Explaining the Changing Role of the Military in Politics during the AKP Era: Hegemony and the Kurdish Question as Two Main Dynamics
Friday, April 28, 2023 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm CET/GMT+1K24 SR12
This lecture and discussion, led by Turkish academic Ismet Akça, focuses on the Justice and Power Party (AKP) in Turkey. AKP was founded by current Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and has held the plurality of seats in Turkish Parliament since its first national election over twenty years ago.
The longstanding autonomous political power of the Turkish military has been curbed to an important extent under the AKP rule through legal reforms and political trials. Yet civilianization reforms were not accompanied by democratization of the political regime in the 2000s. The first sub-period (2002-2013) was marked by the existence of an inclusive hegemony and the relative pacification of the Kurdish question. The socio-political context of the second sub-period (post-2013) was determined by a deepening hegemony and state crisis and the remilitarization of the Kurdish question.
This event takes place in K24, Seminar Room 12. For those unable to attend in-person, a digital stream is available.
Ismet Akça was an Associated Professor at the Department of Political Science and International Relations, Yıldız Technical University in Istanbul, Turkey, until his suspension in 2017 due to his signing of the Academics for Peace petition. He is a fellow at SOAS, Department of Politics and International Relations for the 2022-2023 academic year. He has published in different journals and books, both in English and Turkish, on Turkish military-industrial complex, the military and politics in Turkey, political sociology of Turkey, Justice and Development Party, neoliberal hegemony.