Abstract
This chapter analyzes the organizational strategies of Turkish opposition movements against neoliberal policies, and their mixed record of success leading up to the Gezi Park protests in June 2013. With the social forums period, an approach which prioritized the social before the political and a decentralized network before a central organization gained acceptance among constituents of Turkey’s opposition. This chapter aims to evaluate the course of the social movements in Turkey beginning from the 1990s, their ties to the political climate worldwide, and the June uprising in terms of the tension between mass mobilization and the political strategy that emerged during the social forums period.
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Notes
- 1.
World Social Forum Charter of Principles, approved and adopted in São Paulo, on April 9, 2001, by the organizations that make up the World Social Forum Organizing Committee, approved with modifications by the World Social Forum International Council on June 10, 2001.
- 2.
The history and situation of the Kurdish movement in Turkey obviously deserves a separate and detailed analysis, which is beyond the scope of this paper.
- 3.
See also “Kapitalist Küreselleşme ve Direniş” (Capitalist globalisation and resistance), ÖDP gençlik eğitim broşürü (educational pamphlet of youth education, ÖDP), 2004.
- 4.
For the effects of this thesis on the Turkish left see Ergun Aydınoğlu, Türkiye Solu (1960–1980), Versus Kitap, İstanbul, 2007, pp. 167–187.
- 5.
For an analysis of the centre-periphery paradigm from different angles see “Dosya: Hangi Merkez, Hangi Çevre?” (Dossier: Which Centre, Which Periphery?), Toplum ve Bilim 2006, no. 105.
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I would like to thank Reyhan Tuncay for her assistance.
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Şahan, M. (2017). From the Social Forums Period to the June Resistance: Tension Between Mass Mobilization and Political Strategy in Turkey. In: Arbatli, E., Rosenberg, D. (eds) Non-Western Social Movements and Participatory Democracy. Societies and Political Orders in Transition. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51454-3_7
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