Gülay Türkmen | Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung - WZB (original) (raw)

Articles by Gülay Türkmen

New Diversities, 2019

In this special issue, we focus on the relationship between populism and ethnic and religious div... more In this special issue, we focus on the relationship between populism and ethnic and religious diversity beyond Western Europe and the Americas. We are particularly interested in the following questions: What is the role of cultural and social grievances in the emergence and spread of populist discourses and vice versa? What differences, if any, are there between the form populism takes in historically diverse societies and the form it takes in societies where diversity is a fairly recent phenomenon related to immigration? How does populism relate to social, political, and affective polariza- tion in post-imperial societies with multi-cultural populations?

The Sociological Quarterly, 2019

Recent political events, such as Brexit and Trump's election, have inspired talk of collective tr... more Recent political events, such as Brexit and Trump's election, have inspired talk of collective trauma in academic publications and news outlets. Yet, scholars have been unclear about the processes that transform mundane political events into collective traumatic experiences. In this article, we ask how political factions come to interpret election outcomes as a trauma. We draw on cultural trauma theory to examine the ways state-founding political elites interpret their election losses. We show that such elites commemorate the loss by employing narratives that depict them as victims of unjust political processes, and simultaneously provide them with a sense of moral superiority. This enduring self-conception hinders subsequent efforts to draw new supporters or to change political strategies. We demonstrate this process using two empirical cases: the Israeli Labor Party and the Turkish Republican People's Party, both of whom dominated their respective nations for decades until they were ousted through democratic elections. We suggest that cultural trauma theory can illuminate the reasons for some of the political deadlocks that shape newly founded democracies' policies.

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics and Religion, 2019

Out of the 111 armed conflicts that took place worldwide between 1989 and 2000, only seven were i... more Out of the 111 armed conflicts that took place worldwide between 1989 and 2000, only seven were interstate conflicts. The others were intrastate in nature. As a result, the last decade and a half witnessed a boom in the publication of works on civil wars. While the percentage of civil wars involving religion increased from 21% to 43% between the 1960s
and 1990s, scholars have been rather slow to integrate the study of religion into the overall framework of conflict in general, and of civil wars in particular. Operating under the impact of the secularization thesis and treating religion as an aspect of ethnicity, the literature on civil wars has long embraced ethnonationalism as its subject matter. Yet, since the early 2000s there has been a rapid increase in the number of works focusing on
religion and civil wars. While one branch treats religion as a trigger for and an exacerbating factor in conflict, another focuses on religion as a conflict resolution tool.

Turkey is an apt case to ponder the latter as several governments have deployed religion (namely, Sunni Islam) as a tool to suppress ethnic divisions for years. During the Justice and Development Party (AKP) rule, religion has gained even more visibility as a conflict resolution tool in the 33-year-long armed ethnic conflict between the Kurdistan Workers’
Party (PKK) and the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK). Yet, the role of religion in Turkey’s Kurdish conflict still remains understudied. Increased attention to this topic could deliver important insights not only for those who conduct research on the Kurdish conflict in Turkey specifically, but also for those who explore the role of religion in civil wars more generally.

Qualitative Sociology, 2018

This article is an inquiry into understanding why supranational religious identity often fails to... more This article is an inquiry into understanding why supranational religious identity often fails to act as a conflict resolution tool in religiously homogenous ethnic conflicts. Narrowing its focus down to the role of religious elites as potential peacemakers in such conflict zones, it proposes the divergence in their conceptualizations of religious and ethnic identities as an explanatory factor. Building on 62 in-depth interviews conducted in Turkey with Sunni Muslim Kurdish and Turkish religious elites, it identifies a threefold typology of religious and ethnic identities, as conceptualized by these elites: 1) religio-ethnic; 2) ethno-religious; 3) religious. After exemplifying each category with interview data it demonstrates the role these distinctions play in preventing the successful implementation of BMuslim fraternity^ as a solution to the Kurdish conflict in Turkey. With these findings, the article contributes to both the literature on religion in conflict resolution and that on identity formation and boundary making. While it invites the former to turn its gaze from macro-level structural factors to meso-and micro-level cultural factors in analyzing religious elite involvement in conflict resolution, it invites the latter to stop employing Bethnicity^ as an all-encompassing term (that covers a vast array of identity markers including religion) and focus, instead, on the gradations between religion and ethnicity as sources of identity.

Annual Review of Sociology, Jul 2013

Scholarly work on the nexus of religion, nationalism, and violence is currently fragmented along ... more Scholarly work on the nexus of religion, nationalism, and violence is currently fragmented along disciplinary and theoretical lines. In sociology, history, and anthropology, a macro-culturalist approach reigns; in political science, economics, and international relations, a micro-rationalist approach is dominant. Recent attempts at a synthesis ignore religion or fold it into ethnicity. A coherent synthesis capable of adequately accounting for religious-nationalist violence must not only integrate micro and macro, cultural and strategic approaches; it must also include a meso level of elite conflict and boundary maintenance and treat the religious field as potentially autonomous from the cultural field.

Nations and Nationalism, Oct 1, 2013

This paper takes as its subject the question of why some nations are less willing to acknowledge ... more This paper takes as its subject the question of why some nations are less willing to acknowledge past atrocities. To answer that question, it focuses on the assassination of Hrant Dink – a Turkish-Armenian journalist – and its repercussions on Turkish national identity. Scrutinising newspaper articles written before and after the assassination (2004–2007), it casts a detailed glance at the struggle between two carrier groups – pro- and anti-acknowledgement groups – and argues that the assassination increased the likelihood of the acknowledgement of the mass killing of Armenians in 1915 by creating a cultural trauma informed by collective guilt. However, the relief generated by the funeral, combined with the strength of the master commemorative narrative regarding the mass killings, decreased that likelihood, and despite the huge public reaction created by the assassination there was no attempt at acknowledgement. As such, the paper contributes to our understanding of the trauma of perpetrators and claims that, in addition to other factors listed by earlier studies, cultural trauma is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for coming to terms with difficult pasts.

Yale Review of International Studies, Jan 1, 2011

Welcome to the Winter 2011 issue of the Yale Review of International Studies. Started by a group ... more Welcome to the Winter 2011 issue of the Yale Review of International Studies. Started by a group of undergraduates in the fall of 2010, we are excited for our second year of publication and grateful for your interest in our magazine, which is really an interest in what we have tried to present of the best and most wide-ranging thinking by Yale students on contemporary international questions.

Book Chapters by Gülay Türkmen

The Political Psychology of Kurds in Turkey, 2023

Positionality matters in social scientific research. Qualitative scholars have long drawn attenti... more Positionality matters in social scientific research. Qualitative scholars have long drawn attention to the impact of researchers' multiple identities on research findings and knowledge production. They have also highlighted the intersectional, fluid, and context-dependent nature of positionality. In dialogue with this literature, this article acknowledges the ambivalence surrounding the insider/outsider dichotomy and focuses on being an "outsider"-as an ideal-typical category-when conducting ethnographic field research. Building on the author's research experience among Kurdish religious elites in Southeastern Anatolia, where she was an outsider on many levels, it inquires the challenges and advantages of the "outsider" position. Through vignettes and dialogues from the field it provides insight into how to navigate the fragile ground of such a position.

Postsecularismo y la religión vivida: aportes desde la sociología cualitativa norteamericana, 2021

Los creyentes son hermanos. Por lo tanto, haz la paz con tus hermanos".

Authoritarianism and Resistance in Turkey: Conversations on Democratic and Social Challenges, 2018

In this interview, Gülay Türkmen discusses the trajectory of political Islam in Turkey with Hayri... more In this interview, Gülay Türkmen discusses the trajectory of political Islam in Turkey with Hayri Kırbaşoğlu, professor of theology at Ankara University's Divinity School. One of the main figures of the " Ankara school " in theology, known for their liberal interpretation of Islam, Kırbaşoğlu was among the founders of HAS Parti (The People's Voice Party), a religiously oriented party that was later coopted by the ruling Justice and Government Party (AKP). Coming from an Islamic background, he remains staunchly critical of the dominant interpretation and implementation of Islam in today's Turkey. In what follows, Kırbaşoğlu provides a detailed look at " Islam's crisis", both in Turkey and in the world, and offers ways out of it. (Pp. 93-106 in Authoritarianism and Resistance in Turkey: Conversations on Democratic and Social Challenges, edited by Esra Ozyurek, Emrah Altindis, Gaye Ozpinar. Switzerland: Springer International.)

Book Reviews by Gülay Türkmen

If a social scientist writing in the 1950s had claimed that religious politics would be among the... more If a social scientist writing in the 1950s had claimed that religious politics would be among the most fervently discussed topics in the first decade of the twenty-first century, she/he would most probably have been laughed at since everyone was convinced that religion was doomed to fade away as modernity progressed. However, things did not evolve that way: the 1980s and 90s saw the rebirth of religious movements as important political powers, and things got even more complex after 9/11. With America's subsequent attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan, we all got used to hearing about 'religious terror' and 'religious fundamentalists.' Building on this background, Scott W. Hibbard's book, Religious Politics and Secular States, pursues the answers to a very well-known but still intriguing and unanswered question: If modernity was supposed to wipe religion off the public and political sphere, why "has religion -and particularly a conservative and often illiberal rendering of religious tradition -remained so influential" (6) in today's world? More specifically, how can we explain the resurgence of religious politics "given the marginalization of illiberal religious ideologies in the mid-twentieth century"? (6) Hibbard tries to explain this phenomenon by looking at three separate geographies with different political histories yet with surprisingly similar state structures: Egypt, India and the United States. Focusing on the political histories of these three ostensibly secular states, he tries to come up with an explanation as to why and how, in the last three decades, exclusionary religious ideas gained strength and credibility in these formerly pluralist countries.

Op-Eds by Gülay Türkmen

ResetDoc, 2019

According to the German Ministry of Immigration, 47,750 people immigrated from Turkey in 2017, re... more According to the German Ministry of Immigration, 47,750 people immigrated from Turkey in 2017, reflecting a 15% increase from the preceding year. Especially following the coup attempt in 2016, the number of asylum seekers skyrocketed. The number of family reunifications has also increased. This “new wave” of immigrants is quite diverse: Gülenists, white-collar professionals who no longer see a future for themselves in Turkey, students, leftist oppositional figures, Kurdish political actors, persecuted academics, and exiled intellectuals, among others. In 2018, 48% of the 10, 600 Turkish nationals who applied for asylum in Germany reported having university degrees. Even as early as 2012 and 2015, recent immigrants from Turkey had higher levels of educational attainment than their earlier counterparts. Originating from big cities like İstanbul, İzmir, and Ankara, they are also more urban. Hence, it would not be wrong to claim that the socio-economic profile of migrants from Turkey in Germany has changed drastically in recent years. Because newly arriving immigrants do not fit the existing perception of Turkishness in Germany, most end up having to explain how they, too, are Turkish/from Turkey. Through in-depth interviews with recently arriving, highly-skilled immigrants from Turkey, this study focuses on how this new group of immigrants navigate and shift the boundaries of "Turkishness" in Germany.

ResetDoc, 2018

On June 24, 2018, millions of Turkish citizens went to the ballot box in what was deemed a "histo... more On June 24, 2018, millions of Turkish citizens went to the ballot box in what was deemed a "historic" election. The results effectively changed the regime in Turkey from a parliamentary democracy to a presidential one, which grants the president unprecedented sweeping powers.

We live in an age of increasing nationalism. From Brexit's "Take back control" to Trump's "Make A... more We live in an age of increasing nationalism. From Brexit's "Take back control" to Trump's "Make America great again," and from Modi's "Make in India" initiative to Erdogan's "Strong Turkey," leaders who play the "nationalism card" are building popular support. Various polls show more people on the far right of the political spectrum, yet in the midst of such intensified nationalist fervor, nations stand as internally divided as ever. How is this possible? How is it that nations can be so divided if nationalism is on the rise? How are we to interpret intensifying national divisions in the face of intensifying nationalism? In order to explain this paradoxical situation, we argue that many of today's nations are experiencing what we call "emotional disintegration," which is brought about by two interrelated and overlapping mechanisms: social and political polarization. While states are staying intact and nationalism as an ideology is getting stronger, nations, as living entities, are getting more polarized and split. This process eventually leads to the dissolution of nations even if they are territorially intact. Turkey presents a stark example.

New Diversities, 2019

In this special issue, we focus on the relationship between populism and ethnic and religious div... more In this special issue, we focus on the relationship between populism and ethnic and religious diversity beyond Western Europe and the Americas. We are particularly interested in the following questions: What is the role of cultural and social grievances in the emergence and spread of populist discourses and vice versa? What differences, if any, are there between the form populism takes in historically diverse societies and the form it takes in societies where diversity is a fairly recent phenomenon related to immigration? How does populism relate to social, political, and affective polariza- tion in post-imperial societies with multi-cultural populations?

The Sociological Quarterly, 2019

Recent political events, such as Brexit and Trump's election, have inspired talk of collective tr... more Recent political events, such as Brexit and Trump's election, have inspired talk of collective trauma in academic publications and news outlets. Yet, scholars have been unclear about the processes that transform mundane political events into collective traumatic experiences. In this article, we ask how political factions come to interpret election outcomes as a trauma. We draw on cultural trauma theory to examine the ways state-founding political elites interpret their election losses. We show that such elites commemorate the loss by employing narratives that depict them as victims of unjust political processes, and simultaneously provide them with a sense of moral superiority. This enduring self-conception hinders subsequent efforts to draw new supporters or to change political strategies. We demonstrate this process using two empirical cases: the Israeli Labor Party and the Turkish Republican People's Party, both of whom dominated their respective nations for decades until they were ousted through democratic elections. We suggest that cultural trauma theory can illuminate the reasons for some of the political deadlocks that shape newly founded democracies' policies.

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics and Religion, 2019

Out of the 111 armed conflicts that took place worldwide between 1989 and 2000, only seven were i... more Out of the 111 armed conflicts that took place worldwide between 1989 and 2000, only seven were interstate conflicts. The others were intrastate in nature. As a result, the last decade and a half witnessed a boom in the publication of works on civil wars. While the percentage of civil wars involving religion increased from 21% to 43% between the 1960s
and 1990s, scholars have been rather slow to integrate the study of religion into the overall framework of conflict in general, and of civil wars in particular. Operating under the impact of the secularization thesis and treating religion as an aspect of ethnicity, the literature on civil wars has long embraced ethnonationalism as its subject matter. Yet, since the early 2000s there has been a rapid increase in the number of works focusing on
religion and civil wars. While one branch treats religion as a trigger for and an exacerbating factor in conflict, another focuses on religion as a conflict resolution tool.

Turkey is an apt case to ponder the latter as several governments have deployed religion (namely, Sunni Islam) as a tool to suppress ethnic divisions for years. During the Justice and Development Party (AKP) rule, religion has gained even more visibility as a conflict resolution tool in the 33-year-long armed ethnic conflict between the Kurdistan Workers’
Party (PKK) and the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK). Yet, the role of religion in Turkey’s Kurdish conflict still remains understudied. Increased attention to this topic could deliver important insights not only for those who conduct research on the Kurdish conflict in Turkey specifically, but also for those who explore the role of religion in civil wars more generally.

Qualitative Sociology, 2018

This article is an inquiry into understanding why supranational religious identity often fails to... more This article is an inquiry into understanding why supranational religious identity often fails to act as a conflict resolution tool in religiously homogenous ethnic conflicts. Narrowing its focus down to the role of religious elites as potential peacemakers in such conflict zones, it proposes the divergence in their conceptualizations of religious and ethnic identities as an explanatory factor. Building on 62 in-depth interviews conducted in Turkey with Sunni Muslim Kurdish and Turkish religious elites, it identifies a threefold typology of religious and ethnic identities, as conceptualized by these elites: 1) religio-ethnic; 2) ethno-religious; 3) religious. After exemplifying each category with interview data it demonstrates the role these distinctions play in preventing the successful implementation of BMuslim fraternity^ as a solution to the Kurdish conflict in Turkey. With these findings, the article contributes to both the literature on religion in conflict resolution and that on identity formation and boundary making. While it invites the former to turn its gaze from macro-level structural factors to meso-and micro-level cultural factors in analyzing religious elite involvement in conflict resolution, it invites the latter to stop employing Bethnicity^ as an all-encompassing term (that covers a vast array of identity markers including religion) and focus, instead, on the gradations between religion and ethnicity as sources of identity.

Annual Review of Sociology, Jul 2013

Scholarly work on the nexus of religion, nationalism, and violence is currently fragmented along ... more Scholarly work on the nexus of religion, nationalism, and violence is currently fragmented along disciplinary and theoretical lines. In sociology, history, and anthropology, a macro-culturalist approach reigns; in political science, economics, and international relations, a micro-rationalist approach is dominant. Recent attempts at a synthesis ignore religion or fold it into ethnicity. A coherent synthesis capable of adequately accounting for religious-nationalist violence must not only integrate micro and macro, cultural and strategic approaches; it must also include a meso level of elite conflict and boundary maintenance and treat the religious field as potentially autonomous from the cultural field.

Nations and Nationalism, Oct 1, 2013

This paper takes as its subject the question of why some nations are less willing to acknowledge ... more This paper takes as its subject the question of why some nations are less willing to acknowledge past atrocities. To answer that question, it focuses on the assassination of Hrant Dink – a Turkish-Armenian journalist – and its repercussions on Turkish national identity. Scrutinising newspaper articles written before and after the assassination (2004–2007), it casts a detailed glance at the struggle between two carrier groups – pro- and anti-acknowledgement groups – and argues that the assassination increased the likelihood of the acknowledgement of the mass killing of Armenians in 1915 by creating a cultural trauma informed by collective guilt. However, the relief generated by the funeral, combined with the strength of the master commemorative narrative regarding the mass killings, decreased that likelihood, and despite the huge public reaction created by the assassination there was no attempt at acknowledgement. As such, the paper contributes to our understanding of the trauma of perpetrators and claims that, in addition to other factors listed by earlier studies, cultural trauma is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for coming to terms with difficult pasts.

Yale Review of International Studies, Jan 1, 2011

Welcome to the Winter 2011 issue of the Yale Review of International Studies. Started by a group ... more Welcome to the Winter 2011 issue of the Yale Review of International Studies. Started by a group of undergraduates in the fall of 2010, we are excited for our second year of publication and grateful for your interest in our magazine, which is really an interest in what we have tried to present of the best and most wide-ranging thinking by Yale students on contemporary international questions.

The Political Psychology of Kurds in Turkey, 2023

Positionality matters in social scientific research. Qualitative scholars have long drawn attenti... more Positionality matters in social scientific research. Qualitative scholars have long drawn attention to the impact of researchers' multiple identities on research findings and knowledge production. They have also highlighted the intersectional, fluid, and context-dependent nature of positionality. In dialogue with this literature, this article acknowledges the ambivalence surrounding the insider/outsider dichotomy and focuses on being an "outsider"-as an ideal-typical category-when conducting ethnographic field research. Building on the author's research experience among Kurdish religious elites in Southeastern Anatolia, where she was an outsider on many levels, it inquires the challenges and advantages of the "outsider" position. Through vignettes and dialogues from the field it provides insight into how to navigate the fragile ground of such a position.

Postsecularismo y la religión vivida: aportes desde la sociología cualitativa norteamericana, 2021

Los creyentes son hermanos. Por lo tanto, haz la paz con tus hermanos".

Authoritarianism and Resistance in Turkey: Conversations on Democratic and Social Challenges, 2018

In this interview, Gülay Türkmen discusses the trajectory of political Islam in Turkey with Hayri... more In this interview, Gülay Türkmen discusses the trajectory of political Islam in Turkey with Hayri Kırbaşoğlu, professor of theology at Ankara University's Divinity School. One of the main figures of the " Ankara school " in theology, known for their liberal interpretation of Islam, Kırbaşoğlu was among the founders of HAS Parti (The People's Voice Party), a religiously oriented party that was later coopted by the ruling Justice and Government Party (AKP). Coming from an Islamic background, he remains staunchly critical of the dominant interpretation and implementation of Islam in today's Turkey. In what follows, Kırbaşoğlu provides a detailed look at " Islam's crisis", both in Turkey and in the world, and offers ways out of it. (Pp. 93-106 in Authoritarianism and Resistance in Turkey: Conversations on Democratic and Social Challenges, edited by Esra Ozyurek, Emrah Altindis, Gaye Ozpinar. Switzerland: Springer International.)

If a social scientist writing in the 1950s had claimed that religious politics would be among the... more If a social scientist writing in the 1950s had claimed that religious politics would be among the most fervently discussed topics in the first decade of the twenty-first century, she/he would most probably have been laughed at since everyone was convinced that religion was doomed to fade away as modernity progressed. However, things did not evolve that way: the 1980s and 90s saw the rebirth of religious movements as important political powers, and things got even more complex after 9/11. With America's subsequent attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan, we all got used to hearing about 'religious terror' and 'religious fundamentalists.' Building on this background, Scott W. Hibbard's book, Religious Politics and Secular States, pursues the answers to a very well-known but still intriguing and unanswered question: If modernity was supposed to wipe religion off the public and political sphere, why "has religion -and particularly a conservative and often illiberal rendering of religious tradition -remained so influential" (6) in today's world? More specifically, how can we explain the resurgence of religious politics "given the marginalization of illiberal religious ideologies in the mid-twentieth century"? (6) Hibbard tries to explain this phenomenon by looking at three separate geographies with different political histories yet with surprisingly similar state structures: Egypt, India and the United States. Focusing on the political histories of these three ostensibly secular states, he tries to come up with an explanation as to why and how, in the last three decades, exclusionary religious ideas gained strength and credibility in these formerly pluralist countries.

ResetDoc, 2019

According to the German Ministry of Immigration, 47,750 people immigrated from Turkey in 2017, re... more According to the German Ministry of Immigration, 47,750 people immigrated from Turkey in 2017, reflecting a 15% increase from the preceding year. Especially following the coup attempt in 2016, the number of asylum seekers skyrocketed. The number of family reunifications has also increased. This “new wave” of immigrants is quite diverse: Gülenists, white-collar professionals who no longer see a future for themselves in Turkey, students, leftist oppositional figures, Kurdish political actors, persecuted academics, and exiled intellectuals, among others. In 2018, 48% of the 10, 600 Turkish nationals who applied for asylum in Germany reported having university degrees. Even as early as 2012 and 2015, recent immigrants from Turkey had higher levels of educational attainment than their earlier counterparts. Originating from big cities like İstanbul, İzmir, and Ankara, they are also more urban. Hence, it would not be wrong to claim that the socio-economic profile of migrants from Turkey in Germany has changed drastically in recent years. Because newly arriving immigrants do not fit the existing perception of Turkishness in Germany, most end up having to explain how they, too, are Turkish/from Turkey. Through in-depth interviews with recently arriving, highly-skilled immigrants from Turkey, this study focuses on how this new group of immigrants navigate and shift the boundaries of "Turkishness" in Germany.

ResetDoc, 2018

On June 24, 2018, millions of Turkish citizens went to the ballot box in what was deemed a "histo... more On June 24, 2018, millions of Turkish citizens went to the ballot box in what was deemed a "historic" election. The results effectively changed the regime in Turkey from a parliamentary democracy to a presidential one, which grants the president unprecedented sweeping powers.

We live in an age of increasing nationalism. From Brexit's "Take back control" to Trump's "Make A... more We live in an age of increasing nationalism. From Brexit's "Take back control" to Trump's "Make America great again," and from Modi's "Make in India" initiative to Erdogan's "Strong Turkey," leaders who play the "nationalism card" are building popular support. Various polls show more people on the far right of the political spectrum, yet in the midst of such intensified nationalist fervor, nations stand as internally divided as ever. How is this possible? How is it that nations can be so divided if nationalism is on the rise? How are we to interpret intensifying national divisions in the face of intensifying nationalism? In order to explain this paradoxical situation, we argue that many of today's nations are experiencing what we call "emotional disintegration," which is brought about by two interrelated and overlapping mechanisms: social and political polarization. While states are staying intact and nationalism as an ideology is getting stronger, nations, as living entities, are getting more polarized and split. This process eventually leads to the dissolution of nations even if they are territorially intact. Turkey presents a stark example.

If the West keeps on seeing Turkey only as a dumping ground where they can dispose of millions of... more If the West keeps on seeing Turkey only as a dumping ground where they can dispose of millions of refugees—who, do not even have official refugee status under Turkish law—and if it insists on ignoring the clearly alarming transformation of Turkey into an authoritarian regime, it might have to deal with an even more chaotic Middle East in the not so distant future. A pluralist, democratic, peaceful Turkey is indispensable for not only the region but also for the rest of the world. Let us hope western powers will grasp this simple fact before it is too late.

Open Democracy, Jun 3, 2013

What unites the most heterogeneous opposition bloc Turkey has seen in the last two decades is a c... more What unites the most heterogeneous opposition bloc Turkey has seen in the last two decades is a common protest against a government which interprets majoritarian democracy as 'the tyranny of the majority' and ignores criticism from opposition groups

The European, Jun 9, 2013

Taksim Square has emerged as a diverse and tolerant microcosm of Turkish society: People from all... more Taksim Square has emerged as a diverse and tolerant microcosm of Turkish society: People from all walks of life are envisioning the future of their country’s democracy.

Radikal Iki, Sep 22, 2013

Radikal Iki, Oct 20, 2013

Baska Haber, Nov 20, 2012

Annual Review of Sociology, 2013

Scholarly work on the nexus of religion, nationalism, and violence is currently fragmented along ... more Scholarly work on the nexus of religion, nationalism, and violence is currently fragmented along disciplinary and theoretical lines. In sociology, history, and anthropology, a macro-culturalist approach reigns; in political science, economics, and international relations, a micro-rationalist approach is dominant. Recent attempts at a synthesis ignore religion or fold it into ethnicity. A coherent synthesis capable of adequately accounting for religious-nationalist violence must not only integrate micro and macro, cultural and strategic approaches; it must also include a meso level of elite conflict and boundary maintenance and treat the religious field as potentially autonomous from the cultural field.

International Feminist Journal of Politics

Nations and Nationalism, 2013

Nations and Nationalism, 2013

Annual Review of Sociology, 2013

Scholarly work on the nexus of religion, nationalism, and violence is currently fragmented along ... more Scholarly work on the nexus of religion, nationalism, and violence is currently fragmented along disciplinary and theoretical lines. In sociology, history, and anthropology, a macro-culturalist approach reigns; in political science, economics, and international relations, a microrationalist approach is dominant. Recent attempts at a synthesis ignore religion or fold it into ethnicity. A coherent synthesis capable of adequately accounting for religious-nationalist violence must not only integrate micro and macro, cultural and strategic approaches; it must also include a meso level of elite conflict and boundary maintenance and treat the religious field as potentially autonomous from the cultural field.

We live in an age of increasing nationalism. From Brexit's "Take back control" to Trump's "Make A... more We live in an age of increasing nationalism. From Brexit's "Take back control" to Trump's "Make America great again," and from Modi's "Make in India" initiative to Erdogan's "Strong Turkey," leaders who play the "nationalism card" are building popular support. Various polls show more people on the far right of the political spectrum, yet in the midst of such intensified nationalist fervor, nations stand as internally divided as ever. How is this possible? How is it that nations can be so divided if nationalism is on the rise? How are we to interpret intensifying national divisions in the face of intensifying nationalism? In order to explain this paradoxical situation, we argue that many of today's nations are experiencing what we call "emotional disintegration," which is brought about by two interrelated and overlapping mechanisms: social and political polarization. While states are staying intact and nationalism as an ideology is getting stronger, nations, as living entities, are getting more polarized and split. This process eventually leads to the dissolution of nations even if they are territorially intact. Turkey