Hakkı Taş
Biographic Data
| ID | 205879 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Hakkı Taş |
| GIVEN NAMES | Hakkı |
| FAMILY NAME | Taş |
| SIGNATURE | TAŞ H |
| AFFILIATIONS | German Institute for Global and Area Studies |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3463-0804 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 160 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Levantine populisms: The role of conflicts, civilizationalism, and militarism in populist foreign policymaking
This article examines how populism operates in foreign policymaking under conditions of protracted conflict, focusing on the Levant as a distinctive subregional setting. Existing theorization of populism, largely derived from Latin American and European cases, struggles to explain contexts shaped by territorial contestation, transnational identity cleavages, and chronic securitization. Building on the core dynamics of populist foreign policy—poli…
Populism and territoriality
Beyond the Soft–Hard Power Binary: Resource Control in Turkey’s Foreign Policy Towards Sub-Saharan Africa
Once depicted as a flagship case for the soft power—based foreign policy of young democracies, Turkey’s conduct of foreign affairs following its authoritarian backsliding has been increasingly associated with hard power. Using the case of Turkey’s Africa policy under the AKP, this article challenges this reading and its underlying conceptual assumptions. To overcome the spurious democracy—soft power vs. autocracy—hard power dichotomy, it argues f…
Populism and civil–military relations
Scholars largely view populism as a democratic game and study it through the lens of civilian mass politics, thereby, dismissing the role of the military elite. Nevertheless, populist mobilization may introduce new dynamics into the political landscape of countries that have a long history of politically active militaries. This article scrutinizes the degree and type of civilian control of the military in populist settings. It primarily contends …
Infrastructural power in foreign policy: Conceptualising States' Efforts to Mobilise Non-State Actors
This article translates Michael Mann's notion of infrastructural power into the foreign policy realm and develops a conceptual framework that allows for the systematic treatment of states' strategic efforts at mobilising domestic non-state actors. Despite the common rationales underlying such efforts across regime types, the article argues that states' systemic features matter greatly. It generates two ideal types of infrastructural power in fore…
Collective Identity Change under Exogenous Shocks: The Gülen Movement and Its Diasporization
Diasporas do not arise from fixed connections to objective circumstances such as dispersion or relation to a homeland, but instead constantly are negotiated and re-constituted. Ranging from internal gradual change to sudden exogenous change, the re-making of a diaspora can take diverse forms. Despite the prevalence of constructivist and processual approaches, however, research on diaspora identity change has been limited. This paper takes a compa…
Erdoğan and the Muslim Brotherhood: An outside-in approach to Turkish foreign policy in the Middle East
Amidst multiple foreign policy flip-flops of the Turkish government, the Middle East is where observers agree most about the explanatory priority of ideational factors over realpolitik calculations. The assertive foreign policy activism to extend the country’s role in the region has largely been linked to the Islamist leanings of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). This study revisits Turkey’s Middle East policy with a particular focu…
Populism and the politicisation of foreign policy
Populists in power often resort to the politicisation of foreign policy to generate domestic support. This article explores this process. First, it conceptualises populist politicisation of foreign policy. Second, it develops expectations on how such politicisation will take place: the distinctive features of populism (the intensity of populist discourse, the relative weight of anti-elitism and people-centrism, and a transnational understanding o…
Continuity through change: Populism and foreign policy in Turkey
Through a discourse-theoretic approach, this paper problematises the under-theorised chameleonic quality of populism. While populist politics is often expressed as construction of the people against the elite, this paper argues that the political should rather be sought in how populism revives itself despite (and through) constant discursive shifts. It examines the interrelations between populism, identity and foreign policy, inserting ‘dislocati…
The chronopolitics of national populism
Inspired by the populists’ salient urge to recalibrate and locate contingent developments within a larger temporal order and establish historical continuity, this paper dwells on the chronopolitics of national populism and calls for a systematic treatment of time in these movements. Focusing on the neglected narrative dimension, such an inquiry will afford an alternative reading from which to engage with and critique the magnitude of populism. Th…
The Repertoire of Extraterritorial Repression: Diasporas and Home States
This article scrutinises the extraterritorial repression strategies of contemporary non-democracies, as evidenced by the Turkish Justice and Development Party’s efforts to purge the Gülen Movement globally after the 2016 coup attempt. Adopting “repertoire”, as conceptualised by Charles Tilly, this article explores it in light of “extraterritorial repression,” which includes the diverse skills and tactics mobilised to stifle dissent beyond nationa…
The formulation and implementation of populist foreign policy: Turkey in the Eastern Mediterranean
Although populism does not dictate a coherent ideological or programmatic agenda, some of its elements still leave distinct marks on the formulation and implementation of foreign policy. This paper argues for the study of populism in its tangible policy impacts and scrutinizes the nexus of populism and foreign policy in contemporary Turkey under President Erdoğan’s rule. Despite the abundant references to the ‘people’ in the populist rhetoric, it…
The 15 July abortive coup and post-truth politics in Turkey
Contemporary developments throughout the world have been marked by post-truth politics. Epitomized by a disregard for truth coupled with a reliance on emotive arguments, the term ‘post-truth politics’ has not yet been adequately reflected upon by political or social theory. This article uses Turkey’s 15 July (2016) abortive coup as an entry point to address this gap and argues that the post-truth has altered both the grammar and vocabulary of pol…
Municipal Politics in Turkey: Local Government and Party Organisation
Municipal Politics in Turkey: Local Government and Party Organisation." Middle Eastern Studies, 55(3), pp. 477–478
A history of Turkey’s AKP-Gülen conflict
Although organized independently, both the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) and the Gülen Movement (GM) have primarily addressed the same base and acted as mediums of upward mobility for Sunni Anatolian conservatives. Targeted by the old secular establishment, AKP and GM forged a mutually beneficial relationship in 2000s, with the former’s political office reinforcing the latter’s social and bureaucratic power and v…
Intimate politics: Strategies and practices of female Mukhtars in Turkey
The dualistic separation between the public and private assumes natural and stable boundaries between these spheres. However, a perspective that relies on binaries may deprive certain groups, practices and processes associated with specific spheres from diverse experiences. For instance, women wanting to move from the private sphere and join the political public could not do that due to the domesticated nature of their roles and responsibilities.…
Street arts of resistance in Tahrir and Gezi
With the tremendous visibility of popular mobilization in the last decade, scholars have increasingly directed their attention to the streets to examine the dynamics of power and resistance. Among emerging venues of politics, this study examines street art and graffiti as a performance of resistance in the 2011 Tahrir Revolution and 2013 Gezi Protests in Egypt and Turkey, respectively. As re-appropriation of the urban landscape and modes of self-…
Politics of Nationhood and the Displacement of the Founding Moment: Contending Histories of the Turkish Nation
This study examines the conception of nationhood developed by a political movement referred to as Ulusalcılık (nationalism), which emerged at the turn of the century. We focus on ways in which the Ulusalcı movement makes use of nation-building techniques to establish and propagate its own version of Turkish nationhood as one that is primordially secular and patriotic. This is expressed in its opposition to Islamism, Ottomanism, and what it sees a…
Can the Alevis Speak? The Politics of Representation in Early Writings on Alevism
This study historicizes and contextualizes the contrasting representations of Alevism in the early writings of Stephen van Rensselaer Trowbridge, a Protestant missionary, and Baha Said Bey, a Turkish activist and researcher. Both Trowbridge and Baha Said undertook extensive research on Alevi culture in the early twentieth century. Though their works appear to be “benevolent” endeavors, giving voice to the Alevi subaltern, by first studying the po…
Turkey – from tutelary to delegative democracy
Guillermo O’Donnell’s influential work ‘Delegative Democracy’ set the discourse on a peculiar type of democracy. Lying between representative democracy and authoritarianism, the uniqueness of delegative democracy lies in its features, including an absence of horizontal accountability, strong centralised rule, individual leadership with unchecked powers, a cult figure embodying the nation and clientelist practices. While delegative democracies see…
Melodies of resistance: Islamist music in secular Turkey
Since the mid-1980s, music has become a site of resistance and political mobilization for Turkish Islamists. Based on interviews with prominent Islamist musicians and analyses of a cross-section of their albums, this paper examines the development of Islamist music in secular Turkey. In order to elaborate upon the power struggle between the secular state and Islamist groups in the realm of music, it first focuses on how the founding elite of Turk…
On the Illegitimate Use of Force: The Neo-Jacobins of Europe
While in Western discourse terrorism first referred to the “Reign of Terror” imposed by the Jacobin state in France (1793–94), in recent decades it has become increasingly associated with non-state actors. Studies on the undertheorized concept of “state terrorism” have by and large neglected its role in liberal democratic states. In this essay I attempt to re-establish the link between the state and terror by challenging the Weberian definition o…
In Between Democracy and Secularism: The Case of Turkish Civil Society
Since 2011, the Arab uprisings, signaling a new wave of political mobilization, have restored belief in the potential for civil society to make democratic openings. Nevertheless, the academic literature up to the present has attributed the enduring authoritarianism in the Middle East region to the weakness or dominantly Islamist nature of civil society and promoted the development of secular platforms. This article argues that the discussion abou…
Populism and the politicisation of foreign policy
Populists in power often resort to the politicisation of foreign policy to generate domestic support. This article explores this process. First, it conceptualises populist politicisation of foreign policy. Second, it develops expectations on how such politicisation will take place: the distinctive features of populism (the intensity of populist discourse, the relative weight of anti-elitism and people-centrism, and a transnational understanding o…
Turkey – from tutelary to delegative democracy
Guillermo O’Donnell’s influential work ‘Delegative Democracy’ set the discourse on a peculiar type of democracy. Lying between representative democracy and authoritarianism, the uniqueness of delegative democracy lies in its features, including an absence of horizontal accountability, strong centralised rule, individual leadership with unchecked powers, a cult figure embodying the nation and clientelist practices. While delegative democracies see…
A history of Turkey’s AKP-Gülen conflict
Although organized independently, both the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) and the Gülen Movement (GM) have primarily addressed the same base and acted as mediums of upward mobility for Sunni Anatolian conservatives. Targeted by the old secular establishment, AKP and GM forged a mutually beneficial relationship in 2000s, with the former’s political office reinforcing the latter’s social and bureaucratic power and v…
The formulation and implementation of populist foreign policy: Turkey in the Eastern Mediterranean
Although populism does not dictate a coherent ideological or programmatic agenda, some of its elements still leave distinct marks on the formulation and implementation of foreign policy. This paper argues for the study of populism in its tangible policy impacts and scrutinizes the nexus of populism and foreign policy in contemporary Turkey under President Erdoğan’s rule. Despite the abundant references to the ‘people’ in the populist rhetoric, it…
Erdoğan and the Muslim Brotherhood: An outside-in approach to Turkish foreign policy in the Middle East
Amidst multiple foreign policy flip-flops of the Turkish government, the Middle East is where observers agree most about the explanatory priority of ideational factors over realpolitik calculations. The assertive foreign policy activism to extend the country’s role in the region has largely been linked to the Islamist leanings of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). This study revisits Turkey’s Middle East policy with a particular focu…
Politics of Nationhood and the Displacement of the Founding Moment: Contending Histories of the Turkish Nation
This study examines the conception of nationhood developed by a political movement referred to as Ulusalcılık (nationalism), which emerged at the turn of the century. We focus on ways in which the Ulusalcı movement makes use of nation-building techniques to establish and propagate its own version of Turkish nationhood as one that is primordially secular and patriotic. This is expressed in its opposition to Islamism, Ottomanism, and what it sees a…
Populism and civil–military relations
Scholars largely view populism as a democratic game and study it through the lens of civilian mass politics, thereby, dismissing the role of the military elite. Nevertheless, populist mobilization may introduce new dynamics into the political landscape of countries that have a long history of politically active militaries. This article scrutinizes the degree and type of civilian control of the military in populist settings. It primarily contends …
Street arts of resistance in Tahrir and Gezi
With the tremendous visibility of popular mobilization in the last decade, scholars have increasingly directed their attention to the streets to examine the dynamics of power and resistance. Among emerging venues of politics, this study examines street art and graffiti as a performance of resistance in the 2011 Tahrir Revolution and 2013 Gezi Protests in Egypt and Turkey, respectively. As re-appropriation of the urban landscape and modes of self-…
Collective Identity Change under Exogenous Shocks: The Gülen Movement and Its Diasporization
Diasporas do not arise from fixed connections to objective circumstances such as dispersion or relation to a homeland, but instead constantly are negotiated and re-constituted. Ranging from internal gradual change to sudden exogenous change, the re-making of a diaspora can take diverse forms. Despite the prevalence of constructivist and processual approaches, however, research on diaspora identity change has been limited. This paper takes a compa…
Continuity through change: Populism and foreign policy in Turkey
Through a discourse-theoretic approach, this paper problematises the under-theorised chameleonic quality of populism. While populist politics is often expressed as construction of the people against the elite, this paper argues that the political should rather be sought in how populism revives itself despite (and through) constant discursive shifts. It examines the interrelations between populism, identity and foreign policy, inserting ‘dislocati…
Intimate politics: Strategies and practices of female Mukhtars in Turkey
The dualistic separation between the public and private assumes natural and stable boundaries between these spheres. However, a perspective that relies on binaries may deprive certain groups, practices and processes associated with specific spheres from diverse experiences. For instance, women wanting to move from the private sphere and join the political public could not do that due to the domesticated nature of their roles and responsibilities.…
Can the Alevis Speak? The Politics of Representation in Early Writings on Alevism
This study historicizes and contextualizes the contrasting representations of Alevism in the early writings of Stephen van Rensselaer Trowbridge, a Protestant missionary, and Baha Said Bey, a Turkish activist and researcher. Both Trowbridge and Baha Said undertook extensive research on Alevi culture in the early twentieth century. Though their works appear to be “benevolent” endeavors, giving voice to the Alevi subaltern, by first studying the po…
In Between Democracy and Secularism: The Case of Turkish Civil Society
Since 2011, the Arab uprisings, signaling a new wave of political mobilization, have restored belief in the potential for civil society to make democratic openings. Nevertheless, the academic literature up to the present has attributed the enduring authoritarianism in the Middle East region to the weakness or dominantly Islamist nature of civil society and promoted the development of secular platforms. This article argues that the discussion abou…
In Between Democracy and Secularism: The Case of Turkish Civil Society
Since 2011, the Arab uprisings, signaling a new wave of political mobilization, have restored belief in the potential for civil society to make democratic openings. Nevertheless, the academic literature up to the present has attributed the enduring authoritarianism in the Middle East region to the weakness or dominantly Islamist nature of civil society and promoted the development of secular platforms. This article argues that the discussion abou…
Melodies of resistance: Islamist music in secular Turkey
Since the mid-1980s, music has become a site of resistance and political mobilization for Turkish Islamists. Based on interviews with prominent Islamist musicians and analyses of a cross-section of their albums, this paper examines the development of Islamist music in secular Turkey. In order to elaborate upon the power struggle between the secular state and Islamist groups in the realm of music, it first focuses on how the founding elite of Turk…
On the Illegitimate Use of Force: The Neo-Jacobins of Europe
While in Western discourse terrorism first referred to the “Reign of Terror” imposed by the Jacobin state in France (1793–94), in recent decades it has become increasingly associated with non-state actors. Studies on the undertheorized concept of “state terrorism” have by and large neglected its role in liberal democratic states. In this essay I attempt to re-establish the link between the state and terror by challenging the Weberian definition o…
Can the Alevis Speak? The Politics of Representation in Early Writings on Alevism
This study historicizes and contextualizes the contrasting representations of Alevism in the early writings of Stephen van Rensselaer Trowbridge, a Protestant missionary, and Baha Said Bey, a Turkish activist and researcher. Both Trowbridge and Baha Said undertook extensive research on Alevi culture in the early twentieth century. Though their works appear to be “benevolent” endeavors, giving voice to the Alevi subaltern, by first studying the po…
Turkey – from tutelary to delegative democracy
Guillermo O’Donnell’s influential work ‘Delegative Democracy’ set the discourse on a peculiar type of democracy. Lying between representative democracy and authoritarianism, the uniqueness of delegative democracy lies in its features, including an absence of horizontal accountability, strong centralised rule, individual leadership with unchecked powers, a cult figure embodying the nation and clientelist practices. While delegative democracies see…
A history of Turkey’s AKP-Gülen conflict
Although organized independently, both the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) and the Gülen Movement (GM) have primarily addressed the same base and acted as mediums of upward mobility for Sunni Anatolian conservatives. Targeted by the old secular establishment, AKP and GM forged a mutually beneficial relationship in 2000s, with the former’s political office reinforcing the latter’s social and bureaucratic power and v…
Intimate politics: Strategies and practices of female Mukhtars in Turkey
The dualistic separation between the public and private assumes natural and stable boundaries between these spheres. However, a perspective that relies on binaries may deprive certain groups, practices and processes associated with specific spheres from diverse experiences. For instance, women wanting to move from the private sphere and join the political public could not do that due to the domesticated nature of their roles and responsibilities.…
Street arts of resistance in Tahrir and Gezi
With the tremendous visibility of popular mobilization in the last decade, scholars have increasingly directed their attention to the streets to examine the dynamics of power and resistance. Among emerging venues of politics, this study examines street art and graffiti as a performance of resistance in the 2011 Tahrir Revolution and 2013 Gezi Protests in Egypt and Turkey, respectively. As re-appropriation of the urban landscape and modes of self-…
Politics of Nationhood and the Displacement of the Founding Moment: Contending Histories of the Turkish Nation
This study examines the conception of nationhood developed by a political movement referred to as Ulusalcılık (nationalism), which emerged at the turn of the century. We focus on ways in which the Ulusalcı movement makes use of nation-building techniques to establish and propagate its own version of Turkish nationhood as one that is primordially secular and patriotic. This is expressed in its opposition to Islamism, Ottomanism, and what it sees a…
The 15 July abortive coup and post-truth politics in Turkey
Contemporary developments throughout the world have been marked by post-truth politics. Epitomized by a disregard for truth coupled with a reliance on emotive arguments, the term ‘post-truth politics’ has not yet been adequately reflected upon by political or social theory. This article uses Turkey’s 15 July (2016) abortive coup as an entry point to address this gap and argues that the post-truth has altered both the grammar and vocabulary of pol…
Municipal Politics in Turkey: Local Government and Party Organisation
Municipal Politics in Turkey: Local Government and Party Organisation." Middle Eastern Studies, 55(3), pp. 477–478
The chronopolitics of national populism
Inspired by the populists’ salient urge to recalibrate and locate contingent developments within a larger temporal order and establish historical continuity, this paper dwells on the chronopolitics of national populism and calls for a systematic treatment of time in these movements. Focusing on the neglected narrative dimension, such an inquiry will afford an alternative reading from which to engage with and critique the magnitude of populism. Th…
The Repertoire of Extraterritorial Repression: Diasporas and Home States
This article scrutinises the extraterritorial repression strategies of contemporary non-democracies, as evidenced by the Turkish Justice and Development Party’s efforts to purge the Gülen Movement globally after the 2016 coup attempt. Adopting “repertoire”, as conceptualised by Charles Tilly, this article explores it in light of “extraterritorial repression,” which includes the diverse skills and tactics mobilised to stifle dissent beyond nationa…
The formulation and implementation of populist foreign policy: Turkey in the Eastern Mediterranean
Although populism does not dictate a coherent ideological or programmatic agenda, some of its elements still leave distinct marks on the formulation and implementation of foreign policy. This paper argues for the study of populism in its tangible policy impacts and scrutinizes the nexus of populism and foreign policy in contemporary Turkey under President Erdoğan’s rule. Despite the abundant references to the ‘people’ in the populist rhetoric, it…
Collective Identity Change under Exogenous Shocks: The Gülen Movement and Its Diasporization
Diasporas do not arise from fixed connections to objective circumstances such as dispersion or relation to a homeland, but instead constantly are negotiated and re-constituted. Ranging from internal gradual change to sudden exogenous change, the re-making of a diaspora can take diverse forms. Despite the prevalence of constructivist and processual approaches, however, research on diaspora identity change has been limited. This paper takes a compa…
Erdoğan and the Muslim Brotherhood: An outside-in approach to Turkish foreign policy in the Middle East
Amidst multiple foreign policy flip-flops of the Turkish government, the Middle East is where observers agree most about the explanatory priority of ideational factors over realpolitik calculations. The assertive foreign policy activism to extend the country’s role in the region has largely been linked to the Islamist leanings of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). This study revisits Turkey’s Middle East policy with a particular focu…
Populism and the politicisation of foreign policy
Populists in power often resort to the politicisation of foreign policy to generate domestic support. This article explores this process. First, it conceptualises populist politicisation of foreign policy. Second, it develops expectations on how such politicisation will take place: the distinctive features of populism (the intensity of populist discourse, the relative weight of anti-elitism and people-centrism, and a transnational understanding o…
Continuity through change: Populism and foreign policy in Turkey
Through a discourse-theoretic approach, this paper problematises the under-theorised chameleonic quality of populism. While populist politics is often expressed as construction of the people against the elite, this paper argues that the political should rather be sought in how populism revives itself despite (and through) constant discursive shifts. It examines the interrelations between populism, identity and foreign policy, inserting ‘dislocati…
Beyond the Soft–Hard Power Binary: Resource Control in Turkey’s Foreign Policy Towards Sub-Saharan Africa
Once depicted as a flagship case for the soft power—based foreign policy of young democracies, Turkey’s conduct of foreign affairs following its authoritarian backsliding has been increasingly associated with hard power. Using the case of Turkey’s Africa policy under the AKP, this article challenges this reading and its underlying conceptual assumptions. To overcome the spurious democracy—soft power vs. autocracy—hard power dichotomy, it argues f…
Populism and civil–military relations
Scholars largely view populism as a democratic game and study it through the lens of civilian mass politics, thereby, dismissing the role of the military elite. Nevertheless, populist mobilization may introduce new dynamics into the political landscape of countries that have a long history of politically active militaries. This article scrutinizes the degree and type of civilian control of the military in populist settings. It primarily contends …
Infrastructural power in foreign policy: Conceptualising States' Efforts to Mobilise Non-State Actors
This article translates Michael Mann's notion of infrastructural power into the foreign policy realm and develops a conceptual framework that allows for the systematic treatment of states' strategic efforts at mobilising domestic non-state actors. Despite the common rationales underlying such efforts across regime types, the article argues that states' systemic features matter greatly. It generates two ideal types of infrastructural power in fore…
Levantine populisms: The role of conflicts, civilizationalism, and militarism in populist foreign policymaking
This article examines how populism operates in foreign policymaking under conditions of protracted conflict, focusing on the Levant as a distinctive subregional setting. Existing theorization of populism, largely derived from Latin American and European cases, struggles to explain contexts shaped by territorial contestation, transnational identity cleavages, and chronic securitization. Building on the core dynamics of populist foreign policy—poli…
Populism and territoriality
Law (21 works) · Political science (21 works) · Politics (20 works) · Sociology (19 works) · Turkey's Politics and Society (17 works) · Political economy (15 works) · Law (14 works) · Turkish (11 works) · Populism, Right-Wing Movements (8 works) · Democracy (7 works)