Suchergebnisse

Scholars largely view populism as a democratic game and study it through the lens of civilian mass politics, thereby, dismissing the role of the military elite. Nevertheless, populist mobilization may introduce new dynamics into the political landscape of countries that have a long history of politically active militaries. This article scrutinizes the degree and type of civilian control of the military in populist settings. It primarily contends that incumbent populists tend to limit the veto power of the military. However, civilianization in populist regimes does not occur through a consistent reform agenda geared towards democratic governance of the security sector. Populists instead seek to gain personal control of the military through individual, communal, or ideological ties to civilian leadership. The personal model does not aim to hinder the military's political influence. On the contrary, it politicizes the army and seeks to use it under civilian authority towards shared goals. However, populism operates on shaky ground due to the institutional decay it causes.

Amidst multiple foreign policy flip-flops of the Turkish government, the Middle East is where observers agree most about the explanatory priority of ideational factors over realpolitik calculations. The assertive foreign policy activism to extend the country's role in the region has largely been linked to the Islamist leanings of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). This study revisits Turkey's Middle East policy with a particular focus on the AKP's relations with the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan al Muslimin), which marked Turkish foreign policy formulation and implementation in multiple theatres from Yemen to Egypt to Libya. Using a neoclassical realist approach, it argues that the AKP's ideological ties to the Ikhwan are significant for the availability of new resources but Turkish foreign policy behavior in the Middle East, including relations with the Ikhwan, reflects a grand strategy to respond to systemic and sub-systemic stimuli.

Inspired by the populists' salient urge to recalibrate and locate contingent developments within a larger temporal order and establish historical continuity, this paper dwells on the chronopolitics of national populism and calls for a systematic treatment of time in these movements. Focusing on the neglected narrative dimension, such an inquiry will afford an alternative reading from which to engage with and critique the magnitude of populism. This study argues that despite ample variance and claims of uniqueness, national populisms employ a shared temporal template that accounts for a particular national subjectivity through a set of timing and sequencing of events complemented by affective stimuli. It focuses on the case of Turkey. More pronounced since 2013 Gezi Protests, the rising tide of national populism under President Tayyip Erdoğan's rule encapsulates how these populisms conflate the past, present, and future into a single narrative about the people's survival and prosperity.

Contemporary developments throughout the world have been marked by post-truth politics. Epitomized by a disregard for truth coupled with a reliance on emotive arguments, the term 'post-truth politics' has not yet been adequately reflected upon by political or social theory. This article uses Turkey's 15 July (2016) abortive coup as an entry point to address this gap and argues that the post-truth has altered both the grammar and vocabulary of politics. The term denotes the contemporary shift from a 'regime of truth' to a 'regime of common sense', which also operates as the discursive ground of new populisms. While treating three contending narratives of 15 July - 'kamikaze coup', 'staged coup' and 'controlled coup' - this article focuses on the post-truth elements in the government's narrative performance that obstructed the pursuit of truth and set the conditions for a particular interpretation of the events of 15 July.