Abstract
Soli Özel situates Gezi in a broader, more global, context and offers insights into the societal dynamics that might have led to the June protests. Pointing to the commonalities between social movements in countries as dissimilar as Thailand, Brazil, Ukraine and Greece (or indeed the Arab world), Özel stresses the role of the impoverished middle classes, who try to turn these protests into an opportunity to produce participatory and democratic political spaces. What was put into practice with these demonstrations in Turkey is a search for a new definition of citizenship, Özel argues, as well as “an attempt to enlarge the liberal democratic space in Turkish politics”.
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Notes
Murat Özbank, Gezi Ruhu ve Politik Teori (Istanbul: KolektifKitap, 2013).
Paul Mason, Why It’s Kicking Off Everywhere: The New Global Revolutions (London: Verso, 2012).
Fareed Zakaria, The future of Freedom (New York: W.W. Norton, 2003).
Henri Lefebvre, “The Right to the City”, in Writings on Cities. http://bottomupurbanism.wikispaces.com/file/view/lefebvre-The+right+to+the+city.pdf; and David Harvey, Rebel Cities (London: Verso, 2012).
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© 2014 Soli Özel
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Özel, S. (2014). A Moment of Elation: The Gezi Protests/Resistance and the Fading of the AKP Project. In: Özkırımlı, U. (eds) The Making of a Protest Movement in Turkey: #occupygezi. Palgrave Pivot, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137413789_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137413789_2
Publisher Name: Palgrave Pivot, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-49002-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-41378-9
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