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Belonging to a Republic or Something Else: An Assessment of the Evolution and Challenges to Modern Citizenship in Contemporary Turkey

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Turkey, a Century of Change in State and Society

Abstract

The last five years’ experience of a presidential system has brought irrevocable political-institutional degenerations which have gone well beyond a regime change in Turkey. While the current AKP rule has dragged Turkey into a severe political crisis which is also characterized by an unprecedented erosion of citizenship rights and fundamental freedoms, one of the most damaged features of the state is its republican quality, i.e., its constitutional system of people’s rule based on civic participation and representation. Turkish republicanism was able to abolish the centuries-old imperial notion of political community and introduce a secular and ideally egalitarian notion of political community and the principle of popular sovereignty as the building blocks of the new state. By following a specific theme, that is the evolution of modern citizenship, this chapter aims to provide an alternative reading of Turkey’s political history with a discussion built around the failures and the achievements of modern Turkish citizenship and then it will focus on the challenges that the recent authoritarian rule poses to Turkey’s century-old institution of republican citizenship.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Political Sciences, Department of International Relations, Ankara University, Ankara, Turkey

    Özlem Kaygusuz

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  1. Özlem Kaygusuz
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Correspondence to Özlem Kaygusuz .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. CERI Sciences Po, Paris, France

    Bayram Balci

  2. University of Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France

    Nicolas Monceau

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Kaygusuz, Ö. (2023). Belonging to a Republic or Something Else: An Assessment of the Evolution and Challenges to Modern Citizenship in Contemporary Turkey. In: Balci, B., Monceau, N. (eds) Turkey, a Century of Change in State and Society. The Sciences Po Series in International Relations and Political Economy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33444-3_2

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