Crisis management and the AK Party congress
Nowadays, all eyes are fixed on the relations between Turkey and the United States. Against the backdrop of tensions, the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) celebrated its 17th birthday at an event hosted by the Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research (SETA) on Tuesday.
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Yenikapı Consensus
The tutelage period of the military was already over and Turkish politicians decided to stand together against this system.
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One of the reasons why political jargon is framed as if it were a general election is because of the Dec. 17 operation that caused local elections to be pushed out of its normal process.
Turkey must discuss and conclude the issue of specially authorized courts independently of judges and those who stand trial in order to strengthen the constitutional state, to pave the way for the judiciary to deliver justice and to prevent the judiciary from contributing to injustices.
SETA PANEL DISCUSSION Chair: Taha Özhan, SETA Panelists: Ali Çarkoğlu, Sabancı Univ. Cengiz Çandar, Radikal Yavuz Baydar, Sabah Date: June 15, 2011 Wednesday Time: 14.00-16.00 Venue: SETA, Ankara
SETA PANEL Konuşmacı: Elisabeth Özdalga ODTÜ Sosyoloji Bölümü Tarih: 25 Mart 2008 Salı Saat: 16.00 Yer: SETA, Ankara
Does Turkey Need a New Standby Agreement?
Since 1960, nineteen Standby arrangements have been signed. With these agreements, significant progress has been made in Turkish economy: inflation has fallen to the lowest level since 1986, the public debt-to-GNP ratio has been falling, and interest rates have declined rapidly. IMF’s immediate goals concern exchange rate stability and balance of payments, and evaluations of IMF programs tend to concentrate on these two objectives. Yet, whether or not the IMF programs have positive effects on these short-term goals, what ultimately matters is that they induce economic growth and do not concentrate on incomes.
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Challenges to Political Leadership in Combating Islamophobia1
Current developments and recent social and cultural transformations under the forces of globalization indicate that the prophecy of traditional secularization thesis seems to have failed to capture the ongoing influence of religion. Proponents of secularization thesis established an unavoidable and casual connection between the beginning of modernity and the decline of traditional forms of religious life. Generally speaking theorists of secularization process argued that religion would lose its influence on social and political life once the society absorbs the values and institutions of modernization. For B. Wilson for example “secularization relates to the diminution in the social significance of religion”. L. Shiner on the other hand, argued that the culmination of secularization would be religionless society.
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Turkey has a unique experience in state formation, in formulating state-religion relations, but some painful periods in its history regarding democratization. The military intervention on Sept. 12, 1980 suspended Turkey's fragile democracy and caused a breakdown in party politics by banning all political parties and sending their leaders to trial. The first election after the military coup in 1983 was a turning point in Turkish political history, and the election results and subsequent government policies under Turgut Ozal's premiership changed the course of Turkish political culture for decades to come. Ozal's center-right liberal-conservative Motherland Party (then called ANAP, now ANAVATAN) launched a liberalization and democratization policy in Turkey, which facilitated the expression of Islam in the public sphere to a greater degree than before. As part of its policy, the government deleted Articles 141, 142 and 163 of the Constitution to lift obstacles to freedom of thought. ANAP also adopted a free market economy through a large-scale privatization movement.
