not in decentralized disruption but in carefully engineered, state-backed digital ecosystems that integrate speculative incentives within sovereign frameworks. This positions Türkiye’s post-COVID monetary strategy as a critical reference point for policymakers, scholars, and industry leaders examining the evolving interplay between financial sovereignty, decentralized finance, and geopolitical risk.
By drawing on 18-month ethnographic fieldwork conducted among people who participate in state-regulated games of chance in Istanbul, during the recent Turkish economic crisis in 2021–2022, and engaging with scholarly work on the anthropology of Turkey, economic anthropology and local media and grey resources, this article illustrates the rise of cryptocurrency trading in Turkey. This article shows how my participants situated the cryptocurrency trading within their own techniques to ameliorate financial volatility and to compensate their mistrust in governmental financial institutions during times of economic turbulence. Cryptocurrency trading was viewed as an investment technique that assists in accumulating savings for ensuring the future amid fluctuating national currency and polarized political realities. Meanwhile, cryptocurrency trading was also identified as a game of chance that swings between hinging on luck or skill, and the research participants debated if cryptocurrency trading is permissible in Islam (Halal) or forbidden. Therefore, this article suggests that cryptocurrency trading, although on the rise, is still a contested topic in which the boundaries between perceptions and practices of investing and gambling are blurred within the Turkish context. The controversy of the cryptocurrency trading emerges from the polarized public attitudes and the dissonance between traditional ideals, that condemn easy money and emphasize the value of hard work, in contrast to the neoliberal realities of capitalistic modes of accumulation that encourages speculation over production.
This thesis challenges the conventional view of Muḥammad ʿAbduh’s reform ideas in broad and binary terms as bridging a gap between ‘Islam and Europe’ or ‘tradition and modernity’. I offer instead an analysis of ʿAbduh’s reformist thought in his own words and local practical context in 19th century Egypt, based on a close-reading of his newspaper articles. I argue that ʿAbduh’s reform project, in terms of what was at stake in his job as Director of Publications for the Egyptian state from 1880-1882, is best understood as a bureaucratic publishing project or politics of adab that bridged journalism and the modern state, the Arabic Nahḍa and the Ottoman modernizing reforms known as the tanẓīmāt. He was pioneering journalism as a form of moral education (adab) to mobilize the souls of the reading public in what he conceptualized as a new biopolitical phase of state reform – reform and accountability to law that would operate bottom up from the people. His journalistic pedagogy worked by addressing readers with a polemic about a superficial nationhood and empty modernity that lacked both substance in the people’s souls and visible proof in ‘society’. Locating this project in Egypt’s emerging capitalist economy, I argue that his journalism particularly targeted Egypt’s cotton-enriched landed elite for failing to uphold rule of law and to distribute the benefits of modernization. ʿAbduh’s reform thus becomes a window into a wider dynamic of power taking shape between journalism, bureaucracy and law – itself crucial to understanding a pivotal moment in Egypt’s modern history, known for being the time of the so-called ʿUrābī Revolution.
Open access
Islamic Studies and History
Politics and Conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Middle East
The nation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), on southeastern Europe’s Balkan Peninsula, is a unique product of international peace building based on a consociational model of ethnic power sharing. Organized around protection of “vital interests” of its constituent ethnic communities, the BiH state is radically decentralized. In forest administration, national government is practically nonexistent; multiple substate entities including cantons and municipalities operate as autonomous, self-governing units. This paper finds that the politics of accommodation, ironically couched in the language of rights, creates conditions of illiberal dissociation which block consensual natural resource governance. Conservation policies which require political compromise, thus, face a challenge in BiH’s illiberal consociation. Through policy analysis and interviews with representatives of key organizations affected by the 2008 Law on Una National Park, this study finds that when policies are implemented at levels of expected cooperation, the resultant needs are to reconcile rifts of interpretation and coordinate competencies vertically among dissociative bureaucracies.
The Gülen Movement's growing power and influence, followed by its public criticism of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government in 2010 and 2013, and finally the coup attempt in July 2016, has led to an unprecedented crackdown on the Gülen Movement in Turkey. The purge has ousted thousands of employees from major state and civil society institutions, including military, judiciary, and education institutions, as well as the mass media. The rise and fall of the Gülen Movement has been one of the defining issues in Turkish politics in the twenty-first century.The turmoil following the gradual dissolution of the Ottoman Empire during the late nineteenth century led to the sharp rise of Turkish nationalism. During this period, the Young Turks (Jöntürkler) attempted to define the “nation” and what it meant to be “Turkish.” Following international and domestic chaos that precipitated the fall of the Ottoman Empire during the Balkans Wars and the Great War, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk established the Turkish Republic and transformed the remnants of the Ottoman Empire into a modern, secular nation-state. The state abolished the caliphate, controlled the appointments of imams, rescinded religious courts and schools, and created new laws that further limited the power of religion in Turkish public life. These political and cultural reforms were intended to transform civic culture by strengthening loyalty to the new Turkish Republic. Nevertheless, winning popular acceptance for this new secular nationalism was an uneven and complex process that was not fully embraced by all sectors of Turkish society.Accordingly, leading religious intellectuals such as Bediuzzaman Said Nursî sought to challenge the new nationalist ideology or Kemalism, which was influenced by the work of Ziya Gölkalp, who strongly suggested suppressing any connections to the former Ottoman regime. Nursî believed that reinforcing Islam would establish a balance with secularism in all areas of Turkish society, particularly in education and intercultural dialogue. When the Turkish political system moved from a one-party authoritarian regime to a multiparty system in the middle of the twentieth century, discussions of Islam that had long laid dormant began to emerge, and the scale of this divide between Kemalist secularists and religious Turks became clear. Beginning in the 1960s, these cultural and religious tensions during a period of economic turmoil gradually prompted civil violence and led the military to intervene in government affairs. It was only with the 1980 coup d'état, and the sweeping reforms that were initiated following the deaths of thousands, that the Turkish-Islam Synthesis (Türk-İslam Sentezi) was introduced. This was an attempt to establish a political balance between Kemalism and Sunni Islam (Hanafi). Political parties—like the Welfare Party (Refah Partisi) and the Virtue Party (Fazilet Partisi)—were shut down in 1998 and 2001, respectively, leading to a cycle of socio-political tension. It was in this atmosphere that the AKP emerged.The AKP's initial success was due to support from influential religious and social institutions, like the peculiar and autonomous Gülen Movement. Strengthened by this significant and influential alliance during the first decade of the twenty-first century—particularly with leading figures in the judiciary loyal to the Islamic movement's leader, Fethullah Gülen—tensions surfaced between the ruling AKP and Gülen. Namely, after Gülen criticized the government for its anti-Israel rhetoric following the May 2010 Mavi Marmara flotilla crisis in Gaza and additionally for its use of excessive force during Gezi Park Protests in May 2013. The political alliance was ruptured when notable AKP figures were arrested or questioned for corruption, money laundering, and bribery charges, in what became one of the largest and most controversial legal cases in Turkey, leading Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to brand the Gülen Movement a “parallel structure” (Paralel Devlet Yapılanması) or a state-like organization without democratic legitimacy. It is important to distinguish between the enigmatic figure of Fethullah Gülen, who leads an ascetic lifestyle in the remote Pennsylvania countryside of the United States, and his persona as a contemplative Sufi cleric who vis-à-vis the movement holds identifiable wealth and influence in Turkey and across the globe. Turkey's political polarization and the AK Party's use of pro-government discourses has served as a platform to promote an authoritarian legitimacy, thus deepening the confusion.Caroline Tee's The Gülen Movement in Turkey: The Politics of Islam and Modernity is an essential introduction to the topic that addresses the Gülen Movement's intentions, networks, and its broad influence in Turkish society. The book begins with Fethullah Gülen and the influence of Islamic theologian Bediuzzaman Said Nursî—particularly, the effect his seminal work Risale-i Nur—on Gülen's own spiritual framework. Raised in Erzurum, which is located in socially and religiously conservative Eastern Anatolia, Gülen gained his traditional religious education at a Sufi tekke (lodge), which were the religious institutions of both the Naqshbandi and Qadiri Sufi Orders. He continued his formal education in Islamic jurisprudence and by the age of eighteen became a state-qualified Imam. Several years later, Gülen was posted to the center of Izmir as the director of the Qur'anic school in Kestanepazan Mosque. Although he desired to move to a more conservative environment, and away from the liberal atmosphere of the western provinces of Turkey, he remained in Izmir and developed his vision of spiritual reform with the intent of reinvigorating Islam and bringing it to a wider audience. He gained a small following both at the mosque and through regular meetings at coffee houses, creating the Hizmet or “service” movement during the rigid secular posture of the state in the 1960s.The movement began to grow when his vision for an altın nesil, or “golden generation,” was implemented through organized summer camps that aimed to educate the next generation of Turks in both Islam and the modern sciences. This illustrates the influence of Said Nursî, who also envisioned the revitalization of Turkish religious culture, which had been vastly transformed by modern secularism, calling for positive action (müspet hareket) from pious individuals to engage in all areas of the public sphere. Said Nursî emphasized the importance of education in both Islam and the sciences, directly influencing Gülen's pedagogy. Nursî's attempt to change the impression that religion is inimical to science. Eventually, the summer camps became after-school centers (dershane) that gradually began to expand into other cities across Turkey, despite the growing social and political tensions between leftists and right-wing factions during the 1970s.A complete overhaul of the constitution following the 1980 military coup d'état ushered in a period of economic liberalization led by Turgut Özal. And the new Turkish-Islam synthesis (Türk-İslam Sentezi) that emerged removed some of the restrictions on religious life in Turkey. Tee explains how the Gülenists began investing in business and media interests and taking advantage of new international opportunities, particularly in Central Asia, which provided the movement with fertile ground for geographic expansion.The second part of the book contains the core of Caroline Tee's research into Gülen Movement's membership and its approach to scientific education. Tee uses anthropological fieldwork to explain how Gülen's Islamic creationist movement teaches science within an Islamic framework. Tee describes her experiences with the Gülenist educational system, which is characterized by strong academic achievement. Gülenist schools are preferred by conservative religious families for their moral and religious commitment and secular curriculum. Nevertheless, Gülenist schools are not explicitly linked to Gülen and are not promoted as such; instead the connection to Gülen is a matter of local knowledge illustrating the decentralized and low-key nature of the Gülen Movement. Tee notes, “Both he and his followers prefer to speak of a loose connection of initiatives that are all ‘inspired’ by his teachings, but do not constitute a single coordinated entity” (57). Any organized efforts to coordinate initiatives are usually through local affiliations between several schools in a given region or city, while well known and prestigious schools established by Gülen followers, such as Yamanlar Koleji in Izmir and Fatih Okulu in Istanbul, have franchised a number of schools directly.One intriguing element of the Gülen network that Tee brings to light is the concept of “service” (hizmet) in Gülen-run institutions, such as assigning a chemistry teacher, Irem, “against her personal wishes,” to a particular school far away from her home in northwest Turkey (54). Referred to as fedakarlik or self-sacrifice, they consider themselves as educators rather than mere teachers, thus functioning as a representative or role model to guide or inspire the ethical and personal education of the students. Such dedication lacks financial reward but is motivated by a spiritual eschatology and the belief in sevap (good deeds) that will be rewarded on Judgement Day. This clearly suggests a formal membership structure within the movement that transcends mere professional networking. Tee conducted her fieldwork in two Gülen schools in order to ascertain how science is taught within a secular curriculum yet framed by Islamic theology and the philosophy of Said-Nursî. Tee also exposes the considerable influence of religious ontology in science classes at the Gülen schools. For example, an educator in a middle-school science class, who was teaching students about a skin disease, claimed that the disease was given to a person as part of a divine test (sinav) and that the students should give thanks for not having such a skin disease. While remaining within the required boundaries of scientific education, the staff attached an Islamic ethic to the content, educating students through religious inferences in an attempt to establish coherence between science and religion.Tee discusses Islamic creationism as an essential belief within the Gülenist framework (Chapter 4), the Gülen Movement's argument being that science has become secularized, particularly through the theory of biological evolution that has created an unnecessary rift between science and an Islamic education. Gülen has written about evolution in his book Yaratılış Gerçeği ve Evrim, among other sources, and not only rejects the theory of evolution but views it as an attempt to justify atheistic materialism. Tee shows that Mustafa Kemal Atatürk advocated for evolutionary biology and the secular policies of his time, enforcing the addition of evolution in the school curriculum at the founding of the Turkish Republic. Said Nursî opposed this change, which radically changed the fabric of Turkish society through what Nursî saw as the coercive disassociation with Islamic values. Accordingly, Gülen opposes the inclusion of evolutionary theory in the curriculum, and an antievolutionary agenda has allowed the movement to reconcile modern science with Islam and harmonize what were once two mutually exclusive categories.Overall, the Gülenist target is to combat atheism through education. The Gülenists' belief that failing to adapt to the social requirements of modernity by refusing a scientific education favors Darwinian adherents; thus Gülenists battle atheism by teaching science through an Islamic lens. Tee explains that from the outset the movement has prioritized spreading Islamic values through local recruiting and international networking, particularly engaging students in Gülenist schools in foreign countries. The schools provide scholarships, educational and employment opportunities, and other opportunities for self-improvement. This emphasis on competitive achievement is one reason why Gülenist schools emphasize participating in the Science Olympiads, a prestigious international competition that provides students with the opportunity to compete for financial rewards, as well as improving their chances of getting admitted to prestigious universities. These competitions also play a vital role in changing the status quo, by allowing “Islamic actors to engage successfully with a critical aspect of modernity” (77). Higher education institutions, such as Irfan University—which is economically supported by a group of investors sympathetic to the movement, hosting a number of high-achieving students and staffed by academics with strong credentials and research excellence. Higher education offers the movement a way to increase its global influence.The exact number of Gülen-run educational institutions remains unknown as they do not “publically affiliate with one another” (55) nor do they identify with Gülen or even share a common name or logo as institutions often do. Tee tackles—albeit briefly—some important questions that lie at the heart of the movement's ambiguous status. For example, is there an Islamist agenda at the core of its endeavors? Skeptics label the movement a cemaat (religious community), implying its interests do not lie solely in the principle of positive action in civil society, which is what the movement emphasizes. These concerns have been exacerbated by Gülen's public sermons reminding his followers to be responsive to the dangers of materialism. However, the movement's economic interests allow it to continue to project its influence and demonstrate the strength of Islam by building international institutions of higher education. In a similar vein, staff members working at Gülen-run institutions straddle an ambiguous personal and professional line, where spiritual goals are integrated into their curricula. While this educational homogeneity strengthens the quality of teaching and increases overall academic achievement, its lack of clarity has led to several legal cases against Gülenist schools in the United States, for mismanagement of funds and failing to clearly outline their affiliation with the Gülen Movement. Other contradictions include Gülen's statements that he supports secularism and seeks only to change the nature of Turkish secularism, which actively opposes Islam. Yet in other statements, either directly or indirectly, Gülen encourages the complete collapse of Turkish secularism and its replacement with an Islamic state.Caroline Tee focuses much of her work on the structure of the organization and its ambiguous position in Turkish political, judicial, and civil society. She argues that while there is no official criteria for joining the movement, it consists of a multitiered level of commitment that includes not only the core followers, such as teachers at Gülen-led schools, but also those on the periphery of the movement, including sympathizers (onaylayanlar) and consumers. Consumers are those who use the movement's products and services, whether consciously or unconsciously, and play a vital role in strengthening the success of the movement. Tee's analysis slightly differs from Joshua Hendrick, author of Gülen: The Ambiguous Politics of Market Islam in Turkey and the World (NYU Press, 2013), who argues that the movement consists of four—rather than three—groups of affiliates that engage with the movement. Hendrick divides the core group of Gülenists into two: the “aristocracy” who are surrounded by “friends.” The third part of Tee's book, “The Wider Context” (Chapters 6–8), provides an overview of the Gülen Movement's place in Turkish politics, vis-à-vis their impaired relationship with the AK Party, as well as its global status, particularly with respect to the United States.The Gülen Movement's intercultural dialogue initiative through The Journalists and Writers Foundation (Gazeteciler ve Yazarlar Vakfi), where Gülen himself serves as honorary chairman, promotes dialogue between Muslims and other religions and cultures. The Gülen Movement's emphasis on intercultural dialogue stems from Said Nursî, who also promoted interfaith communication. The movement attempts to find common ground between the major religions of the “People of the Book” (Christianity, Islam, and Judaism) as a strategy for peaceful engagement and effective networking, promoting Islam as well as Turkey and the movement as a whole. Since 1999, Gülen has lived in Pennsylvania and is often referred to by Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as Pennsylvania'daki adam (the man from Pennsylvania). Gülen's move to the United States has been subject to allegations that he has a relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Indeed, it is interesting to note that a former CIA agent and senior staff member at the National Intelligence Council supported Gülen's for a Nevertheless, the move to the United States established the global of the movement and the that The movement has a in membership with and Turkish despite its It is not what led to Gülen's to to the United States, but his there has allowed the movement to on an international most of the the movement has or religiously instead engaging in that and which allowed the Gülen Movement and AKP to to the movement has not embraced political despite the that loyal Gülenists were the leading figures in the against senior AKP The led Erdoğan to on the movement, or loyal Gülenist and the movement was a to by to the Tee attempts to whether the Gülen Movement is an or more public with a of it is that the Gülenists' was to Erdoğan and a change in the Turkish the of the AKP had to Gülen from the United States to to the Gülen Movement as a organization or after Tee's book was that her research to explain the movement as an Islamic group of the of science and as part of her yet attempts to the political between the a approach in the of political Islam. The AKP and the Gülen movement were by their common Islamic in the school of Sunni Islam and the of the power of the military The collapse of the Welfare Party (Refah Partisi) in 1998 led by and the Virtue Party (Fazilet Partisi) in led to the of the AKP which the belief that Islamic would as long as a strong military continued to play a role in Turkish The AKP has to the given to the military through the and which the military as a that was intent on the These were only with support from senior and staff loyal to Gülen. figures were arrested and given life all of have been the rift began in late 2013, Gülen has any in the Nevertheless, Tee it that Gülen is of contradictions and and even his of an and nature as to his acceptance of intercultural a of the Gülen which other Islamic a strong emphasis on science education, Caroline Tee's book provides an of the into the political or social of the which be in other sources, explains the and of the about the sweeping against Gülen schools and the including and the public against the movement. She also provides a of the movement's schools by engaging with students and teachers at within these institutions in several cities Turkey. Tee's fieldwork is a vital to the on the Gülen it light on some of the of the movement and its global She also exposes some of the movement's such as the to public order and as part of even there are no formal or any clearly for membership However, positive with the of Islam into modern society, is a part of the Gülenist the of whether followers actively this agenda would have been a addition to Tee's This is what Joshua Hendrick has is the movement's which is due to the political and social in Indeed, as Tee Gülen Movement as an but one which has to significant power and The use of social as a framework to the and structure of the movement is a approach that to of the movement's social influence, which has become the for its success and
1. On 21 July 2013, the Democratic Union Party (PYD, Partiya Yekîtiya Demokrat) announced a new Kurdish Constitution of ninety-six articles based on a “social contract” proclaiming Kurdish Autonomous Regions composed of three cantons in a “decentralized federal” Syrian State. Its fundamental basis is the equality of groups and communities. The Rojava is “not a Kurdish State nor a Kurdish administration”, as observed by Evangelos Aretaios in The Rojava Revolution1 (hereinafter, Aretaios), but it is made up of all different ethnicities and religions that have a prominent role in the system of democracy. The people created institutions and organizations composing of obligatory equal quota of women and men of Kurds, Arabs, Christians, Yezidis, Armenians, and Chechens with the vision of a new different multi-ethnic, multi-religious democracy. The fight for survival is in the front lines but the “ultimate fight for democracy is behind the front lines” (Aretaios, 118). 2. Since the beginning of the Syrian uprising, people in Syrian Kurdistan have been fighting not only against Assad's regime forces but also other extremists. At the same time, they have been trying to establish a democratic government through the implementation of a model of hybrid political system; federalism and the “rejection of the nation-state structure” (ibid., 124). The denial of nation-state is a sign that the Kurds in Syria “don't want an independent State but an autonomy within a democratic Syria” (ibid., 104). This is a new regime in keeping with the principles advanced in modern international law and also was formed by the relevant people as a whole. The importance of the Rojava experiment is undeniable.
REFRACTIONS OF CIVIL SOCIETY IN TURKEY Daniella Kuzmanovic New York: Palgrave Macmi llan, 2012 (x iv + 211 pages, bibliography, index, i llustrations) $85.00 (cloth)In Refractions of Civil Society in Turkey, Daniella Kuzmanovic offers an ethnographic engagement with both the concept of and practices associated with civil society in contemporary Turkey. She situates her project within a broad literature on the rise of civil society organizations (CSOs) globally since the end of the Cold War, frequently referring to the anthropological work of John and Jean Comaroff. She also addresses a more particular field of ethnographic work in Turkey focusing on relations between citizens and the state and exemplified by the work of Yael Navaro-Yashin, Jenny White, and Esra Ozyurek. Adopting Navaro-Yashin's argument that the binary of state and civil society is more an abstraction than a clear analytical catego- rization, Kuzmanovic holds that ethnographic investigation should focus on the way civil society activists conceive of their work. To this end, she draws on the field of existential anthropology and particularly the work of Michael Jackson, which endeavors to show how practices such as activism contribute to the making of autonomous, agentic subjects (30). She returns to this theme throughout the book as she grapples with the overarching questions of what civil society is and how it functions in the Turkish milieu.Kuzmanovic performed approximately seventy interviews throughout 2005 and 2006 with a variety of interlocutors, including representatives of twenty-seven CSOs from across Turkey's sociopolitical spectrum. She also attended numerous seminars, worked with some of the organizations she studied, and collected publicity materials. Her analysis is supported with transcribed interviews, field-note excerpts, and occasional illustrations.Sincerity (samimiyet) is, for Kuzmanovic, the key term for under- standing how civil society is discussed in Turkey. Activists wish to appear sincere, while often questioning the of others. Kuzmanovic's task is to map the social territory of this clearly subjective and relational term and to assess the work it performs. The sociopolitical context plays a major role in how the of a CSO is perceived, and Kuzmanovic highlights three cleavages that characterize this context: (1) the secular/religious divide, (2) differences on how Turkey should integrate and interact with the outside world, and (3) the divide between leftists, on the one hand, and the often cooperating forces of right-wing nationalists and the Turkish state, on the other. Activists and the CSOs they work with are judged both by the public and by other CSOs in terms of their perceived position vis-a-vis these cleav- ages, with sincerity functioning as a kind of catch-all term that validates such judgments. These positions can sometimes literally be mapped within Turkey. CSOs in Ankara, for instance, are frequently perceived as more secu- larist and state-focused, while those in Istanbul are more likely to be seen as coming from a variety of political perspectives, including Islamist, and may have stronger ties to the international community. But can also be assessed with reference to a number of other factors. For the individual activist, life experiences such as having spent time in prison for a cause or having been excluded from school for wearing an Islamic headscarf can increase one's credibility, as can being a volunteer rather than a paid worker. Even the type of organization one works for often has implications, with some (usually conservative) activists seeing religious foundations (vakiflar) as particularly sincere, while networks (orgutler) are often associated with questionable activities, including terrorism, in part because the term orgut has come to function as shorthand for a decentralized organization with a revolutionary mindset, whether this is actually the case or not. …
In Turkey, important decentralization measures were taken after the 1980s. The new administrative model gave local governments the role of dealing with social exclusion while financing social welfare expenditures through entrepreneurial investment of their non-material resources. This study is an attempt to discuss how such a challenge for local governments has been resolved through the analysis of gendering impacts of three decentralization reform programs.
Abstract This article focuses on the state of Bulgaria. In a geographical area where continents, religions, and influences of power meet, Bulgaria has relied on the traditions of centralism and uniformity to reserve itself as a state. These traditions were first carved by the governing elite of the early Bulgarian state, and later reaffirmed by the nation when under territorial repartitions and foreign invasion. As a result, strong regional identities hardly ever existed in Bulgaria. Communism furthered centralized power and insisted that no minorities could be recognized. Even after communism was abolished, the traditions of constitutionalism and centralization continued. In 1991, a new constitution which conforms to the European standards was adopted. It borrowed democratic experiments elsewhere establishing Bulgaria as a parliamentary republic but with a directly elected president and vice-president. The new constitution was controversial because it was passed by a Great National Assembly dominated by former communists. In conformity to the requirements of EU accession, Bulgaria amended the constitution. This 2007 constitutional amendment led to some decentralization of Bulgaria. It allowed subnational governance, subnational finance, and fiscal decentralization.
Armed with our 21st-century democracy-finder, suppose we speed back to 17th-century Europe. In one part of Europe or another, we will find roughly 200 regimes we can reasonably call independent states: relatively autonomous, centralized, and well-bounded governments exercising priority in some regards over all other organizations operating within their territories. On four counters marked “Breadth,” “Equality,” “Consultation,” and “Protection,” we take readings for the regimes we locate in a journey throughout the continent. Where and when do we encounter vigorous vibrations of democracy? Let's say we land in the year 1650. We might think it an auspicious year for democratic initiatives: except for continuing struggle between France and Spain the major disruptions of the Thirty Years' War have just ended with the Treaties of Westphalia, great fissures have opened in the Habsburg empire, and the success of their 16th-century rebellion against Spain has finally brought the northern Netherlands international recognition as a highly decentralized independent republic. What do we find? We find plenty of revolution and war, but few signs of settled democracy. Touring the British Isles, we discover a Scotland rebelling openly against English hegemony, and a Scottish military force in northern England backing Charles Stuart's claim to succeed his father Charles I; just last year, England's contentious revolutionaries united temporarily to decapitate King Charles. In Ireland, Catholic leaders are battling not only each other, but also the English invading force of Oliver Cromwell.
States and elites The culture of the Ottoman period has often been analyzed by using the same criteria applied to the periods before and after it, Mamluk Egypt (1250–1517) and the nineteenth century. This is problematic for two reasons, firstly because of the very different roles played by the state in relation to culture and learning and secondly because of the role of elites in providing models and patterns of culture. The influence of the ruling class in shaping culture can change between one period and another, and can be greater at certain times than at others. When the state is centralized, the ruling class is much more likely to play a dominant role than it is in a decentralized state. The cultural production is more likely to be polished and refined when ruling classes dominate the direction that it takes, and less so when their role is reduced. When the state is decentralized, as it was during the Ottoman period, and the structures at the top are weaker, the cultural forms and patterns from below are more likely to emerge. Therefore, rather than compare this period to those before or after it, we may approach it through the larger framework of its changing social and political structures. In both Mamluk Egypt and Egypt under the rule of Muhammad ’Ali and his descendants (nineteenth century), the state was very centralized and played an active role in financing and shaping culture and in education. Likewise the ruling elites were actively involved in creating cultural models.
Local government and politics in Turkey have been under the tutelary control of the central state. Contrary to the Western republican tradition of autonomous local self-government, local politics in Turkey were created by and for the central state. More recently, however, a municipal movement with a social democratic coloring emerged to put an end to central governmental tutelage. This movement was followed by the rise of a new conservative perspective in the 1980s. A peculiar synthesis of technical reason and traditional nationalism was the main characteristic of Turkish new conservatism, which identified local political problems with technical problems of urban management. This approach has been adopted by the party of political Islam, now controlling major metropolitan areas and most smaller towns in central and eastern Turkey; this party tries to resynthesize technical reason and Islamic traditions. Whether Turkey will walk on the path toward more decentralized and participatory political organization or jump into a new and stronger authoritarianism depends on the respective political capabilities of these three trends.