The Overlooked Besieged Alternative in the Middle East
The Rojava Cantons
In my previous article I wrote about how both soft and hard Islamists render a very dark future for the Middle East. I finished my article by stating that the Kurdish Movement may provide a salient alternative for the whole region. However, this alternative is currently under attack by ...
Adding Injustice to Injury
One year on from the Gezi Park protests in Turkey
Our colleague, Zeyno Ustun, is back in Istanbul this month. We corresponded about the situation there on the occasion of the anniversary of the Gezi protests. She reports political paralysis with maximum police presence and sent a report from Amnesty International that she judges to summarize the situation ...
Reflections on a Revolutionary Imaginary and Round Tables
The new always appears in the guise of a miracle
This is the prepared text answering the question "What do we really know about transitions to democracy?" for the General Seminar of The New School for Social Research, March 19, 2014.
It was a quarter of a century ago, in 1989, that a new kind of revolutionary imaginary emerged, one that ...
Gezi Resistance: Re-claiming Democracy
A prominent political theorist, Judith Shklar, once said that the rule of law has become “a self-congratulatory rhetorical device” [1] used by the politicians, who try to legitimize whatever they do just by uttering the word “the rule of law.” I think we can say the same thing for democracy ...
Searching for Hope? Look for Bridges with Kapias
Ten Theses on Constitutional Change in Turkey
1. This, the current Constitution of the Republic of Turkey is no longer the same constitution, the Constitution of 1982. Yes, even partial, but sequential or re-iterated rounds of amendment can produce a new constitutional regime or material constitution. This is what happened in Turkey through amendment rounds in 1987, ...