Ahmet Erdi Öztürk - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Ahmet Erdi Öztürk
• Turkey, like other countries from both East and West, is gradually withdrawing from internation... more • Turkey, like other countries from both East and West, is gradually withdrawing from international cooperation and seeking recourse to a new distinction between civilizations based on a synthesis of nationalism and nostalgic visions of history, memory, and religion. This transformation has been taking place under the rule of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) and his unofficial Islamist and nationalist coalition partners.
Border Crossing, 2020
With the instrumentalisation of Islam via the state apparatuses in foreign policy, Sunni Islam ha... more With the instrumentalisation of Islam via the state apparatuses in foreign policy, Sunni Islam has become both an instrument and a purpose of the repressive Justice and Development Party and Turkey has started to be one of the front runners of countries who are increasingly competing for using Islam as a foreign policy tool. This relatively new role of Turkey has created various diverging ideas among the host countries where Turkey is active. While some countries are rather content with Turkey’s religiously fueled policies and humanitarian aid, and define Turkey as one of the most influential actors which can use religion as a soft power tool, others refuse to define Turkey’s policies within the boundaries of religious soft power due to its extra-territorial authoritarian practices and instrumentalisation of religion for these. Under these circumstances, this study defines Turkey’s religious soft power as an ambivalent one and scrutinises the reasons behind this ambiguity via explor...
Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, 2022
ABSTRACT This article is about the main framework and the rationale of the special issue, which d... more ABSTRACT This article is about the main framework and the rationale of the special issue, which deals with Turkey’s increasing ethno-religious, pragmatic and complicated involvement and activism in the Balkans since 2002, under the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi – AKP). The main focus of the Issue is how the intersectionality between domestic and foreign policy has played an important role in Turkey’s recent relations with the Balkan countries and how the Europeanization process influences this relationality. The overall claim is that religion, ethnicity and kin politics as indispensable components of identity politics, have the capacity to transform Turkey’s foreign policy attitudes as well as the orientations of the Balkan countries and the impact of the processes of Europeanization and de-Europeanization on the relationship between Turkey and the Balkans needs to be included into the analysis.
Middle East Policy, 2020
After emerging in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019 the deadly coronavirus affected Turkey m... more After emerging in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019 the deadly coronavirus affected Turkey much later than other European and Middle Eastern countries. Although airports in Istanbul are points of intersection between East and West, and despite the fact that Ankara was late to sever travel connections with places where the virus struck forcefully, such as Iran and China, Turkey did not see its first case until March 11 - much later than many countries. Turkey’s geographic position, the delayed realization by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) of the gravity of the situation, and society’s inadequate prevention of the spread of the disease prompted predictions that Turkey’s situation would be more dramatic than Italy’s. Nevertheless, Turkey fought the disease in a manner that could be dubbed respectable based on what the official figures reveal to us, even if it has not exhibited comparable economic competence. This article seeks to discuss Turkey’s fight with Covid-19, from late 2019 through late May 2020, from a multifaceted and comparative perspective. It will touch upon the domains of domestic policy, economics and foreign policy and contrast the number of cases, deaths, administered tests and rates of recovery with countries that suffered major outbreaks, such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Iran and France.
Routledge Handbook oF Peace, Security and Development, 2020
Religion, Identity and Power, 2021
This chapter aims to read the AKP period of Turkey in light of a combination of domestic and fore... more This chapter aims to read the AKP period of Turkey in light of a combination of domestic and foreign policies, with religion at the forefront. In these two chapters, the concept of ‘state of exception’ is employed to understand the authoritarian ethno-nationalist Sunnification of Turkey under AKP rule. Indeed, throughout the chapters the new positions of state institutions such as Diyanet, the role of the Gülen Movement, the role of Ahmet Davutoğlu in the new Turkish foreign policy and the leadership of Erdoğan constitute the priorities, since these are the main determinants in an understanding of the relations between the Balkans and Turkey since the early 2000s.
Religion, Identity and Power, 2021
This chapter is the theoretical skeleton of the book, explaining how religion can be a part of th... more This chapter is the theoretical skeleton of the book, explaining how religion can be a part of the state identity and how religion-oriented state identity affect the power resources and notions of the state in foreign policy. This chapter studies religion as one element of state identity among other elements, and various outcomes of religious state identity as an element of power in international relations. Furthermore, it employs a constructivist reading of religion within politics and international relations, and explains the theoretical contribution of the book: the ambivalence of religion-oriented soft power.
Religion, Identity and Power, 2021
Drawing on over two years of fieldwork and more than 120 semi-structured elite interviews in Turk... more Drawing on over two years of fieldwork and more than 120 semi-structured elite interviews in Turkey and the Balkans, this book seeks to illuminate a neglected aspect of Turkey’s relations with its Balkan neighbours, in the context of the broader shift in Turkish domestic and foreign policy under the AKP from a realist-secular orientation to an ambiguous coercive Sunni Islamic one. It explains the complex relations between religion (Islam) and state identity, and their reflection in state power. In order to analyse how these concepts have been utilized and how they been received locally, this book uses as primary sources both Turkish and local actors in the three country cases: Republic of Bulgaria, Republic of North Macedonia and Republic of Albania. This part summaries all of these points
Religion, Identity and Power, 2021
Under the shadow of these observations and findings, the AKP has realised that Turkey’s Western-o... more Under the shadow of these observations and findings, the AKP has realised that Turkey’s Western-oriented laik foreign policy has not been serving the new interests of Turkey, and so it aims to establish deeper relations with the Balkan countries, but particularly with the Muslims of these countries. Turkey has in fact been preferring to serve the Ummah, instead of expanding relations with all components of the Balkans, in spite of the fragile economic conditions prevailing in the region. Even though the socio-political elites of the host countries are pleased with these initiatives, they are at the same time suspicious. Hence, this mostly single-sided and religion-oriented investment approach is one of the significant indicators of how its preferences make Turkey an ambiguous power in the region.
Religion, Identity and Power, 2021
Even though various common elements appear in the reflection of Turkey’s new foreign policy in th... more Even though various common elements appear in the reflection of Turkey’s new foreign policy in the three case countries, the cases show meaningful differences. These differences stem from their economic strength, multi-layered relations with Turkey and their positions in the international system. One crucial point is however shared between the three cases: Turkey’s religion-oriented and authoritarian domestic political change has manifested as a coercive ethno-nationalist Sunnification of its Balkan policy, and this has transformed Turkey’s position in the eyes of the Balkan socio-political elites, from the soft power it has been, to the ambiguous and uncertain one it is becoming.
Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, 2017
In Turkey, especially since 2010, the ruling Justice and Development Party has gradually assumed ... more In Turkey, especially since 2010, the ruling Justice and Development Party has gradually assumed all power within the state. In parallel, it has introduced a hegemonic project widely known as "New Turkey," redefining state apparatuses through its proprietary web of networks of formal and informal relations. Inclusion in, or exclusion from, these networks is at the sole discretion of leading political actors, and can be considered as a state apparatus in itself, even though it contains elements that are informal or unofficial. All these networks of official and unofficial apparatuses are spread around President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Our research focuses on the Twitter interactions of 25 key elements of AKP's web of networks between 2010 and 2016, using Social Network Analysis. In the Turkish context, the use of Twitter as a means of communication is particularly pertinent, as it stands out as a unique channel for democratic discourse. The findings of our research confirm that the Twitter interactions of the 25 official and unofficial state apparatuses, with very few exceptions, constitute a network well-connected to the core, mostly represented by Erdoğan.
Middle East Critique, 2020
Perspectives on Politics, 2020
local taxation, which often proves difficult to implement, scholars should explore more common bu... more local taxation, which often proves difficult to implement, scholars should explore more common but less academically studied forms of informal local revenue mobilization that are tightly linked to the provision of specific goods and services. Other contributors pay special attention to the design of experiments. For example, in Fotini Christia’s review, she argues that, although community-driven development programs in postconflict settings often comprise a bundle of interventions, donors should implement the different component interventions separately both to allow better identification of the effects of individual interventions and to facilitate implementation and delivery. Suggestions such as these are useful, because they not only focus on gaps in knowledge but also pay heed to the practicalities of partnerships between donors, academics, and governments. In seeking to tackle a series of complex questions about decentralized governance, this volume undertakes a daunting challenge. Conclusions are often difficult to draw, in part because there is frequently a paucity of empirical research on several of the issues that the contributors explore. Even on questions for which a handful of studies exist, the findings often conflict with one another, and the contributors can at best conjecture as to the reason for the disparate results. And, as with many important questions of interest to both academics and practitioners, the identification of causal effects in empirical research is tricky. Despite these challenges, however, the contributors to this volume do an impressive job overall of striking a careful balance between grappling with the theoretical and methodological complexities of the research on each question and distilling the findings into a set of coherent conclusions. We are left with a series of rich evidence-based insights about decentralized governance, as well as an agenda for future policy-relevant research on the subject to which any scholar working in this area should pay close attention.
British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 2018
Migration Letters, 2020
This article scrutinises the extraterritorial repression strategies of contemporary non-democraci... more This article scrutinises the extraterritorial repression strategies of contemporary non-democracies, as evidenced by the Turkish Justice and Development Party’s efforts to purge the Gülen Movement globally after the 2016 coup attempt. Adopting “repertoire”, as conceptualised by Charles Tilly, this article explores it in light of “extraterritorial repression,” which includes the diverse skills and tactics mobilised to stifle dissent beyond national borders. This set of repressive measures is further directed at making claims on individuals and movements in the diaspora. By bringing attention to the repressive side of diaspora engagement, this article shows that diasporas are also shaped by repressive policies from their home countries.
Democratization, 2019
Book review of: Islam, authoritarianism and underdevelopment: a global and historical comparison ... more Book review of: Islam, authoritarianism and underdevelopment: a global and historical comparison / by Ahmet T. Kuru, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2019,303 pp., £ 26.99 (Paperback), ISBN: 97811084097
New Perspectives on Turkey, 2018
Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, 2019
Since roughly 2011, the Turkish state and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) have bee... more Since roughly 2011, the Turkish state and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) have been going through a process of mutual transformation. Some of the historical apprehensions, biases and frustrations exhibited by Turkey as a middle power have been absorbed by the relatively reformist AKP. Conversely, the AKP and its undisputed leader Erdoğan have seen their socio-political fears, power based conflicts and ethno-religious desires become dominant in all areas, including religion. As a consequence of this bilateral transformation, Turkey has become both an inclusionary and a hegemonic-authoritarian state, and at the same time a weak one. Within this new identity and structure of the state, Sunni Islam has become one of the regime's key focal points, with a new logic. This article seeks to explain the transformation of the relations between the AKP's Turkish state, religion and religious groups, by scrutinising Karrie Koesel's logic of state-religion interaction in authoritarian regimes.
The International Spectator, 2019
Turkey's recent slide into authoritarianism will have implications for its close neighbours in th... more Turkey's recent slide into authoritarianism will have implications for its close neighbours in the West. Especially Greece cannot avoid negative spill-over effects. A coalition government comprising Syriza and Independent Greeks does not have an unconstrained set of policy choices in responding to this. Maintaining effective working relations is a paramount interest but achieving this is easier in principle than in practice especially considering the issues of asylum seekers and Turkish revisionism on the Lausanne Treaty. Unlike the two parties that dominated the Greek political scene after 1974, PASOK and New Democracy, the current government has little experience navigating choppy diplomatic seas with Turkey.
Politics, Religion & Ideology, 2018
In the wake of the July 2016 putsch and the subsequent purge of followers of the outlawed Turkish... more In the wake of the July 2016 putsch and the subsequent purge of followers of the outlawed Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen in every sphere of Turkish life under the ruling AKP government's state of emergency, the Gülen movement (GM) is in disarray and crisis. A fruitful way to bring some analytical order to this issue is through the frame of diaspora, which we contend provides some useful analytical purchase on understanding the movement historically and in transition. The GM as it stood prior to 2016 is, we contend, best conceived as a transnational parapolitical network-a 'diaspora by design'-dedicated principally to the service, not of humanity, but of power. Based on interviews with over 70 key members of the movement conducted between 2012 and 2018, we show how, from the late 1990s Gülen and his supporters crafted a complex transnational structure that has combined extensive financial operations with a distinctive organizational morphology. We map out the contours of this structure and show how it emerged over time via instrumentalization of Gülen's parapolitical ideology and the steady accretion of politically directed, corporate projects outside Turkey. Finally, drawing again on the notion of diaspora, we offer a framework for thinking about how the movement may evolve in future as it transitions to a fragmented community in transnational in political exile.
• Turkey, like other countries from both East and West, is gradually withdrawing from internation... more • Turkey, like other countries from both East and West, is gradually withdrawing from international cooperation and seeking recourse to a new distinction between civilizations based on a synthesis of nationalism and nostalgic visions of history, memory, and religion. This transformation has been taking place under the rule of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) and his unofficial Islamist and nationalist coalition partners.
Border Crossing, 2020
With the instrumentalisation of Islam via the state apparatuses in foreign policy, Sunni Islam ha... more With the instrumentalisation of Islam via the state apparatuses in foreign policy, Sunni Islam has become both an instrument and a purpose of the repressive Justice and Development Party and Turkey has started to be one of the front runners of countries who are increasingly competing for using Islam as a foreign policy tool. This relatively new role of Turkey has created various diverging ideas among the host countries where Turkey is active. While some countries are rather content with Turkey’s religiously fueled policies and humanitarian aid, and define Turkey as one of the most influential actors which can use religion as a soft power tool, others refuse to define Turkey’s policies within the boundaries of religious soft power due to its extra-territorial authoritarian practices and instrumentalisation of religion for these. Under these circumstances, this study defines Turkey’s religious soft power as an ambivalent one and scrutinises the reasons behind this ambiguity via explor...
Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, 2022
ABSTRACT This article is about the main framework and the rationale of the special issue, which d... more ABSTRACT This article is about the main framework and the rationale of the special issue, which deals with Turkey’s increasing ethno-religious, pragmatic and complicated involvement and activism in the Balkans since 2002, under the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi – AKP). The main focus of the Issue is how the intersectionality between domestic and foreign policy has played an important role in Turkey’s recent relations with the Balkan countries and how the Europeanization process influences this relationality. The overall claim is that religion, ethnicity and kin politics as indispensable components of identity politics, have the capacity to transform Turkey’s foreign policy attitudes as well as the orientations of the Balkan countries and the impact of the processes of Europeanization and de-Europeanization on the relationship between Turkey and the Balkans needs to be included into the analysis.
Middle East Policy, 2020
After emerging in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019 the deadly coronavirus affected Turkey m... more After emerging in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019 the deadly coronavirus affected Turkey much later than other European and Middle Eastern countries. Although airports in Istanbul are points of intersection between East and West, and despite the fact that Ankara was late to sever travel connections with places where the virus struck forcefully, such as Iran and China, Turkey did not see its first case until March 11 - much later than many countries. Turkey’s geographic position, the delayed realization by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) of the gravity of the situation, and society’s inadequate prevention of the spread of the disease prompted predictions that Turkey’s situation would be more dramatic than Italy’s. Nevertheless, Turkey fought the disease in a manner that could be dubbed respectable based on what the official figures reveal to us, even if it has not exhibited comparable economic competence. This article seeks to discuss Turkey’s fight with Covid-19, from late 2019 through late May 2020, from a multifaceted and comparative perspective. It will touch upon the domains of domestic policy, economics and foreign policy and contrast the number of cases, deaths, administered tests and rates of recovery with countries that suffered major outbreaks, such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Iran and France.
Routledge Handbook oF Peace, Security and Development, 2020
Religion, Identity and Power, 2021
This chapter aims to read the AKP period of Turkey in light of a combination of domestic and fore... more This chapter aims to read the AKP period of Turkey in light of a combination of domestic and foreign policies, with religion at the forefront. In these two chapters, the concept of ‘state of exception’ is employed to understand the authoritarian ethno-nationalist Sunnification of Turkey under AKP rule. Indeed, throughout the chapters the new positions of state institutions such as Diyanet, the role of the Gülen Movement, the role of Ahmet Davutoğlu in the new Turkish foreign policy and the leadership of Erdoğan constitute the priorities, since these are the main determinants in an understanding of the relations between the Balkans and Turkey since the early 2000s.
Religion, Identity and Power, 2021
This chapter is the theoretical skeleton of the book, explaining how religion can be a part of th... more This chapter is the theoretical skeleton of the book, explaining how religion can be a part of the state identity and how religion-oriented state identity affect the power resources and notions of the state in foreign policy. This chapter studies religion as one element of state identity among other elements, and various outcomes of religious state identity as an element of power in international relations. Furthermore, it employs a constructivist reading of religion within politics and international relations, and explains the theoretical contribution of the book: the ambivalence of religion-oriented soft power.
Religion, Identity and Power, 2021
Drawing on over two years of fieldwork and more than 120 semi-structured elite interviews in Turk... more Drawing on over two years of fieldwork and more than 120 semi-structured elite interviews in Turkey and the Balkans, this book seeks to illuminate a neglected aspect of Turkey’s relations with its Balkan neighbours, in the context of the broader shift in Turkish domestic and foreign policy under the AKP from a realist-secular orientation to an ambiguous coercive Sunni Islamic one. It explains the complex relations between religion (Islam) and state identity, and their reflection in state power. In order to analyse how these concepts have been utilized and how they been received locally, this book uses as primary sources both Turkish and local actors in the three country cases: Republic of Bulgaria, Republic of North Macedonia and Republic of Albania. This part summaries all of these points
Religion, Identity and Power, 2021
Under the shadow of these observations and findings, the AKP has realised that Turkey’s Western-o... more Under the shadow of these observations and findings, the AKP has realised that Turkey’s Western-oriented laik foreign policy has not been serving the new interests of Turkey, and so it aims to establish deeper relations with the Balkan countries, but particularly with the Muslims of these countries. Turkey has in fact been preferring to serve the Ummah, instead of expanding relations with all components of the Balkans, in spite of the fragile economic conditions prevailing in the region. Even though the socio-political elites of the host countries are pleased with these initiatives, they are at the same time suspicious. Hence, this mostly single-sided and religion-oriented investment approach is one of the significant indicators of how its preferences make Turkey an ambiguous power in the region.
Religion, Identity and Power, 2021
Even though various common elements appear in the reflection of Turkey’s new foreign policy in th... more Even though various common elements appear in the reflection of Turkey’s new foreign policy in the three case countries, the cases show meaningful differences. These differences stem from their economic strength, multi-layered relations with Turkey and their positions in the international system. One crucial point is however shared between the three cases: Turkey’s religion-oriented and authoritarian domestic political change has manifested as a coercive ethno-nationalist Sunnification of its Balkan policy, and this has transformed Turkey’s position in the eyes of the Balkan socio-political elites, from the soft power it has been, to the ambiguous and uncertain one it is becoming.
Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, 2017
In Turkey, especially since 2010, the ruling Justice and Development Party has gradually assumed ... more In Turkey, especially since 2010, the ruling Justice and Development Party has gradually assumed all power within the state. In parallel, it has introduced a hegemonic project widely known as "New Turkey," redefining state apparatuses through its proprietary web of networks of formal and informal relations. Inclusion in, or exclusion from, these networks is at the sole discretion of leading political actors, and can be considered as a state apparatus in itself, even though it contains elements that are informal or unofficial. All these networks of official and unofficial apparatuses are spread around President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Our research focuses on the Twitter interactions of 25 key elements of AKP's web of networks between 2010 and 2016, using Social Network Analysis. In the Turkish context, the use of Twitter as a means of communication is particularly pertinent, as it stands out as a unique channel for democratic discourse. The findings of our research confirm that the Twitter interactions of the 25 official and unofficial state apparatuses, with very few exceptions, constitute a network well-connected to the core, mostly represented by Erdoğan.
Middle East Critique, 2020
Perspectives on Politics, 2020
local taxation, which often proves difficult to implement, scholars should explore more common bu... more local taxation, which often proves difficult to implement, scholars should explore more common but less academically studied forms of informal local revenue mobilization that are tightly linked to the provision of specific goods and services. Other contributors pay special attention to the design of experiments. For example, in Fotini Christia’s review, she argues that, although community-driven development programs in postconflict settings often comprise a bundle of interventions, donors should implement the different component interventions separately both to allow better identification of the effects of individual interventions and to facilitate implementation and delivery. Suggestions such as these are useful, because they not only focus on gaps in knowledge but also pay heed to the practicalities of partnerships between donors, academics, and governments. In seeking to tackle a series of complex questions about decentralized governance, this volume undertakes a daunting challenge. Conclusions are often difficult to draw, in part because there is frequently a paucity of empirical research on several of the issues that the contributors explore. Even on questions for which a handful of studies exist, the findings often conflict with one another, and the contributors can at best conjecture as to the reason for the disparate results. And, as with many important questions of interest to both academics and practitioners, the identification of causal effects in empirical research is tricky. Despite these challenges, however, the contributors to this volume do an impressive job overall of striking a careful balance between grappling with the theoretical and methodological complexities of the research on each question and distilling the findings into a set of coherent conclusions. We are left with a series of rich evidence-based insights about decentralized governance, as well as an agenda for future policy-relevant research on the subject to which any scholar working in this area should pay close attention.
British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 2018
Migration Letters, 2020
This article scrutinises the extraterritorial repression strategies of contemporary non-democraci... more This article scrutinises the extraterritorial repression strategies of contemporary non-democracies, as evidenced by the Turkish Justice and Development Party’s efforts to purge the Gülen Movement globally after the 2016 coup attempt. Adopting “repertoire”, as conceptualised by Charles Tilly, this article explores it in light of “extraterritorial repression,” which includes the diverse skills and tactics mobilised to stifle dissent beyond national borders. This set of repressive measures is further directed at making claims on individuals and movements in the diaspora. By bringing attention to the repressive side of diaspora engagement, this article shows that diasporas are also shaped by repressive policies from their home countries.
Democratization, 2019
Book review of: Islam, authoritarianism and underdevelopment: a global and historical comparison ... more Book review of: Islam, authoritarianism and underdevelopment: a global and historical comparison / by Ahmet T. Kuru, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2019,303 pp., £ 26.99 (Paperback), ISBN: 97811084097
New Perspectives on Turkey, 2018
Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, 2019
Since roughly 2011, the Turkish state and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) have bee... more Since roughly 2011, the Turkish state and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) have been going through a process of mutual transformation. Some of the historical apprehensions, biases and frustrations exhibited by Turkey as a middle power have been absorbed by the relatively reformist AKP. Conversely, the AKP and its undisputed leader Erdoğan have seen their socio-political fears, power based conflicts and ethno-religious desires become dominant in all areas, including religion. As a consequence of this bilateral transformation, Turkey has become both an inclusionary and a hegemonic-authoritarian state, and at the same time a weak one. Within this new identity and structure of the state, Sunni Islam has become one of the regime's key focal points, with a new logic. This article seeks to explain the transformation of the relations between the AKP's Turkish state, religion and religious groups, by scrutinising Karrie Koesel's logic of state-religion interaction in authoritarian regimes.
The International Spectator, 2019
Turkey's recent slide into authoritarianism will have implications for its close neighbours in th... more Turkey's recent slide into authoritarianism will have implications for its close neighbours in the West. Especially Greece cannot avoid negative spill-over effects. A coalition government comprising Syriza and Independent Greeks does not have an unconstrained set of policy choices in responding to this. Maintaining effective working relations is a paramount interest but achieving this is easier in principle than in practice especially considering the issues of asylum seekers and Turkish revisionism on the Lausanne Treaty. Unlike the two parties that dominated the Greek political scene after 1974, PASOK and New Democracy, the current government has little experience navigating choppy diplomatic seas with Turkey.
Politics, Religion & Ideology, 2018
In the wake of the July 2016 putsch and the subsequent purge of followers of the outlawed Turkish... more In the wake of the July 2016 putsch and the subsequent purge of followers of the outlawed Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen in every sphere of Turkish life under the ruling AKP government's state of emergency, the Gülen movement (GM) is in disarray and crisis. A fruitful way to bring some analytical order to this issue is through the frame of diaspora, which we contend provides some useful analytical purchase on understanding the movement historically and in transition. The GM as it stood prior to 2016 is, we contend, best conceived as a transnational parapolitical network-a 'diaspora by design'-dedicated principally to the service, not of humanity, but of power. Based on interviews with over 70 key members of the movement conducted between 2012 and 2018, we show how, from the late 1990s Gülen and his supporters crafted a complex transnational structure that has combined extensive financial operations with a distinctive organizational morphology. We map out the contours of this structure and show how it emerged over time via instrumentalization of Gülen's parapolitical ideology and the steady accretion of politically directed, corporate projects outside Turkey. Finally, drawing again on the notion of diaspora, we offer a framework for thinking about how the movement may evolve in future as it transitions to a fragmented community in transnational in political exile.