F. Michael Wuthrich | University of Kansas (original) (raw)

Papers by F. Michael Wuthrich

Politics and Religion, 2024

How does a religious group's demographic status influence its members' attitudes toward economic ... more How does a religious group's demographic status influence its members' attitudes toward economic and political liberalization? This study adopts a contextual approach and compares Azeri Muslims' political and economic attitudes in two illiberal states, Azerbaijan and Georgia. We argue that attitudes toward liberalization are shaped by the strength of association with one's religious community and its relative position vis-à-vis the state and society. Drawing on a series of Caucasus Barometer surveys, we find that context and position in society matter. In religiously restrictive Muslim-majority Azerbaijan, Muslims' religiosity is associated with greater support for political liberalization but lower support for economic liberalization. In religiously restrictive non-Muslim-majority Georgia, however, Muslims' religiosity reflects the converse: opposition to political liberalization but support for economic liberalization. Thus, instead of theologies, the political and economic opportunity structures facing religious groups may play a critical role in determining their attitudes toward various forms of liberalization.

Middle Eastern Studies, Mar 1, 2012

The fact that a population of an estimated 25 million people, sharing a rich spectrum of culture ... more The fact that a population of an estimated 25 million people, sharing a rich spectrum of culture and linguistic roots and occupying a very blurry – in boundary and ethnic composition – but contiguous geography divided across a number of nations would garner attention from both social scientists and policy makers should be no real surprise. Since Saddam Hussein’s Anfal campaign against Kurds in Northern Iraq in the late 1980s and particularly following the First Gulf War, the literature on Kurds and Kurdish nationalism has greatly been enriched. In the last several years, a number of books have furthered this literature by addressing the ‘Kurdish Question’ in whole or in part through engagement with recent developments and theory, and focusing on Kurds located from Turkey and Iraq to Syria and the European diaspora. This review intends to highlight two recent collected works, particularly in regard to their contribution to the literature on Kurds and Kurdish nationalism. One of the two edited volumes, Nationalisms and Politics in Turkey: Political Islam, Kemalism and the Kurdish Issue, edited by Marlies Casier and Joost Jongerden, focuses primarily on Turkey and the country’s Kurdish diaspora in Europe, along with a number of variants of Turkish nationalism that dynamically interact with Kurdish nationalism in Turkey. The other work, The Kurdish Policy Imperative, edited by Robert Lowe and Gareth Stansfield, is comprised of essays on the ‘Kurdish Question’ in the four major countries in which Kurds have traditionally had claims for territorial roots: Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria. Since these works offer a combined total of 24 distinct essays, rather than deal with these sequentially, the major issues and contributions will be discussed along with a number of important remaining gaps in the literature. While the edited work by Casier and Jongerden also offers chapters on competing Turkish nationalisms stemming from Kemalist and Islamic interpretations by Menderes Çınar and Murat Somer, along with a chapter on border imagery and nationalism by Ferhat Kentel and the ‘Turkish diaspora’ by Ayhan Kaya, this book’s primary contribution comes from its essays addressing various aspects of the ‘Kurdish Question’ as it relates to Turkey, which comprise a majority of the chapters. Within the portion of the book devoted to Kurdish nationalism, there is a section that addresses how ‘the State’ and political elites have responded to the issue Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 48, No. 2, 303–310, March 2012

Political Science Quarterly, Jan 17, 2024

Perspectives on Politics, Mar 1, 2017

broadens the theoretical lens by focusing on the variety of ways that conflict can upend gender r... more broadens the theoretical lens by focusing on the variety of ways that conflict can upend gender roles and norms to produce changes in the degree and type of women’s rights and women’s status in politics and society. By avoiding assumptions that women are affected by conflict only within limited contexts, Parts II and IV instead detail variation in the policy areas or degrees to which women are influenced by and able to influence their conflict and postconflict environments. Although the author does not explicitly extend her theoretical framework in this way, one wonders whether specific women’s movement goals directly link to success in the postconflict policy outcomes that she observes. Perhaps the absence of women’s representation in the postconflict security sector in Uganda (pp. 68–69) reflects a failure to achieve women’s integration, or it signals a lack of its prioritization by women’s movements relative to other policy priorities, such as improvements in education and health-care provision (pp. 70–72). Future scholarship could extend beyond the book’s broader theoretical argument to investigate specific causal processes that connect whether success or achievement of certain policy outcomes reflects the goals of women and women’s movements, rather than the goals of international donors and scholars. One final extension raised by Tripp’s insightful work is the importance of regional reform pressures in exerting similar or comparable pressure outside of post-1990s postconflict Africa. Other postconflict cases, such as Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Guatemala—where women served in combat roles, the political system underwent major reforms, and international agencies were involved in peacekeeping missions and postpeace reconstruction projects—all seem ripe for gender regime change. Yet in such cases, the absence of neighborhood effects exerted by regional organizations comparable to the South African Development Corporation may help explain the challenges and failures of domestic women’s movements to pressure for meaningful and substantial gender regime change. Though Tripp’s argument is designed to apply most directly in post-1990s postconflict Africa, future studies of postconflict cases in other world regions should focus on the effects (or lack thereof) of this particular factor on enabling change in postconflict gender regimes.

Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, Mar 1, 2012

This study analyses factors related to attitudes toward European Union (EU) accession, taking int... more This study analyses factors related to attitudes toward European Union (EU) accession, taking into account political affiliation, religious and ethnic identity, fear of foreign threat, utilitarian considerations, along with a number of other variables through a survey conducted among Turkish citizens in general and also among various Alevi communities. The results show that Alevi identity, in contrast to Kurdish background, was strongly indicative of positive attitudes toward the EU. Furthermore, in conjunction with existing literature on EU integration, political party affiliation, utilitarian concerns and fear of foreigners were associated with attitudes toward membership among all groups, while religiosity was not a significant determinant of attitudes toward the EU.

International Political Science Abstracts, Feb 1, 2018

Turkish Studies, Jun 1, 2010

Springer eBooks, Sep 13, 2017

Especially since 2014, the relations between Kurdish populations with other Kurdish cross-border ... more Especially since 2014, the relations between Kurdish populations with other Kurdish cross-border populations and neighboring states have never received more public attention. Strategic decisions made by the elites of these communities have often confounded analysts approaching the developments in Kurdish-populated areas with latent assumptions of primordial identities or at least with the assumption that peoples with shared ethnic identities will have monolithic aims and agendas. Using the rich existing theory on nationalist identity development and nationalist projects, this chapter argues that Kurdish identities, like all national identities, are political and thus, while often constructed from pre-existing elements like language, shared traditions, etc., these elements are selected or constructed contextually within a nationalist package that is glued together implicitly or explicitly by a politically and ideologically framed image of an ideal nation. With this in mind, the chapter will explore how these elite-led nationalist endeavors intersect with how these nationalist communities interact with other Kurdish nationalist communities and neighboring states. Using Mark Haas’s “ideological distance” hypothesis and its three posited causal mechanisms—demonstration effects, social identity theory, and the communications mechanism—we will discuss Kurdish cross-communal and extra-communal relations. In general, “ideological distance” seems to be a good fit in explaining the interaction between Kurdish nationalist political groups in the twenty-first century, and it also helps to explain why the current Turkish government seems to have real preferences among the various Kurdish political organizations—i.e., it appears to explain why Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) appear to have distinguished between “good Kurds” and “bad Kurds.”

British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Jan 22, 2020

ABSTRACT In Turkey, the number of women in the Grand National Assembly has drastically increased ... more ABSTRACT In Turkey, the number of women in the Grand National Assembly has drastically increased from 24 in 2002 to 104 as of the June election of 2018. To date, the explanations for this rise and women’s emergence and placement on candidate lists have been inadequate. This study examines these dynamics more closely to attend to the strategic decision-making by the AKP’s central party leadership. Using an original dataset, I analyse placement patterns for AKP women candidates across the country from November 2002 to June 2018. The results show that the consequences of dominant party status along with other strategic considerations have allowed the AKP to field women candidates in ways that parties preceding them could not. Their strategic placement of women as candidates is shown to have facilitated substantive gains but also highlights important limitations to the advancement of women’s access to national political power in Turkey.

International Journal of Middle East Studies, Oct 15, 2013

For nearly forty years, scholars have utilized the metanarrative of a center-periphery cleavage f... more For nearly forty years, scholars have utilized the metanarrative of a center-periphery cleavage first proposed by Ş erif Mardin to explain a variety of phenomena in Turkish politics and society. When used to interpret electoral cleavages in the multiparty period, however, a center-periphery cleavage cannot effectively explain electoral outcomes. Focusing on the initial stage of multiparty competition, when the cleavage is often said to have been most salient, this article explores the empirical evidence to show that the concept as commonly employed has actually confounded an effective understanding of electoral behavior in Turkey. Rather than demonstrating a clear electoral division between the elites of the social center and the masses during this period, the article reveals two distinct cross-cutting patron-client strategies used by elite-dominated parties to cater to the rural population. The significant patterns of change in Turkey's electoral outcomes over time further illustrate the need to focus on how political parties and elites accumulate votes-that is, on their vote targeting strategies-rather than rely on static sociopolitical cleavages. Economic power, rather than domination, increasingly set the relation between notable and villagers. .. Deals, trade-offs, and bargains became much more pervasive than in earlier situations, and client politics flourished on a new level. .. It was undeniably a form of mobilization. .. that brought a greater portion of the masses into a meaningful relation with the center.-Şerif Mardin In 1973, Ş erif Mardin's famous article "Center-Periphery Relations: A Key to Turkish Politics?" was published in the journal Daedalus. 1 Although not extensively referenced until the 1980s, it is now indisputably one of the foundational works on Turkish politics, and arguably the most influential single work. For forty years, it has provided a useful metanarrative for almost any topic related to Turkish politics or society. Scores of academic articles and books published through 2012 on a range of topics in Turkish studies referred either explicitly to the seminal article or to the foundational conceptualization it proposed, as it has been most commonly understood. 2 No other article in the field of Turkish politics can boast more than a fraction of the shelf life of this study. The work itself, as a narrative of the history of relations between the state and society that focuses primarily on the Ottoman Empire, makes a number of important

Middle East Journal, Apr 15, 2012

ABSTRACT While headway has been made since 2001 regarding legislation that provides greater civil... more ABSTRACT While headway has been made since 2001 regarding legislation that provides greater civilian control of the military in Turkey, of primary concern in recent years has been the military’s use of “informal mechanisms of power,” a designation often referring to this institution’s potent relations with the national news media. This concern has been offset by the military’s even more recent silence. This article argues that to understand the potency of military-media relations and how, when, and why the military appears in the news, one must also consider the underlying domestic institutional and structural forces that strongly influence this relationship. Institutionalized military education, consumer capitalism, and the military’s institutional command hierarchy, ordered according to weight, establish the opportunities and constraints that frame the current realities in military-media relations.

Contemporary Politics, 2024

Variation in election boycotts in Africa and the Middle East raise the question of the factors th... more Variation in election boycotts in Africa and the Middle East raise the
question of the factors that influence the likelihood of boycotts.
Examining this dynamic in Africa, the Middle East and around the
globe, we explore one possible factor influencing national election
boycotts: the relative level of popular support between the regime
and opposition. Utilising the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem)
dataset, we find that when the regime has greater popular support
than the opposition, the likelihood of major boycotts is low. In
contrast, when the opposition has more popular support than the
regime at the point of election, the likelihood of boycotts increases.
These findings highlight the importance of publicly observable
levels of support as a means for opposition parties to gauge the
possible payoff for boycotting, particularly in authoritarian and
hybrid regimes where lack of transparency creates uncertainty
regarding other sources of regime strength or weakness.

Beyond Piety and Politics provides a groundbreaking approach to understanding the depth and varie... more Beyond Piety and Politics provides a groundbreaking approach to understanding the depth and variety of political attitudes held by people who consider themselves to be pious Muslims. Using survey data on religious preferences and behavior, the authors argue for the relevance and importance of four outlook categories—religious individualist, social communitarian, religious communitarian, and post-Islamist—and use these to explore complex and nuanced attitudes of devout Muslims toward issues like democracy and economic distribution. They also reveal how intrafaith variation in political attitudes is not due simply to doctrinal differences but is also a product of the social aspects of religious association operating within political contexts. By highlighting the dynamic societal and political implications of religious devotion, Beyond Piety and Politics offers a fascinating new theoretical perspective on Islam and politics. "Beyond Piety and Politics is an important contribution to the study of religion and politics. This well-written, carefully documented study nuances our understanding of religiosity by considering how religious groups' standings in society and vis-à-vis the state shape individuals' attitudes. It pushes the field to dismiss blunt conceptions of religiosity, focusing on how these groups navigate state and society." ~Ellen Lust, University of Gothenburg "This is an excellent and sophisticated book that examines the sources of religious preferences and outlooks. It insightfully argues that communal associations shape religious outlooks and these outlooks influence political and social worldviews. The authors advance a nuanced and context-driven understanding of religion in the everyday lives of citizens in MENA." ~Amaney A. Jamal, Edwards S. Sanford Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Princeton University

Mediterranean Politics, Jul 9, 2020

This paper highlights the intraparty institutional dynamics at play that influence Islamist party... more This paper highlights the intraparty institutional dynamics at play that influence Islamist party moderation and its manifest behaviour and ideology. We conceive of moderation as a strategically contingent act that is best explained by intraparty realities operating within particular political dynamics. This shifts the focus from the inclusion/moderation process debate and towards the discussion of party organizational capacity and social movement ties. We provide several propositions about party organizational strength, social movement linkages, and ideological legacy as determinants of Islamist party behaviour. Observations across a variety of cases support these propositions and the salience of a strategic behavioural approach to Islamist party moderation.

Comparative Kurdish Politics in the Middle East, 2018

Especially since 2014, the relations between Kurdish populations with other Kurdish cross-border ... more Especially since 2014, the relations between Kurdish populations with other Kurdish cross-border populations and neighboring states have never received more public attention. Strategic decisions made by the elites of these communities have often confounded analysts approaching the developments in Kurdish-populated areas with latent assumptions of primordial identities or at least with the assumption that peoples with shared ethnic identities will have monolithic aims and agendas. Using the rich existing theory on nationalist identity development and nationalist projects, this chapter argues that Kurdish identities, like all national identities, are political and thus, while often constructed from pre-existing elements like language, shared traditions, etc., these elements are selected or constructed contextually within a nationalist package that is glued together implicitly or explicitly by a politically and ideologically framed image of an ideal nation. With this in mind, the chapter will explore how these elite-led nationalist endeavors intersect with how these nationalist communities interact with other Kurdish nationalist communities and neighboring states. Using Mark Haas’s “ideological distance” hypothesis and its three posited causal mechanisms—demonstration effects, social identity theory, and the communications mechanism—we will discuss Kurdish cross-communal and extra-communal relations. In general, “ideological distance” seems to be a good fit in explaining the interaction between Kurdish nationalist political groups in the twenty-first century, and it also helps to explain why the current Turkish government seems to have real preferences among the various Kurdish political organizations—i.e., it appears to explain why Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) appear to have distinguished between “good Kurds” and “bad Kurds.”

Parliamentary Affairs, 2023

This article examines the influence of district-level party system dynamics on the list placement... more This article examines the influence of district-level party system dynamics on the list placement of women candidates. As local district competitive realities change, the strategic considerations for party leaders regarding the selection of non-mainstream political candidate profiles vary in important ways. We measure these dynamics with a set of novel variables that better capture variation in competition from district to district: individual party magnitude, district dominance and district contagion. Turkey's lower level of party system nationalisation between 2002 and 2018 offers a useful case for such an investigation, and results reveal both the significance and pattern of influence on women candidates for all three strategic variables.

Journal of Democracy, 2020

Mediterranean Politics, 2022

This paper highlights the intraparty institutional dynamics at play that influence Islamist party... more This paper highlights the intraparty institutional dynamics at play that influence Islamist party moderation and its manifest behaviour and ideology. We conceive of moderation as a strategically contingent act that is best explained by intraparty realities operating within particular political dynamics. This shifts the focus from the inclusion/moderation process debate and towards the discussion of party organizational capacity and social movement ties. We provide several propositions about party organizational strength, social movement linkages, and ideological legacy as determinants of Islamist party behaviour. Observations across a variety of cases support these propositions and the salience of a strategic behavioural approach to Islamist party moderation.

Political Research Quarterly, 2019

Despite a wealth of studies examining Muslim religiosity and democracy, uncertainty regarding Isl... more Despite a wealth of studies examining Muslim religiosity and democracy, uncertainty regarding Islam and attitudes toward democracy remains. Although the claims concerning the incompatibility of Islam and democracy are generally discarded, public opinion scholarship has yet to build much further from this important first step or incorporate a strong theoretical framework for analysis beyond this basic foundation. This paper seeks to integrate literature in social theory on religious worldviews with novel conceptualizations and measurement of distinct religious outlooks among the religious faithful to explain patterns in attitudes toward democracy. We construct a theory with clear expectations regarding these relationships and use the largest and best available survey data (Arab Democracy Barometer, Wave III) to test our predictions using latent class analysis and a series of multivariate regression estimations. The results of our empirical analysis reveal that there are important differences among practicing Muslims regarding the role that religion should play in the social realm and that these differences are relevant to the analysis of how faith shapes preferences for regime type and democracy. The analysis makes a significant contribution to the study of religion and political attitudes.

British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 2021

In Turkey, the number of women in the Grand National Assembly has drastically increased from 24 i... more In Turkey, the number of women in the Grand National Assembly has drastically increased from 24 in 2002 to 104 as of the June election of 2018. To date, the explanations for this rise and women’s emergence and placement on candidate lists have been inadequate. This study examines these dynamics more closely to attend to the strategic decision-making by the AKP’s central party leadership. Using an original dataset, I analyse placement patterns for AKP women candidates across the country from November 2002 to June 2018. The results show that the consequences of dominant party status along with other strategic considerations have allowed the AKP to field women candidates in ways that parties preceding them could not. Their strategic placement of women as candidates is shown to have facilitated substantive gains but also highlights important limitations to the advancement of women’s access to national political power in Turkey.

Politics and Religion, 2024

How does a religious group's demographic status influence its members' attitudes toward economic ... more How does a religious group's demographic status influence its members' attitudes toward economic and political liberalization? This study adopts a contextual approach and compares Azeri Muslims' political and economic attitudes in two illiberal states, Azerbaijan and Georgia. We argue that attitudes toward liberalization are shaped by the strength of association with one's religious community and its relative position vis-à-vis the state and society. Drawing on a series of Caucasus Barometer surveys, we find that context and position in society matter. In religiously restrictive Muslim-majority Azerbaijan, Muslims' religiosity is associated with greater support for political liberalization but lower support for economic liberalization. In religiously restrictive non-Muslim-majority Georgia, however, Muslims' religiosity reflects the converse: opposition to political liberalization but support for economic liberalization. Thus, instead of theologies, the political and economic opportunity structures facing religious groups may play a critical role in determining their attitudes toward various forms of liberalization.

Middle Eastern Studies, Mar 1, 2012

The fact that a population of an estimated 25 million people, sharing a rich spectrum of culture ... more The fact that a population of an estimated 25 million people, sharing a rich spectrum of culture and linguistic roots and occupying a very blurry – in boundary and ethnic composition – but contiguous geography divided across a number of nations would garner attention from both social scientists and policy makers should be no real surprise. Since Saddam Hussein’s Anfal campaign against Kurds in Northern Iraq in the late 1980s and particularly following the First Gulf War, the literature on Kurds and Kurdish nationalism has greatly been enriched. In the last several years, a number of books have furthered this literature by addressing the ‘Kurdish Question’ in whole or in part through engagement with recent developments and theory, and focusing on Kurds located from Turkey and Iraq to Syria and the European diaspora. This review intends to highlight two recent collected works, particularly in regard to their contribution to the literature on Kurds and Kurdish nationalism. One of the two edited volumes, Nationalisms and Politics in Turkey: Political Islam, Kemalism and the Kurdish Issue, edited by Marlies Casier and Joost Jongerden, focuses primarily on Turkey and the country’s Kurdish diaspora in Europe, along with a number of variants of Turkish nationalism that dynamically interact with Kurdish nationalism in Turkey. The other work, The Kurdish Policy Imperative, edited by Robert Lowe and Gareth Stansfield, is comprised of essays on the ‘Kurdish Question’ in the four major countries in which Kurds have traditionally had claims for territorial roots: Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria. Since these works offer a combined total of 24 distinct essays, rather than deal with these sequentially, the major issues and contributions will be discussed along with a number of important remaining gaps in the literature. While the edited work by Casier and Jongerden also offers chapters on competing Turkish nationalisms stemming from Kemalist and Islamic interpretations by Menderes Çınar and Murat Somer, along with a chapter on border imagery and nationalism by Ferhat Kentel and the ‘Turkish diaspora’ by Ayhan Kaya, this book’s primary contribution comes from its essays addressing various aspects of the ‘Kurdish Question’ as it relates to Turkey, which comprise a majority of the chapters. Within the portion of the book devoted to Kurdish nationalism, there is a section that addresses how ‘the State’ and political elites have responded to the issue Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 48, No. 2, 303–310, March 2012

Political Science Quarterly, Jan 17, 2024

Perspectives on Politics, Mar 1, 2017

broadens the theoretical lens by focusing on the variety of ways that conflict can upend gender r... more broadens the theoretical lens by focusing on the variety of ways that conflict can upend gender roles and norms to produce changes in the degree and type of women’s rights and women’s status in politics and society. By avoiding assumptions that women are affected by conflict only within limited contexts, Parts II and IV instead detail variation in the policy areas or degrees to which women are influenced by and able to influence their conflict and postconflict environments. Although the author does not explicitly extend her theoretical framework in this way, one wonders whether specific women’s movement goals directly link to success in the postconflict policy outcomes that she observes. Perhaps the absence of women’s representation in the postconflict security sector in Uganda (pp. 68–69) reflects a failure to achieve women’s integration, or it signals a lack of its prioritization by women’s movements relative to other policy priorities, such as improvements in education and health-care provision (pp. 70–72). Future scholarship could extend beyond the book’s broader theoretical argument to investigate specific causal processes that connect whether success or achievement of certain policy outcomes reflects the goals of women and women’s movements, rather than the goals of international donors and scholars. One final extension raised by Tripp’s insightful work is the importance of regional reform pressures in exerting similar or comparable pressure outside of post-1990s postconflict Africa. Other postconflict cases, such as Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Guatemala—where women served in combat roles, the political system underwent major reforms, and international agencies were involved in peacekeeping missions and postpeace reconstruction projects—all seem ripe for gender regime change. Yet in such cases, the absence of neighborhood effects exerted by regional organizations comparable to the South African Development Corporation may help explain the challenges and failures of domestic women’s movements to pressure for meaningful and substantial gender regime change. Though Tripp’s argument is designed to apply most directly in post-1990s postconflict Africa, future studies of postconflict cases in other world regions should focus on the effects (or lack thereof) of this particular factor on enabling change in postconflict gender regimes.

Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, Mar 1, 2012

This study analyses factors related to attitudes toward European Union (EU) accession, taking int... more This study analyses factors related to attitudes toward European Union (EU) accession, taking into account political affiliation, religious and ethnic identity, fear of foreign threat, utilitarian considerations, along with a number of other variables through a survey conducted among Turkish citizens in general and also among various Alevi communities. The results show that Alevi identity, in contrast to Kurdish background, was strongly indicative of positive attitudes toward the EU. Furthermore, in conjunction with existing literature on EU integration, political party affiliation, utilitarian concerns and fear of foreigners were associated with attitudes toward membership among all groups, while religiosity was not a significant determinant of attitudes toward the EU.

International Political Science Abstracts, Feb 1, 2018

Turkish Studies, Jun 1, 2010

Springer eBooks, Sep 13, 2017

Especially since 2014, the relations between Kurdish populations with other Kurdish cross-border ... more Especially since 2014, the relations between Kurdish populations with other Kurdish cross-border populations and neighboring states have never received more public attention. Strategic decisions made by the elites of these communities have often confounded analysts approaching the developments in Kurdish-populated areas with latent assumptions of primordial identities or at least with the assumption that peoples with shared ethnic identities will have monolithic aims and agendas. Using the rich existing theory on nationalist identity development and nationalist projects, this chapter argues that Kurdish identities, like all national identities, are political and thus, while often constructed from pre-existing elements like language, shared traditions, etc., these elements are selected or constructed contextually within a nationalist package that is glued together implicitly or explicitly by a politically and ideologically framed image of an ideal nation. With this in mind, the chapter will explore how these elite-led nationalist endeavors intersect with how these nationalist communities interact with other Kurdish nationalist communities and neighboring states. Using Mark Haas’s “ideological distance” hypothesis and its three posited causal mechanisms—demonstration effects, social identity theory, and the communications mechanism—we will discuss Kurdish cross-communal and extra-communal relations. In general, “ideological distance” seems to be a good fit in explaining the interaction between Kurdish nationalist political groups in the twenty-first century, and it also helps to explain why the current Turkish government seems to have real preferences among the various Kurdish political organizations—i.e., it appears to explain why Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) appear to have distinguished between “good Kurds” and “bad Kurds.”

British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Jan 22, 2020

ABSTRACT In Turkey, the number of women in the Grand National Assembly has drastically increased ... more ABSTRACT In Turkey, the number of women in the Grand National Assembly has drastically increased from 24 in 2002 to 104 as of the June election of 2018. To date, the explanations for this rise and women’s emergence and placement on candidate lists have been inadequate. This study examines these dynamics more closely to attend to the strategic decision-making by the AKP’s central party leadership. Using an original dataset, I analyse placement patterns for AKP women candidates across the country from November 2002 to June 2018. The results show that the consequences of dominant party status along with other strategic considerations have allowed the AKP to field women candidates in ways that parties preceding them could not. Their strategic placement of women as candidates is shown to have facilitated substantive gains but also highlights important limitations to the advancement of women’s access to national political power in Turkey.

International Journal of Middle East Studies, Oct 15, 2013

For nearly forty years, scholars have utilized the metanarrative of a center-periphery cleavage f... more For nearly forty years, scholars have utilized the metanarrative of a center-periphery cleavage first proposed by Ş erif Mardin to explain a variety of phenomena in Turkish politics and society. When used to interpret electoral cleavages in the multiparty period, however, a center-periphery cleavage cannot effectively explain electoral outcomes. Focusing on the initial stage of multiparty competition, when the cleavage is often said to have been most salient, this article explores the empirical evidence to show that the concept as commonly employed has actually confounded an effective understanding of electoral behavior in Turkey. Rather than demonstrating a clear electoral division between the elites of the social center and the masses during this period, the article reveals two distinct cross-cutting patron-client strategies used by elite-dominated parties to cater to the rural population. The significant patterns of change in Turkey's electoral outcomes over time further illustrate the need to focus on how political parties and elites accumulate votes-that is, on their vote targeting strategies-rather than rely on static sociopolitical cleavages. Economic power, rather than domination, increasingly set the relation between notable and villagers. .. Deals, trade-offs, and bargains became much more pervasive than in earlier situations, and client politics flourished on a new level. .. It was undeniably a form of mobilization. .. that brought a greater portion of the masses into a meaningful relation with the center.-Şerif Mardin In 1973, Ş erif Mardin's famous article "Center-Periphery Relations: A Key to Turkish Politics?" was published in the journal Daedalus. 1 Although not extensively referenced until the 1980s, it is now indisputably one of the foundational works on Turkish politics, and arguably the most influential single work. For forty years, it has provided a useful metanarrative for almost any topic related to Turkish politics or society. Scores of academic articles and books published through 2012 on a range of topics in Turkish studies referred either explicitly to the seminal article or to the foundational conceptualization it proposed, as it has been most commonly understood. 2 No other article in the field of Turkish politics can boast more than a fraction of the shelf life of this study. The work itself, as a narrative of the history of relations between the state and society that focuses primarily on the Ottoman Empire, makes a number of important

Middle East Journal, Apr 15, 2012

ABSTRACT While headway has been made since 2001 regarding legislation that provides greater civil... more ABSTRACT While headway has been made since 2001 regarding legislation that provides greater civilian control of the military in Turkey, of primary concern in recent years has been the military’s use of “informal mechanisms of power,” a designation often referring to this institution’s potent relations with the national news media. This concern has been offset by the military’s even more recent silence. This article argues that to understand the potency of military-media relations and how, when, and why the military appears in the news, one must also consider the underlying domestic institutional and structural forces that strongly influence this relationship. Institutionalized military education, consumer capitalism, and the military’s institutional command hierarchy, ordered according to weight, establish the opportunities and constraints that frame the current realities in military-media relations.

Contemporary Politics, 2024

Variation in election boycotts in Africa and the Middle East raise the question of the factors th... more Variation in election boycotts in Africa and the Middle East raise the
question of the factors that influence the likelihood of boycotts.
Examining this dynamic in Africa, the Middle East and around the
globe, we explore one possible factor influencing national election
boycotts: the relative level of popular support between the regime
and opposition. Utilising the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem)
dataset, we find that when the regime has greater popular support
than the opposition, the likelihood of major boycotts is low. In
contrast, when the opposition has more popular support than the
regime at the point of election, the likelihood of boycotts increases.
These findings highlight the importance of publicly observable
levels of support as a means for opposition parties to gauge the
possible payoff for boycotting, particularly in authoritarian and
hybrid regimes where lack of transparency creates uncertainty
regarding other sources of regime strength or weakness.

Beyond Piety and Politics provides a groundbreaking approach to understanding the depth and varie... more Beyond Piety and Politics provides a groundbreaking approach to understanding the depth and variety of political attitudes held by people who consider themselves to be pious Muslims. Using survey data on religious preferences and behavior, the authors argue for the relevance and importance of four outlook categories—religious individualist, social communitarian, religious communitarian, and post-Islamist—and use these to explore complex and nuanced attitudes of devout Muslims toward issues like democracy and economic distribution. They also reveal how intrafaith variation in political attitudes is not due simply to doctrinal differences but is also a product of the social aspects of religious association operating within political contexts. By highlighting the dynamic societal and political implications of religious devotion, Beyond Piety and Politics offers a fascinating new theoretical perspective on Islam and politics. "Beyond Piety and Politics is an important contribution to the study of religion and politics. This well-written, carefully documented study nuances our understanding of religiosity by considering how religious groups' standings in society and vis-à-vis the state shape individuals' attitudes. It pushes the field to dismiss blunt conceptions of religiosity, focusing on how these groups navigate state and society." ~Ellen Lust, University of Gothenburg "This is an excellent and sophisticated book that examines the sources of religious preferences and outlooks. It insightfully argues that communal associations shape religious outlooks and these outlooks influence political and social worldviews. The authors advance a nuanced and context-driven understanding of religion in the everyday lives of citizens in MENA." ~Amaney A. Jamal, Edwards S. Sanford Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Princeton University

Mediterranean Politics, Jul 9, 2020

This paper highlights the intraparty institutional dynamics at play that influence Islamist party... more This paper highlights the intraparty institutional dynamics at play that influence Islamist party moderation and its manifest behaviour and ideology. We conceive of moderation as a strategically contingent act that is best explained by intraparty realities operating within particular political dynamics. This shifts the focus from the inclusion/moderation process debate and towards the discussion of party organizational capacity and social movement ties. We provide several propositions about party organizational strength, social movement linkages, and ideological legacy as determinants of Islamist party behaviour. Observations across a variety of cases support these propositions and the salience of a strategic behavioural approach to Islamist party moderation.

Comparative Kurdish Politics in the Middle East, 2018

Especially since 2014, the relations between Kurdish populations with other Kurdish cross-border ... more Especially since 2014, the relations between Kurdish populations with other Kurdish cross-border populations and neighboring states have never received more public attention. Strategic decisions made by the elites of these communities have often confounded analysts approaching the developments in Kurdish-populated areas with latent assumptions of primordial identities or at least with the assumption that peoples with shared ethnic identities will have monolithic aims and agendas. Using the rich existing theory on nationalist identity development and nationalist projects, this chapter argues that Kurdish identities, like all national identities, are political and thus, while often constructed from pre-existing elements like language, shared traditions, etc., these elements are selected or constructed contextually within a nationalist package that is glued together implicitly or explicitly by a politically and ideologically framed image of an ideal nation. With this in mind, the chapter will explore how these elite-led nationalist endeavors intersect with how these nationalist communities interact with other Kurdish nationalist communities and neighboring states. Using Mark Haas’s “ideological distance” hypothesis and its three posited causal mechanisms—demonstration effects, social identity theory, and the communications mechanism—we will discuss Kurdish cross-communal and extra-communal relations. In general, “ideological distance” seems to be a good fit in explaining the interaction between Kurdish nationalist political groups in the twenty-first century, and it also helps to explain why the current Turkish government seems to have real preferences among the various Kurdish political organizations—i.e., it appears to explain why Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) appear to have distinguished between “good Kurds” and “bad Kurds.”

Parliamentary Affairs, 2023

This article examines the influence of district-level party system dynamics on the list placement... more This article examines the influence of district-level party system dynamics on the list placement of women candidates. As local district competitive realities change, the strategic considerations for party leaders regarding the selection of non-mainstream political candidate profiles vary in important ways. We measure these dynamics with a set of novel variables that better capture variation in competition from district to district: individual party magnitude, district dominance and district contagion. Turkey's lower level of party system nationalisation between 2002 and 2018 offers a useful case for such an investigation, and results reveal both the significance and pattern of influence on women candidates for all three strategic variables.

Journal of Democracy, 2020

Mediterranean Politics, 2022

This paper highlights the intraparty institutional dynamics at play that influence Islamist party... more This paper highlights the intraparty institutional dynamics at play that influence Islamist party moderation and its manifest behaviour and ideology. We conceive of moderation as a strategically contingent act that is best explained by intraparty realities operating within particular political dynamics. This shifts the focus from the inclusion/moderation process debate and towards the discussion of party organizational capacity and social movement ties. We provide several propositions about party organizational strength, social movement linkages, and ideological legacy as determinants of Islamist party behaviour. Observations across a variety of cases support these propositions and the salience of a strategic behavioural approach to Islamist party moderation.

Political Research Quarterly, 2019

Despite a wealth of studies examining Muslim religiosity and democracy, uncertainty regarding Isl... more Despite a wealth of studies examining Muslim religiosity and democracy, uncertainty regarding Islam and attitudes toward democracy remains. Although the claims concerning the incompatibility of Islam and democracy are generally discarded, public opinion scholarship has yet to build much further from this important first step or incorporate a strong theoretical framework for analysis beyond this basic foundation. This paper seeks to integrate literature in social theory on religious worldviews with novel conceptualizations and measurement of distinct religious outlooks among the religious faithful to explain patterns in attitudes toward democracy. We construct a theory with clear expectations regarding these relationships and use the largest and best available survey data (Arab Democracy Barometer, Wave III) to test our predictions using latent class analysis and a series of multivariate regression estimations. The results of our empirical analysis reveal that there are important differences among practicing Muslims regarding the role that religion should play in the social realm and that these differences are relevant to the analysis of how faith shapes preferences for regime type and democracy. The analysis makes a significant contribution to the study of religion and political attitudes.

British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 2021

In Turkey, the number of women in the Grand National Assembly has drastically increased from 24 i... more In Turkey, the number of women in the Grand National Assembly has drastically increased from 24 in 2002 to 104 as of the June election of 2018. To date, the explanations for this rise and women’s emergence and placement on candidate lists have been inadequate. This study examines these dynamics more closely to attend to the strategic decision-making by the AKP’s central party leadership. Using an original dataset, I analyse placement patterns for AKP women candidates across the country from November 2002 to June 2018. The results show that the consequences of dominant party status along with other strategic considerations have allowed the AKP to field women candidates in ways that parties preceding them could not. Their strategic placement of women as candidates is shown to have facilitated substantive gains but also highlights important limitations to the advancement of women’s access to national political power in Turkey.

Indiana University Press, May 3, 2022

Beyond Piety and Politics provides a groundbreaking approach to understanding the depth and varie... more Beyond Piety and Politics provides a groundbreaking approach to understanding the depth and variety of political attitudes held by people who consider themselves to be pious Muslims. Using survey data on religious preferences and behavior, the authors argue for the relevance and importance of four outlook categories—religious individualist, social communitarian, religious communitarian, and post-Islamist—and use these to explore complex and nuanced attitudes of devout Muslims toward issues like democracy and economic distribution. They also reveal how intrafaith variation in political attitudes is not due simply to doctrinal differences but is also a product of the social aspects of religious association operating within political contexts.

By highlighting the dynamic societal and political implications of religious devotion, Beyond Piety and Politics offers a fascinating new theoretical perspective on Islam and politics.

"Beyond Piety and Politics is an important contribution to the study of religion and politics. This well-written, carefully documented study nuances our understanding of religiosity by considering how religious groups' standings in society and vis-à-vis the state shape individuals' attitudes. It pushes the field to dismiss blunt conceptions of religiosity, focusing on how these groups navigate state and society."
~Ellen Lust, University of Gothenburg

"This is an excellent and sophisticated book that examines the sources of religious preferences and outlooks. It insightfully argues that communal associations shape religious outlooks and these outlooks influence political and social worldviews. The authors advance a nuanced and context-driven understanding of religion in the everyday lives of citizens in MENA."
~Amaney A. Jamal, Edwards S. Sanford Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Princeton University

Syracuse University Press, 2015

What determines voting behavior in Turkey? At a time when the center-right, religious-conservativ... more What determines voting behavior in Turkey? At a time when the center-right, religious-conservative leadership of the Justice and Development Party has dominated government and the political scene in Turkey—so much so that the democratic credentials of the regime have come into question—many have sought to understand what undergirds this party’s success at the polls. While many scholars have argued that elections in Turkey over time can be effectively and simply explained by static social or cultural cleavages, Wuthrich challenges these assertions with a framework that carefully attends to patterns of strategic vote-getting behavior in elections by political parties and their leaders.

Using the campaign speeches of the political elite, election data at national and provincial levels, and careful observations of voter mobilization strategies across time, Wuthrich traces four distinct patterns that explain important shifts in electoral behavior. He covers the first free and fair multiparty election in 1950 and follows campaign strategies through 2011, highlighting and explaining the potential development of a new and more problematic paradigm emerging in the post-2007 environment.

"Politicians as well as scholars who view the Turkish political landscape with unease because of the direction that the seemingly unchallenged Islamists led by Erdogan are taking the country will benefit from Wuthrich’s insights."—Middle East Quarterly

"Overall, National Elections in Turkey makes a strong case against a culturalist reading of Turkish politics. It will be a useful resource for scholars looking for a historical narrative and descriptive analysis of the Turkish electoral system, party politics, and voter behavior."—International Journal of Middle East Studies

"Skillfully takes to task several assumptions about political dynamics in Turkey long thought to be true. The arguments developed are persuasively substantiated by drawing upon several works by prominent scholars."—Metin Heper, author of The State and the Kurds in Turkey: The Question of Assimilation

"An important and timely subject. . . . Wuthrich has framed his study and findings in an original way, providing fresh insight and suggesting new ways of understanding party politics in Turkey."—Sabri Sayari, coauthor of The Routledge Handbook of Modern Turkey

Comparative Kurdish Politics in the Middle East: Actors, Ideas, and Interests, 2018

Especially since 2014, the relations between Kurdish populations with other Kurdish cross-border ... more Especially since 2014, the relations between Kurdish populations with other Kurdish cross-border populations and neighboring states have never received more public attention. Strategic decisions made by the elites of these communities have often confounded analysts approaching the developments in Kurdish-populated areas with latent assumptions of primordial identities or at least with the assumption that peoples with shared ethnic identities will have monolithic aims and agendas. Using the rich existing theory on nationalist identity development and nationalist projects, this chapter argues that Kurdish identities, like all national identities, are political and thus, while often constructed from pre-existing elements like language, shared traditions, etc., these elements are selected or constructed contextually within a nationalist package that is glued together implicitly or explicitly by a politically and ideologically framed image of an ideal nation. With this in mind, the chapter will explore how these elite-led nationalist endeavors intersect with how these nationalist communities interact with other Kurdish nationalist communities and neighboring states. Using Mark Haas’s “ideological distance” hypothesis and its three posited causal mechanisms—demonstration effects, social identity theory, and the communications mechanism—we will discuss Kurdish cross-communal and extra-communal relations. In general, “ideological distance” seems to be a good fit in explaining the interaction between Kurdish nationalist political groups in the twenty-first century, and it also helps to explain why the current Turkish government seems to have real preferences among the various Kurdish political organizations—i.e., it appears to explain why Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) appear to have distinguished between “good Kurds” and “bad Kurds.”

Party Politics in Turkey: A Comparative Perspective, 2018

Conflict, Democratization, and the Kurds in the Middle East, 2014

his edited volume contains a collection of essays from many of the most well-known, accomplished ... more his edited volume contains a collection of essays from many of the most well-known, accomplished scholars working on the Kurdish issue and questions of democratization. It is divided into four sections. Section I focuses on the Kurds and barriers to democratization and democratic deficits in Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria. Section II, "Democracy in Divided Societies," turns to existing academic literature, theories, and examples of multiethnic societies and democratic transitions for guidance. Section III, "The Kurds and Democratization," attempts to place more emphasis on Kurdish demands and the possibilities for democratization in Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria. The final, fourth section of the volume draws readers' attention to the transborder nature of the Kurdish issue and how events in South, North, West, and East Kurdistan all impact each other. Contributors to the first section of the volume, "Authoritarianism and the Kurds," were asked to focus on the ways in which the Kurdish issue in Turkey, Iraq, Iran, or Syria was securitized and served to hinder democratization. All four contributors to this section were thus asked to focus a bit more on the negative side of a complex, multifaceted issue. Chapter 1, by Michael Gunter, therefore concentrates on the "deep state" in Turkey, and how until quite recently an unelected shadow state of elites in that country prevented any democratic reforms that might recognize the Kurds, return to them their rights, and truly incorporate them into the political system. Chapter 2, by Ozum Yesiltas, focuses on how Arab nationalists there viewed any compromise with the Kurds as the beginning of a slippery slope toward Kurdish secession, leading to a long history of authoritarian repression and

Middle Eastern Studies, 2012

The fact that a population of an estimated 25 million people, sharing a rich spectrum of culture ... more The fact that a population of an estimated 25 million people, sharing a rich spectrum of culture and linguistic roots and occupying a very blurry-in boundary and ethnic composition-but contiguous geography divided across a number of nations would garner attention from both social scientists and policy makers should be no real surprise. Since Saddam Hussein's Anfal campaign against Kurds in Northern Iraq in the late 1980s and particularly following the First Gulf War, the literature on Kurds and Kurdish nationalism has greatly been enriched. In the last several years, a number of books have furthered this literature by addressing the 'Kurdish Question' in whole or in part through engagement with recent developments and theory, and focusing on Kurds located from Turkey and Iraq to Syria and the European diaspora. This review intends to highlight two recent collected works, particularly in regard to their contribution to the literature on Kurds and Kurdish nationalism. One of the two edited volumes, Nationalisms and Politics in Turkey: Political Islam, Kemalism and the Kurdish Issue, edited by Marlies Casier and Joost Jongerden, focuses primarily on Turkey and the country's Kurdish diaspora in Europe, along with a number of variants of Turkish nationalism that dynamically interact with Kurdish nationalism in Turkey. 1 The other work, The Kurdish Policy Imperative, edited by Robert Lowe and Gareth Stansfield, is comprised of essays on the 'Kurdish Question' in the four major countries in which Kurds have traditionally had claims for territorial roots: Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria. 2 Since these works offer a combined total of 24 distinct essays, rather than deal with these sequentially, the major issues and contributions will be discussed along with a number of important remaining gaps in the literature. While the edited work by Casier and Jongerden also offers chapters on competing Turkish nationalisms stemming from Kemalist and Islamic interpretations by Menderes Ç ınar and Murat Somer, along with a chapter on border imagery and nationalism by Ferhat Kentel and the 'Turkish diaspora' by Ayhan Kaya, this book's primary contribution comes from its essays addressing various aspects of the 'Kurdish Question' as it relates to Turkey, which comprise a majority of the chapters. Within the portion of the book devoted to Kurdish nationalism, there is a section that addresses how 'the State' and political elites have responded to the issue

Turkish Studies, 2021

Ersin Kalaycıoğlu and Ali Çarkoğlu, who conducted surveys comparable to the American National Ele... more Ersin Kalaycıoğlu and Ali Çarkoğlu, who conducted surveys comparable to the American National Election Survey for the 2002 and 2015 national elections in Turkey, chart the dynamics that brought the pro-Islamist conservative Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi-AKP) to power in 2002, and that continue to influence electoral politics. The authors trace the uneven course of democratization in Turkey, as revealed through elections, since the first competitive, multi-party elections in 1950. Since the market liberalization reforms of 1980, Turkey has been rapidly evolving from a closed, agricultural, comparatively underdeveloped polity into an open and industrial state primarily integrated with the global economy. Kalaycıoğlu and Çarkoğlu analyze different dimensions of five elections surveys in 2002-2015 period to show how the consequent socio-economic changes and traditional socio-cultural divisions have affected elections, political parties, and individual voters. The authors conclude that the historical-cultural divide between rural, peripheral, conservative groups and more urban, centrist, and modernized groups not only persists but shapes elections more than ever. This book not only provides an original comprehensive and critical evaluation of the Turkish electoral and party politics, it also offers a case study of voting behavior in a state undergoing both democratization and market liberalization in a rapidly changing and volatile international environment.

Middle Eastern Studies, 2010

Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, 2010

Supplemental material, abIIICode for Islam, Religious Outlooks, and Support for Democracy by Sabr... more Supplemental material, abIIICode for Islam, Religious Outlooks, and Support for Democracy by Sabri Ciftci, F. Michael Wuthrich and Ammar Shamaileh in Political Research Quarterly

Supplemental material, additionalmodels for Islam, Religious Outlooks, and Support for Democracy ... more Supplemental material, additionalmodels for Islam, Religious Outlooks, and Support for Democracy by Sabri Ciftci, F. Michael Wuthrich and Ammar Shamaileh in Political Research Quarterly

Supplemental material, classprobabilities for Islam, Religious Outlooks, and Support for Democrac... more Supplemental material, classprobabilities for Islam, Religious Outlooks, and Support for Democracy by Sabri Ciftci, F. Michael Wuthrich and Ammar Shamaileh in Political Research Quarterly

Supplemental material, Readme for Islam, Religious Outlooks, and Support for Democracy by Sabri C... more Supplemental material, Readme for Islam, Religious Outlooks, and Support for Democracy by Sabri Ciftci, F. Michael Wuthrich and Ammar Shamaileh in Political Research Quarterly

Supplemental material, PRQ_Supplemental_File_Final for Islam, Religious Outlooks, and Support for... more Supplemental material, PRQ_Supplemental_File_Final for Islam, Religious Outlooks, and Support for Democracy by Sabri Ciftci, F. Michael Wuthrich and Ammar Shamaileh in Political Research Quarterly

Supplemental material, figures for Islam, Religious Outlooks, and Support for Democracy by Sabri ... more Supplemental material, figures for Islam, Religious Outlooks, and Support for Democracy by Sabri Ciftci, F. Michael Wuthrich and Ammar Shamaileh in Political Research Quarterly

Supplemental material, LCAandmodels for Islam, Religious Outlooks, and Support for Democracy by S... more Supplemental material, LCAandmodels for Islam, Religious Outlooks, and Support for Democracy by Sabri Ciftci, F. Michael Wuthrich and Ammar Shamaileh in Political Research Quarterly