Abstract
The Gezi protests in 2013 were the largest urban resistance in the history of modern Turkey, both in terms of their intensity and the number of participants. They revitalized grassroots movements, further polarized the already-divided Turkish society, altered the political landscape, and sent shock waves among the incumbent elite who believed they were ruling without serious public opposition until the protests. The trajectory of the regime and the elite survival strategies profoundly changed after 2013 to meet this new challenge.
The protest publics model proposes a new theoretical framework for examining this emerging protest pattern, which can also shed light on our understanding of the Gezi events. In this chapter, the Gezi protests will be analyzed under the analytical framework of protest publics. First, I will show why this framework is appropriate for understanding the Gezi protests. Secondly, I will briefly discuss the political outcomes of these events by focusing on the transformative potential of protest publics in semi-authoritarian settings.
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Notes
- 1.
Hereafter AKP (in Turkish—Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi).
- 2.
The numbers quoted in Ensaroglu et al. (2014) are taken from the Turkish Medical Association report on Gezi protests.
- 3.
We should also note that most of these observations are based on countries with prior democratic experience and grassroots civic involvement. Especially in hybrid or authoritarian regimes, the lack of prior mobilization experience on the part of protestors is not surprising, given that a window of opportunity for large-scale protest is rarely available in these settings.
- 4.
Retrievable from http://konda.com.tr/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/KONDA_GeziRaporu2014.pdf (Accessed 15 February 2018).
- 5.
These press releases can be found in the Taksim Solidarity’s website, retrievable from http://www.taksimplatformu.com/basinodasi.php (Accessed 19 February 2018).
- 6.
Retrievable from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/06/03/the-photo-that-encapsulates-turkeys-protests-and-the-severe-police-crackdown/?utm_term=.480732a3a535 (Accessed 20 May 2018).
- 7.
Retrievable from http://konda.com.tr/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/KONDA_GeziRaporu2014.pdf (Accessed 15 February 2018).
- 8.
Retrievable from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/10/turkish-protesters-capuling-erdogan (Accessed 15 May 2018).
- 9.
A detailed discussion of the many interesting slogans, banners, and social media content is beyond the scope of this analysis. For a good treatise of the topic, see Emre et al. (2014).
- 10.
Retrievable from http://www.milliyet.com.tr/taksim-deki-onur-yuruyusu-ne-bbc/dunya/detay/1730407/default.htm (Accessed 20 June 2018).
- 11.
Retrievable from http://konda.com.tr/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/KONDA_GeziRaporu2014.pdf (Accessed 15 February 2018).
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Arbatli, E. (2019). “Shoulder to Shoulder Against Fascism”: Publics in Gezi Protests. In: Belyaeva, N., Albert, V., Zaytsev, D.G. (eds) Protest Publics. Societies and Political Orders in Transition. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05475-5_3
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