Introduction

Abstract

This book is an attempt to understand authoritarianism and resistance in Turkey by focusing on what is new and what is old in the country. However, instead of arguing for or against the thesis that Turkey changed since 2002, it shows, the root of the most recent transformations in Turkey is the 1980 military coup. Based on interviews with the country’s leading progressive intellectuals, the book’s themes follow the major changes that have occurred since the transformative 1980 military coup. By focusing on this pivotal moment, the book tries to unsettle the assumption that Erdoğan and his Islamic ideology are the sole actors of recent turn towards authoritarianism in contemporary Turkey. It draws attention to the simultaneous destruction of democracy and opening of the country to global flows of capital, goods, ideas, and technologies that continue to influence both mainstream and dissident politics. In so doing, it demonstrates that Erdoğan is not simply a new reactionary version of the revolutionary Mustafa Kemal Atatürk who is going to reverse time and send society back to 1922, before the birth of the Republic of Turkey. Rather, he is a talented leader who harvested seeds sown for less democracy and more capitalism in 1980.