Kerem Oktem | Università Ca' Foscari Venezia (original) (raw)

Book chapters by Kerem Oktem

Neo-Ottoman Imaginaries in Contemporary Turkey. Gendered Discourses, Agencies, and Visions, 2023

This chapter examines Turkey’s recent transformation in the domain of representative state archit... more This chapter examines Turkey’s recent transformation in the domain of representative state architecture. The emphasis is on Istanbul and Ankara—once the showcase of Kemalist nation-building and its secular republican tenets—focusing on the "grand projects" of urban transformation, mosques, palaces, and public buildings, which have effectively challenged the city’s modernist appearance. All these projects have been framed by the desire of consecutive AKP governments to insert into Turkey’s supposedly secular cityscapes structures that represent an Ottoman-Islamist identity proposal. In addition to these "sacralising" projects, the nation-builders of the AKP also seek to replace, or at least symbolically diminish the built environment of the early Kemalist republic and its messages of secularist modernity. The chapter examines the discursive dimension of this re-sacralisation of secular spaces in the speeches of President Erdoğan, while it discusses the "ritual economy" that makes mosque-building a central node in Turkey’s current regime of neoliberal authoritarianism.

Turkish Jews and their Diasporas. Entanglements and Separations, 2022

In “Entangled sovereignties: Turkish Jewish spaces in Israel”, Kerem Öktem introduces Israel’s co... more In “Entangled sovereignties: Turkish Jewish spaces in Israel”, Kerem Öktem introduces Israel’s complex Turkish Jewish community in the context of rising Jewish emigration from Turkey, exploring the impact of geopolitics and the competing sovereign projects of Turkey and Israel on Turkish Jews’ everyday life in Israel. The ‘Association for people from Turkey in Israel’ (Israil’deki Türkiyeliler Birliği, Itahdut Yotsey Turkiya Bel Israel) is examined as the foremost Turkish-Jewish space in Israel, where the sovereign projects of Turkey and Israel intersect, become entangled, and sometimes clash, and where the borders between Turkey and Israel, between ‘domestic’ and ‘external’ become permeable. Employing the notion of ‘sensitive spaces’, in which such entanglement and competition creates several insecurities, he discusses how individuals negotiate the complexities of a situation where—at least currently antagonistic—ideologies (Kemalism as well as Neo-Ottomanism in Turkey and Zionism in Israel) compete for authority over their subjects. Less geo-strategically overdetermined performances of Turkish Jewishness take place in more intimate spaces like Turkish synagogues and circles of friends.

Oxford Handbook on Turkish Politics (ed. by Tezcur, Gunes Murat) , 2020

This chapter examines the continuities and ruptures in Turkey's ruling ideologies. Rather than en... more This chapter examines the continuities and ruptures in Turkey's ruling ideologies. Rather than engaging in a detailed study of each of the major ideological traditions-Ittihadism, Kemalism, Turkism, centre-right politics, and political Is-lam, which merit dedicated studies of their own evolution, this essay seeks to understand the logics of power and statecraft, which are common to these ideologies that came to power in different periods of modern Turkish history. The ascent to power of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) and its political conduct only reinforces this chapter's core argument that groups in power have acted in comparable, if not similar, ways to organize and maintain power in society despite their ideological differences. The control and instrumentalization of the state apparatus is central to the pursuit of the maintenance of power. This pursuit has reflected the Janus-faced nature of the Turkish state as authoritarian (and with reference to its illicit operations as 'deep state '-derin devlet-) but also as paternalistic, providing and all-embracing 'father state '(devlet baba). On the one hand, it entails an amal-gam of coercive and often destructive policies to oppress dissent. On the other, it involves more integrative policies of a service state. Some of these conceptual building blocks of modern Turkey and its ruling ideologies began to lose their prevalence during the exceptional reform period in the late 1990s and early 2000s induced by the prospect of European Union membership, but have since been restored as power has been consolidated in the hands of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Routledge Handbook on Middle East Cities (ed. by Haim Yacobi and Mansour Nasasra), 2019

Turkey's cities have gone through several transformative periods and waves of modernisation in th... more Turkey's cities have gone through several transformative periods and waves of modernisation in the last two centuries. In an almost dialectical process, the modern experience was shaped by the interplay of destruction of older structures and the construction of new ones, in architectural as well as in societal and discursive terms. 2 In this seesaw of destruction and construction, the issue of scale has been central: urban interventions created new spaces and destroyed old ones, but due to limited capital and state weakness, they never resulted in a total transformation of urban structures. Until the early years of the twenty-first century and despite waves of heightened urban reconstruction, cities in Turkey displayed recognisable patterns and forms shaped over long periods of time and accentuated during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Urban policies were a reflection of the economic and political structures of the day, while the resulting cityscapes were an amalgam of the many historical and architectural layers they were built on. Like most cities in empires, Ottoman cities were palimpsests written and rewritten by many generations of authors. These urban, spatial, and social palimpsests have survived almost two centuries of enforced and often ideologically charged attempts at modernisation, including episodes of forced uprooting , continuous destruction, genocide, and the targeting of the heritage of non-Muslim and sometimes even of Muslim communities. Despite the rapid transformations engendered by these policies and despite the cumulative destruction of subaltern lifeworlds, a tradition of Ottoman and Turkish urbanity and sociability remained to the extent that in the 1990s Juan Goytisolo could still speak of Istanbul in terms of a "Palimpsest City", where "new arrivals stand and listen to a polyglot text, babel of languages, language of the stones, tracing the unwritten history of the city founded twenty-seven centuries ago, according to the promptings of an oracle" (Goytisolo, 2003: 72). In this chapter, I argue that these complex and delicate palimpsests and the nested sociabilities they come with are being eradicated, in a final grandiose stand of capital gone out of control and political power destroying the foundations of the Turkish state. I try to show this by tracing the emergence of what I term the "populist urban growth machine" and its evolution into a Leviathan that eventually devours everything, including itself. I also contextualise the efface-ment of difference and the destruction of urban heterogeneity in the context of debates on urbicide and larger trends of neo-liberal urban policies in the region and beyond, concluding with the question whether, despite effacement and commodification, parts of the palimpsests 20 ERASING PALIMPSEST CITY Boom, bust, and urbicide in Turkey 1 Kerem Öktem

Attraktionen und Irritationen. Europe und sein Südosten im langen 19. Jahrhundert , 2019

Prinz Sabahattin 3 gilt als der Begründer der liberalen Tradition im Osmanischen Reich und der Tü... more Prinz Sabahattin 3 gilt als der Begründer der liberalen Tradition im Osmanischen Reich und der Tür-kei. Unter den Osmanisch-Muslimischen Intellektuellen seiner Zeit war er wohl der jene, der die Idee einer Zuwendung auf ein liberales, inklusives Europa am vehementesten vertrat. Dieser Bei-trag zeichnet, nach einer kurzen Diskussion der Begrifflichkeit der Europäisierung bzw. Verwestli-chung im Osmanischen Reich des 19. Jahrhunderts, das Wirken des Prinzen nach und setzt es in den Kontext der konkurrierenden und letztlich siegreichen Fraktionen in der jungtürkischen Bewe-gung. Europäisierung oder Verwestlichung? Modernisierungsdebatten im Osmanischen Reich Im Osmanischen Kontext des 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhunderts, aber auch im späteren türkischen Kontext der Modernisierung war der Bezug auf Europa eindeutig. Ideen für eine Modernisierung des Osmanischen Staates kamen vor allem aus Frankreich, und zu einem kleineren Teil aus Groß-britannien. Auch Ideen aus Deutschland, besonders die eines ethnischen und romantischen Natio-nenverständnisses waren verbreitet, besonders unter den Studenten der Kaiserlichen Militärakade-mien, in denen auch zahlreiche Dozenten aus Deutschland Lehraufträge innehatten. 4 Trotzdem war weder im Osmanischen Reich noch in der Kemalistischen Republik von einer "Europäisierung"-das türkische Wort hierfür ist Avrupalılaşma-die Rede. Stattdessen sprach man von einer "Wester-nisierung" oder "Verwestlichung", mit dem Osmanischen Synonym Garplılaşma und dem moder-nen türkischen Batılılaşma. Dieser Unterschied zwischen "Europäisierung" und "Verwestlichung" ist bedeutend und weist auf die konfliktreiche Geschichte der Osmanischen Modernisierung im langen 19. und im frühen im 3 Für diesen Beitrag verwende ich die deutsche bzw. moderne türkische Schreibweise für den Namen Sa-bahattin. In einigen englisch-sprachigen Zitaten erscheint der Name aber als Sabahaddin. 4 M. Şükrü Hanioğlu, Atatürk. Visionär einer modernen Türkei von (Aus dem Englisch übersetzt von Tobias Gabel), Darmstadt 2015

YEARBOOK OF MUSLIMS IN EUROPE, 2016

and Associate of the Centre of International Studies, University of Oxford. I would like to thank... more and Associate of the Centre of International Studies, University of Oxford. I would like to thank Mag. Güler Alkan (University of Graz) for her meticulous research for this entry.

Papers by Kerem Oktem

Social Research. an International Quarterly, 2022

In this paper, I examine the case of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality and the attempt to cr... more In this paper, I examine the case of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality and the attempt to create a democratic polity under the conditions of authoritarianism. With this goal in mind, I engage with a niche in the democratization literature that looks at subnational democracies in authoritarian settings, suggesting that the case lends itself to three interpretative lenses: "democratic enclaves" (Gilley 2010) suggest that some forms of democratic process can survive on the subnational level even under conditions of authoritarianism, and "springboard politics" (Lucardi 2016) pertains to the expectation that opposition municipalities serve as power bases from which opposition leaders and parties seek to expand their power. A third frame pertains to the dynamics of political survival under the "nested games of democratization by elections" (Schedler 2002). I argue that these three dynamics are present in the case of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality. At the same time, they are also at the root of a set of democratic dilemmas that subnational opposition politics face under conditions of authoritarianism, and which may force opposition politicians to compromise on core values such as transparency and accountability, and lead them prematurely to a jump into national politics.

New Perspectives on Turkey, 2021

Today Turkey is one of the few Muslim-majority countries in which same-sex sexual acts, counterno... more Today Turkey is one of the few Muslim-majority countries in which same-sex sexual acts, counternormative sexual identities, and expressions of gender nonconformism are not illegal, yet are heavily constrained and controlled by state institutions, police forces, and public prosecutors. For more than a decade Turkey has been experiencing a “queer turn”—an unprecedented push in the visibility and empowerment of queerness, the proliferation of sexual rights organizations and forms of sociabilities, and the dissemination of elements of queer culture—that has engendered both scholarly and public attention for sexual dissidents and gender non-conforming individuals and their lifeworlds, while it has also created new spaces and venues for their self-organization and mobilization. At the point of knowledge production and writing, this visibility and the possible avenues of empowerment that it might provide have been in jeopardy: not only do they appear far from challenging the dominant norms of the body, gender, and sexuality, but queerness, in all its dimensions, has become a preferred target for Islamist politics, conservative revanchism, and populist politicians.

Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, 2021

Der Orient (III, 31-38). , 2019

In 2016, Karabekir Akkoyunlu and I argued that Turkey has seen a radical authoritarian shift “to... more In 2016, Karabekir Akkoyunlu and I argued that Turkey has seen a radical authoritarian shift

“to the extent that we can safely assert the country is now in the process of exiting the most basic provisions of a democratic regime, i.e. a level playing field for incumbents and challengers in electoral campaigning, the safe transfer of power after a loss of elections and a minimum consideration by those in power for society as a whole rather than exclusively for their clients”.

The article’s title ‘Exit from Democracy’ alarmed the journal’s editor, who was concerned that it may be perceived as polemical or biased. Thankfully, we were allowed to keep the title at a time, when many authors were trying to make sense of Turkey’s political transformation with reference to the literatures on the ‘decline of democracy’ or ‘competitive authoritarianism’. Yet these literatures, based as they are on decades of surveys and case studies of democratisation and concerned with issues of nomenclature and ideal typologies, face formidable constraints in explaining cases of semi-revolutionary regime change as has been the case in Turkey at least since the repeat elections of November 2015.

The Political Quarterly, 2017

To make sense of Turkey’s troubledcurrent history under the conditions ofdemocratic decline, Euro... more To make sense of Turkey’s troubledcurrent history under the conditions ofdemocratic decline, European crises andshort-sighted realpolitik is no mean feat, particularly when the author still lives in Turkey. Ece Temelkuran, one of the most accomplished journalists of her generation has done precisely that. The result is an intensely personal and highly emotional account of a country set for self-destruction.In an intriguing tour de force, Temelkuransweeps through more than two-hundred years of the country’s contested history of modernisation and its discontents.

The Turkish Intermezzo in the Middle East. Neo-Imperialism, Political Islam and the AKP between F... more The Turkish Intermezzo in the Middle East. Neo-Imperialism, Political Islam and the AKP between Farce and Tragedy

Turkey is often seen as an external actor in the discussion of the Arab uprisings. This paper suggests otherwise and argues that it is the interplay between the Arab uprisings and Erdogan’s Islamist project for power that explains Turkey’s recent exit from democracy. The uprisings, therefore, mark the end of Turkey’s contested democratic path dependency of more than sixty years. They also signal a new family resemblance with the
authoritarian systems of the Middle East.

Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, 2016

This paper seeks to explain Turkey’s rapid de-democratization from the conceptual perspective of ... more This paper seeks to explain Turkey’s rapid de-democratization from the conceptual perspective of existential insecurity, which accounts for the unwillingness of incumbents to share or relinquish power. The Kemalist era, the multi-party period and the early AKP era have all shown elements of the radicalizing effects of political insecurity and the weak institutions which stem from them. The concurrence of a revisionist Islamist project and geopolitical and ideological crises in Turkey’s overlapping neighbourhoods, however, have driven existential angst and insecurity among the incumbents to novel proportions. Under the conditions of this aggravated insecurity, the consolidation of a stable authoritarian regime appears unlikely, reducing the possible scenarios for Turkey’s immediate future to a weak and contested authoritarian arrangement or further escalation of conflict and instability.

This essay gives a synoptic overview of what we will describe as Turkey’s ‘exit from democracy’, ... more This essay gives a synoptic overview of what we will describe as Turkey’s ‘exit from democracy’, a shift to authoritarianism and an Islamist ‘revolution from above’ that comes on the back of a much longer ‘passive revolution’. Secondly, it engages with the ideas and papers emanating from an International Symposium on ‘Populism, majoritarianism and crises of liberal democracy’, which the authors convened at the University of Graz in October 2015.

Since the coming to power of the Justice and Development Party [Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP] ... more Since the coming to power of the Justice and Development Party [Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP] in 2002, Turkish foreign policy has witnessed significant changes. After the euphoric years of foreign policy pro-activism geared towards the global expansion of Turkey’s influence, domestic and regional developments have raised questions concerning Ankara’s capacity to achieve its ambitious foreign policy goals. Parallel to the “rise and fall” of Turkish foreign policy, a similar cycle can be observed regarding the discourse on Turkey’s “soft power”. This paper seeks to appraise Turkey’s “soft power” and “model” discourses by establishing the chronology of their emergence and highlighting the multidimensional structure of their production. The authors argue that the discourses on Turkey’s “soft power” are created within a triadic system of discourse production. This system works through the domains of think tanks, academia, and foreign policy actors in Turkey and beyond. These domains are bound to each other through reciprocal relations of interest and are negotiated by gatekeepers, i.e. well-connected persons of influence. Turkey’s “soft power” discourse is as much a product of Turkish foreign policy itself as it is a product of Turkey’s relations with the United States (US). Circulating through these different domains, and being appropriated by a large number of actors with differing and sometimes contradictory interests, these discourses, reconstructed by the authors in this study, are highly permeable, diverse, and unstable. For a brief period, they did, however, collectively contribute to the emergence of an almost hegemonic discourse on Turkey’s soft power, thereby reinforcing the AKP regime at the beginning of the 2010s.

Neo-Ottoman Imaginaries in Contemporary Turkey. Gendered Discourses, Agencies, and Visions, 2023

Turkish Jews and their Diasporas. Entanglements and Separations, 2022

Oxford Handbook on Turkish Politics (ed. by Tezcur, Gunes Murat) , 2020

Routledge Handbook on Middle East Cities (ed. by Haim Yacobi and Mansour Nasasra), 2019

Attraktionen und Irritationen. Europe und sein Südosten im langen 19. Jahrhundert , 2019

YEARBOOK OF MUSLIMS IN EUROPE, 2016

Social Research. an International Quarterly, 2022

New Perspectives on Turkey, 2021

Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, 2021

Der Orient (III, 31-38). , 2019

In 2016, Karabekir Akkoyunlu and I argued that Turkey has seen a radical authoritarian shift “to... more In 2016, Karabekir Akkoyunlu and I argued that Turkey has seen a radical authoritarian shift

The Political Quarterly, 2017

Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, 2016

The year 2015 marked the centenary of the Armenian Genocide, the destruction of the Ottoman Armen... more The year 2015 marked the centenary of the Armenian Genocide, the destruction of the Ottoman Armenians by the Committee of Union and Progress and the Ottoman state apparatus, and one of the first mass murders of the twentieth century. Last year saw unprecedented media focus and wider discussion of the tragedy, its legacies, and wider reflections about the interface of historical memory and national state projects. The Armenian Genocide is an interesting case study not just in and of itself, but in its unmitigated denial by Turkish state actors and the complicity of the international community in its almost complete erasure from history.

The centenary of the Genocide, however, constituted a turning point in witnessing a clear proliferation in cultural production on this theme, including these four books. Each is important
in its own right and remit, and each contributes to the field and reflects the achievements in genocide scholarship over the last decade.

Kasbarian and Öktem explore the extent to which ‘political friendships’ between Armenians, Turks ... more Kasbarian and Öktem explore the extent to which ‘political friendships’ between Armenians, Turks and Kurds—members of communities antagonized by the traumatic experience of genocide—can subvert hegemonic power arrangements of
denial and nationalist mobilization. Based on participant observation and in-depth interviews with a group of Armenians and Turks in London, their paper explores how the members of this group experienced a transformation of their subject positions by facing each other’s stories, gradually overcoming insecurities and fears of the Other.
This dynamic process precipitated a shift of position, individually and collectively, enabling the formation of a community that acted beyond the confines of the reigning logics of nationalist projects. They argue that, in the relatively level playing field of the
transnational, political and other friendships can develop to the point of becoming ‘moral communities’ that challenge established status quos and unequal power relations. Friendship and interpersonal relations that transgress these boundaries
undermine reigning discourses and are, ultimately, political acts. However, these ‘low’ politics interactions still face the reality of ‘high’ politics, structured by the actions of
an overbearing and semi-democratic Turkish state, the political expedience of third countries and a factious Armenian diaspora.

Turkey's relations with the Muslim communities of Southeast Europe have changed significantly sin... more Turkey's relations with the Muslim communities of Southeast Europe have changed significantly since the early 2000s, when Turkish actors largely replaced Wahhabi and Salafi missionaries. This paper discusses four domains of the new Turkish presence: The intellectual and political networks in the Balkans around Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu; non-conventional foreign policy actors of the Turkish state such as the Turkish Development Agency (TIKA) and the Presidency of Religious Affairs (Diyanet); and finally Islamic grassroots organisations, such as the Gülen movement. United by a common imaginary of neo-Ottomanism', these actors have contributed to the strengthening of the established Islamic communities and to the visibility of the Ottoman tradition of Hanafi Islam in the Balkans.

Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, Jan 1, 2011

European Journal of Turkish Studies. Social Sciences …, Jan 1, 2009

La pensée de midi, Jan 1, 2009

Distribution électronique Cairn.info pour Actes sud. © Actes sud. Tous droits réservés pour tous ... more Distribution électronique Cairn.info pour Actes sud. © Actes sud. Tous droits réservés pour tous pays.

Journal of Multicultural Discourses, Jan 1, 2010

Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, Jan 1, 2006

Cities, Jan 1, 2005

This paper deals with antagonistic conceptualisations of a city, its urban space and its rural hi... more This paper deals with antagonistic conceptualisations of a city, its urban space and its rural hinterland and the underlying political positions. It inquires into the struggle over the symbols, meanings and images, and ultimately over the right to possess a multi-ethnic and multi-religious city in the context of an eroding project of exclusionist nation-building after the containment of an ethnic conflict. The central argument of the paper is that the mitigation of conflict provides a new space in which different subject positions and political movements can be re-articulated, in order to create new hegemonic configurations of power that might open up trajectories for negotiation, which can potentially subvert relations of domination and subordination. The paper discusses the case of Mardin, a city at the Turco-Syrian border, with a conceptual framework based on the notions of imperial heritage, ethnocracy and hegemony, which are mobilised to reconstruct and discuss three relevant positions. With this framework, a perspective is developed, which sees urban space as a site in which hegemonic struggles over meaning and processes of discursive and material appropriation crystallise.

Turkish Jews and their Diasporas. Entanglements and Separations, 2022

This book introduces the reader to the past and present of Jewish life in Turkey and to Turkish J... more This book introduces the reader to the past and present of Jewish life in Turkey and to Turkish Jewish diaspora communities in Israel, Europe, Latin America and the United States. It surveys the history of Jews in the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic, examining the survival of Jewish communities during the dissolution of the empire and their emigration to America, Europe, and Israel. In the cases discussed, members of these communities often sought and seek close connections with Turkey, even if those ‘ties that bind’ are rarely reciprocated by Turkish governments. Contributors also explore Turkish Jewishness today, as it is lived in Israel and Turkey, and as found in ‘places of memory’ in many cities in Turkey, where Jews no longer exist today.

Exit from Democracy. Illiberal Governance in Turkey and Beyond, 2018

Democratic government is facing unprecedented challenges at a global scale. Yet, Turkey's descent... more Democratic government is facing unprecedented challenges at a global scale. Yet, Turkey's descent into conflict, crisis and autocracy is exceptional. Only a few years ago, the country was praised as a successful Muslim-majority democracy and a promising example of sustainable growth. In Turkey’s Exit from Democracy, the contributors argue that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the Justice and Development Party government have now effectively abandoned the realm of democratic politics by attempting regime change with the aim to install a hyper-presidentialist system. Examining how this power grab comes at the tail end of more than a decade of seemingly democratic politics, the contributors also explore the mechanisms of de-democratization through two distinctive, but interrelated angles: A set of comparative analyses explores illiberal forms of governance in Turkey, Russia, Southeast Europe and Latin America. In-depth studies analyse how Turkey's society has been reshaped in the image of a patriarchal habitus and how consent has been fabricated through religious, educational, ethnic and civil society policies. Despite this comprehensive authoritarian shift, the result is not authoritarian consolidation, but a deeply divided and contested polity. Analysing an early example of democratic decline and authoritarian politics, this volume is relevant well beyond the confines of regional studies. Turkey exemplifies the larger forces of de-democratization at play globally. Turkey’s Exit from Democracy provides the reader with generalizable insights into these transformative processes. These chapters were originally published as a special issue in Southeast European and Black Sea Studies.

Der Band präsentiert einen Querschnitt einer jungen, gegenwartsbezogenen Türkeiforschung. Im Zent... more Der Band präsentiert einen Querschnitt einer jungen, gegenwartsbezogenen Türkeiforschung. Im Zentrum steht dabei die Spannung zwischen repressiver Staatsideologie und kultureller und gesellschaftlicher Vielfalt, zwischen der Verfestigung autoritärer, neopatrimonialer Strukturen während der Regierungszeit der AKP unter Tayyip Erdoğan und vielfältigen Formen des Widerstands.

Viele der Beiträge reagieren direkt oder indirekt auf die gewaltsame Niederschlagung der Gezi-Proteste im Juni 2013 und beleuchten aus einer interdisziplinären Perspektive das Scheitern des neoliberalen Arrangements sowie die vehement geführten Auseinandersetzungen um Geschlechterrollen und ethnische und religiöse Identitäten.

With the end of the First World War, the centuries-old social fabric of the Ottoman world, an ent... more With the end of the First World War, the centuries-old social fabric of the Ottoman world, an entangled space of religious co-existence throughout the Balkans and the Middle East came to its definitive end. In this new study, Hans-Lukas Kieser argues that while the Ottoman Empire officially ended in 1922, when the Turkish nationalists in Ankara abolished the Sultanate, the essence of its imperial character was destroyed in 1915 when the Young Turk regime eradicated the Armenians from Asia Minor. This book analyses the dynamics and processes that led to genocide and left behind today s crisis-ridden post-Ottoman Middle East. Going beyond Istanbul, the book also studies three different but entangled late Ottoman areas: Palestine, the largely Kurdo-Armenian eastern provinces and the Aegean shores; all of which were confronted with new claims from national movements that questioned the Ottoman state. All would remain regions of conflict up to the present day.Using new primary material, World War I and the End of the Ottoman World brings together analysis of the key forces which undermined an empire, and marks an important new contribution to the study of the Ottoman world and the Middle East.

Introduction:
World War I and the End of the Ottomans: From the Balkan Wars to the Armenian Genocide
Hans-Lukas Kieser, Kerem Öktem, Maurus Reinkowski

Part I: Toward War
1. The Ottoman Road to Total War (1913–15)
Hans-Lukas Kieser
2. Seferberlik: Building Up the Ottoman Home Front
Yigit Akin

Part II: Demise of Ottomanity in the Balkans and Western Anatolia
3. “Revenge! Revenge! Revenge!” “Awakening a Nation” through Propaganda in the Ottoman Empire during the Balkan Wars (1912–13)
Y. Do?an Çetinkaya
4. “Macedonian Question” in Western Anatolia: The Ousting of the Ottoman Greeks before World War I
Emre Erol

Part III: Ottoman Perspectives in Palestine
5. “The Ottoman Sickness and Its Doctors”: Imperial Loyalty in Palestine on the Eve of World War I
Michelle U. Campos
6. Palestine’s Population and the Question of Ottomanism during the Last Decade of Ottoman Rule
Yuval Ben-Bassat

Part IV: Reform or Cataclysm in the Kurdo-Armenian Eastern Provinces?
7. Land Disputes and Reform Debates in the Eastern Provinces
Mehmet Polatel
8. The German Role in the Reform Discussion of 1913–14
Thomas Schmutz
9. Building the “Model Ottoman Citizen”: Life and Death
in the Region of Harput-Mamu¨ retu¨ laziz (1908–15)
Vahé Tachjian
10. Explaining Regional Variations in the Armenian Genocide
Ugur Ümit Üngör

Afterword
Hamit Bozarslan

"Another Empire is a timely and comprehensive exploration of Turkey’s foreign policy and changing... more "Another Empire is a timely and comprehensive exploration of Turkey’s foreign policy and changing place in the world, which has just been published by Istanbul-based Bilgi University Press! Focusing on the decade of Justice and Development Party (JDP) rule from 2002 to 2012, this collection of essays seeks to explain the domestic foundations of Turkey’s international relations and the ‘reform choreography’ of conservative change under JDP rule, which has created the context for Turkish foreign policy making, as editors Kerem Öktem and Ayşe Kadıoğlu clarify in their introduction. Turkey’s ‘proactive foreign policy’ (Keyman) is indeed a novelty in the republic’s recent history, and so is its economic rise (Karli). Yet, especially in terms of the country’s ‘democratic depth’ (Fisher Onar), or dare one say, the lack thereof, the foundations of doctrines such as ‘strategic depth’ and ‘zero problems with neighbours’ – both the brand names of Turkey’s dynamic Foreign Minister and International Relations Professor Ahmet Davutoğlu- appear rather shaky. Even the ‘non-conventional policy actors’ (Öktem), which have begun to expand Turkey’s soft power through religious, educational and economic networks, do not seem to offset the tensions built into the domestic structures of Turkey’s politics and the resulting fragmented identities.

The conceptual avenue of critical inquiry, which the editors of Another Empire propose is particularly helpful in the study of Turkey’s relations with its key allies, as well as with its western and eastern neighbourhoods. The country’s relations with both the United States (Walker) and the European Union have been stormy over the last decade, stretching from passionate moments of mutual engagement and enthusiasm over strategic partnerships to mutual frustrations and allegations that “Turkey might be changing axis”. Indeed, it makes a lot of sense to ask “[w]hat went wrong in the Turkey-EU relationship” (Arısan-Eralp and Eralp), considering that Turkey seems to be in limbo now, in a liminal state forever one step short of the prospect of full membership. Certainly, the European Union has lost much of its appeal in the last couple of years, as the financial crisis and nationalistic responses of European publics have had detrimental effects on the overall project of integration. Yet, Turkey’s relations with the Balkans and Greece have nevertheless developed well over the last decade, largely within the institutional and legal framework set by the European Union and the international community (Bechev), (Anastasakis). Cyprus, of course, is one of those conflicts, which have not been defused over the last decade, let alone resolved.

Nor has Turkey’s key symbolic and historic conflict in the eastern neighbourhood been successfully addressed: The borders with the Republic of Armenia remain closed, as a global campaign for genocide recognition gathers pace, and relations continue to serve as a “litmus test for Turkey’s new foreign policy” (Görgülü) and its good-neighbourly intentions. Turkey’s relations with Iran are “a delicate balancing act” (Akkoyunlu), and Arab publics and decision makers, reinvigorated by the revolutions of 2011, waver between “cautious engagement” (Abou El-Fadl) and concern over an increasingly assertive Turkey with regional ambitions that benefits from the current phase of uncertain leadership in the Arab world.

So, are Turkey’s new hegemons, the conservative elites of the Justice and Development Party and their allies following a ‘neo-Ottoman’ foreign policy geared at recreating the empire? Is Turkey steering away from the “West” and into the troubled waters of Middle Eastern conflict politics? How seriously do we need to take the allegations of Turkey’s “change of axis”? And what does this mean for Turkey’s neighbours in the West and East? The authors of Another Empire offer provisional answers, inspirations and starting points for further inquiry from a wide range of disciplines and regional backgrounds. Their answers are varied, but they do agree on one thing: There is certainly no reason to panic, and no “change of axis”, even though there is a need for a critical discussion of the current state of affairs! And this, precisely, is Another Empire’s contribution to the debate.
"

Angry Nation is an attempt at writing a 'history of the present' of a fascinating country, whose ... more Angry Nation is an attempt at writing a 'history of the present' of a fascinating country, whose domestic dynamics and international relations are often hard to decipher.

This book gives an overview of the last three decades of Turkey's transformation and asks a set of questions on the structural patterns of politics: What is the role of non-accountable parallel power structures, what is the dep state and how has it shaped the country's democratic transition? How do we have to understand aspects pertaining to political culture and what is the role of societal authoritarianism? And what has the impact been of Turkey's relations with the European Union?

Angry Nation seeks to give answers these crucial questions.

Turkey is at the core of many current intellectual and political debates. Questions about the fut... more Turkey is at the core of many current intellectual and political debates. Questions about the future of secularism, the relationship between Islam and democracy and the future of the Middle East and Europe all touch upon Turkey. These debates can benefit greatly from substantive examinations of the political institutions of the Turkish Republic and the historical evolution of its society and culture in the twentieth century. Turkey's Engagement with Modernity brings together twenty-four leading scholars of Turkish Studies, who revisit Turkey's 'modern century.' The essays range from high politics and international relations to examinations of the intricate webs of social and religious networks, micro-histories, literature and music. Together they look at the successes and crises which the nationalist project created, and the instances of resistance and opposition it triggered. The book explores how the country was shaped in the image of the Kemalist project of nationalist modernity and how it was transformed, if erratically, into a democratic society where tensions between religion, state and society continue unabated.

Can the European Union transform Greek-Turkish relations? The contributors to In the Long Shadow ... more Can the European Union transform Greek-Turkish relations? The contributors to In the Long Shadow of Europe examine the ambiguities of Europe's historical role in its Southeastern corner to shed light on the possible paths lying ahead. From various angles, they highlight the paradoxes of a relationship between intimate adversaries, marred by tormented histories, nationalist narratives and bilateral disputes but strengthened by historical familiarity, geographic vicinity, and the imperative for cooperation. And beyond this face à face, the authors show how, as Greece and Turkey developed into independent nation-states in the shadow of Europe, their intertwined trajectories also contributed to defining this same Europe "at the edges." Beyond the Greek-Turkish relationship, this book illustrates the considerable challenges the European Union faces as a mediating power both within and outside its borders.

Research Report, Aug 2014

The report deals with the Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Communities, its goals and capa... more The report deals with the Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Communities, its goals and capacities, its role within the larger context of Turkey’s foreign policy and its desired and actual impacts on Turkey’s diapora communities. Furthermore, it discusses the direction of the Turkey’s diaspora policy and suggests ways to make it more inclusive and internationally respected.

One of the major challenges of our time is how to combine freedom and diversity. This research pr... more One of the major challenges of our time is how to combine freedom and diversity. This research project looks at lessons from experience in five advanced Western democracies: Britain, France, Germany, the US and Canada. We have set out to gather already published indicators and relevant analyses, as well as pursuing individual avenues of original research. This year's Dahrendorf Colloquium was a major conference on 3-5 May 2013, bringing together experts from many different fields and all five countries, with Martha Nussbaum delivering a keynote lecture. The focus was firmly on conclusions useful for public policy.

Signale aus der Mehrheitsgesellschaft Beschneidungsdebatte und staatliche Überwachung isla-mischer Organisation - Identitätsbildung und Integration in Deutschland , Sep 2013

Diversity in a liberal society, in which members of various minorities can thrive together with m... more Diversity in a liberal society, in which members of various minorities can thrive together with members of the majority depends on at least two conditions: A clear signal of welcome from the majority society and the safeguarding of the individual security of migrants. This brief summarizes the findings of the Open Society Foundation-funded research project Signals from the majority and discusses two cases which are characterized by discriminating state behaviour and exclusionist public debates in Germany and charts their impact among immigrant and mi-nority communities. The research is based on 29 qualitative in-depth interviews, transcribed and analysed with qualitative data analysis software.

The horrific events of 9/11 solidified Western popular interest in Islamic radicalism 2 , empower... more The horrific events of 9/11 solidified Western popular interest in Islamic radicalism 2 , empowered particular discourses on religion as an all-encompassing identity (cf. Sen 2006) and created new bodies of research. International organizations, governments, academic institutions and independent research centres became keen on supporting a wide range of scholarly explorations of interfaith understanding-issues of identity and Muslim minority politics. Thus, a great many journal articles and edited volumes

Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan has repeatedly expressed his growing frustration with the European... more Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan has repeatedly expressed his growing frustration with the European Un-ion and his country’s stalled accession status. Yet, in the last few days, the PM went far beyond grum-bling side notes and made a statement that would, if taken literally, imply a complete departure from Turkey’s foreign policy strategy and question its place in the Western security alliance. Speaking on Turkish TV in late January and again during an official visit to the Czech Republic in February, Erdoğan asserted that Turkey was seriously considering becoming a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organi-zation (SCO) as an alternative to joining the EU. This is the closest a Turkish PM has come to publicly considering an alternative vision for EU accession and probably even to NATO-membership. After years of unexpected twist and turns in Turkey’s relations with the world and in its role in the Western securi-ty alliance, after the emergence of a much more self-confident and assertive Turkish foreign policy, and after repeated allegations of ‘Turkey turning East’, is this now the definitive rupture that will mark Turkey’s break with its longstanding Western orientation?
The SEESOX report Western Condition. Turkey, the US and the EU in the New Middle East lays out the backdrop to this unfolding story. Launched today, the report has been prepared by Karabekir Akko-yunlu, Kalypso Nicolaidis and Kerem Öktem at the European Studies Centre of St Antony’s College, Uni-versity of Oxford. The authors analyse in particular the last decade of Turkey’s international relations under the government of the conservative Justice and Development Party, building on the series of SEESOX publications on the politics and foreign policy of Turkey such as Another Empire? A Decade of Turkey's Foreign Policy under the Justice and Development Party (cf. http://www.anotherempire.info).
Rather than detecting a shift to the East, they see three different logics of interaction with the West at work, which also overlap with three distinct phases of foreign policy making in the last decade: Europe-anization and a ‘liberal moment’ of reform lasted from 2002 – 2007; the pursuit of an increasingly au-tonomous foreign policy and of ‘strategic depth’ from 2007 – 2011; and most recently, with the AKP government’s third term and in response to the Arab uprisings, Turkey’s foreign policy has come largely into the fold of US policy on the Middle East, increasingly under the logic of a Sunni axis in the region. While this phase has seen a proliferation of debates on Turkey as a model for the haltingly emerging new Arab polities, the authors stress the government’s dependence on the Western security regime, especially in its border region with Syria, suggesting that Americanisation is augmented by the over-stretch of its foreign policy capabilities.
It is the interplay of these three logics of Europeanisation, Americanisation and Autonomization, the authors argue, which has shaped Turkey’s foreign policy since the Cold War era and that shapes Tur-key’s foreign policy now. The question today is whether Turkey can turn back to Europeanisation, while retaining now entrenched elements of Autonomization and Americanisation.

Südosteuropa. Zeitschrift für Politik und Gesellschaft, Jan 1, 2005

Dr Kerem Oktem is Research Associate at South East European Studies at Oxford (SEESOX). In 2005 h... more Dr Kerem Oktem is Research Associate at South East European Studies at Oxford (SEESOX). In 2005 he completed a doctorate at the School of Geography in the University of Oxford. He also holds a MSt degree in Modern Middle Eastern Studies from Oxford and MA in Urban Studies from the University of Hamburg.

Socrates Kokkalis Graduate Workshop. The City: Urban …, Jan 1, 2003

Nationalism understood as a modern concept, is a project of political and social engineering, whi... more Nationalism understood as a modern concept, is a project of political and social engineering, which works through the invention of history and the reproduction of geography, space and architecture. The "geography of nationalism" is the spatial expression of strategies of exclusion, displacement and dispossession of the externalized 'other', as well as of strategies of re-construction and re-production for the sovereign and hegemonic 'self' of the nation. The analysis of the case of Turkey in the late 19 th and 20 th centuries exposes an almost ideal-typical model of the discursive imagination and the material practice of nationalism and its geographical strategies, aimed at the creation of an ethnically homogenous 'homeland'. These strategies and their consequences, however, are not unique to the Turkish case, but comparable to the nation-building processes of other 'late' nations, which have emerged out of the remains of the Ottoman Empire.

Research Foundation Switzerland-Turkey, Jan 1, 2008

The media, from newspapers and magazines to television, radio and the internet, have become centr... more The media, from newspapers and magazines to television, radio and the internet, have become central sites of contestation over one of the most controversial issues in European public debates: Islam and Muslims in Europe.

Mutual Misunderstandings seeks to contribute to this debate by questioning the widespread assumptions that permeate it: That there is a clearly delimited ‘Europe’, that this ‘Europe’ is opposed to a bounded ‘Muslim world’, and that conflict is written into the history and present of all interactions between these two supposedly distinct ‘worlds’. And finally, that the media therefore has to reflect this deep-seated enmity in its coverage.

This volume therefore attempts to unpack these highly aggregated, yet ultimately unhelpful categories. It explores the historically and politically contingent ways in which ‘Islam’ has come to be the major frame of reference for debates on Muslims and Europe, and highlights the role of the media in this process.

The collection does so by suggesting a novel geographic scope of inquiry. It looks from Europe to the Muslim world, but also from Muslim majority countries to Europe: From France and Germany to Bosnia Herzegovina, Turkey and Egypt. This choice reflects an intention to decentre the conventional focus on the Arab Middle East and Iran, by considering cases from South East Europe such as Turkey and Bosnia, as well as looking at Egypt, rather than at the more specific but over-reported case of Saudi Arabia.
With this focus, Mutual Misunderstandings provides a fascinating exploration into five very distinct cases of media systems dealing with their respective internal and external others.

Who will think of the EU as a global actor with normative power, now that it finds itself in the ... more Who will think of the EU as a global actor with normative power, now that it finds itself in the role of rubberstamping and in fact facilitating Turkey's slide into the abyss?

Middle East Report, Jan 1, 2007

Middle East Report Online, Jan 1, 2006

Earlier this month the Turkish government declared an end to a nearly 90-year-old ban on wearing ... more Earlier this month the Turkish government declared an end to a nearly 90-year-old ban on wearing head scarves and veils in civil service jobs. When the ban was first past it was meant to separate the role of religion from the state. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has said the ban represented "a dark period" in Turkey. Turkey is generally regarded in the west as a model for political Islam and democracy. Kerem Oktem, a research fellow at Oxford University, joins us to discuss the implications of the new law, upcoming elections, and the current political situation in Turkey.

palgrave macmillan, 2022

Gathers interdisciplinary approaches to Jewish-Turkish lives, Brings together leading voices on S... more Gathers interdisciplinary approaches to Jewish-Turkish lives,
Brings together leading voices on Sephardi Jewish history and Turkish studies,
Offers a critical contribution to the debate on the Turkish Republic as a project of modernity.

With the end of the First World War, the centuries-old social fabric of the Ottoman world – an en... more With the end of the First World War, the centuries-old social fabric of the Ottoman world – an entangled space of religious co-existence throughout the Balkans and the Middle East – came to its definitive end. In this new study, the editors argue that while the Ottoman Empire officially ended in 1922, when the Turkish nationalists in Ankara abolished the Sultanate, the essence of its imperial character was destroyed in 1915 when the Young Turk regime eradicated the Armenians from Asia Minor. This book analyses the dynamics and processes that led to genocide and left behind today’s crisis-ridden post-Ottoman Middle East and the crises of the post-Ottoman nation-states in general, including in the Balkans. Going beyond Istanbul, the book also studies three different but entangled late Ottoman areas: Palestine, the largely Kurdo-Armenian eastern provinces and the Aegean shores; all of which were confronted with new claims from national movements that questioned the Ottoman state. All would remain regions of conflict up to the present day. Using new primary material, World War I and the End of the Ottomans brings together analysis of the key forces which undermined an empire, and marks an important new contribution to the study of the Ottoman world and the Middle East.

With the end of World War I, the centuries-old social fabric of the Ottoman world – an entangled ... more With the end of World War I, the centuries-old social fabric of the Ottoman world – an entangled space of religious co-existence throughout the Balkans and the Middle East – came to its definitive end. In this new study, Hans-Lukas Kieser, Kerem Öktem and Maurus Reinkowski argue that while the Ottoman Empire officially ended in 1922, when the Turkish nationalists in Ankara abolished the Sultanate, the essence of its imperial character was destroyed in 1915 when the Young Turk regime eradicated the Armenians from Asia Minor. This book analyses the dynamics and processes that led to genocide and left behind today's crisis-ridden post-Ottoman Middle East. Going beyond Istanbul, the book also studies three different but entangled late Ottoman areas: Palestine, the largely Kurdo-Armenian eastern provinces and the Aegean shores; all of which were confronted with new claims from national movements that questioned the Ottoman state. All would remain regions of conflict up to the present day. Using new primary material, "World War I and the End of the Ottomans brings" together analysis of the key forces which undermined an empire, and marks an important new contribution to the study of the Ottoman world and the Middle East.

British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies