Sebnem Gumuscu
Biographic Data
| ID | 4375225 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Sebnem Gumuscu |
| GIVEN NAMES | Sebnem |
| FAMILY NAME | Gumuscu |
| SIGNATURE | GUMUSCU S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Middlebury College |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9180-421X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 592 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 17 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 11 |
Fragmenting faith: The splintered landscape of Turkish political Islam in the 2023 elections
In the 2023 election cycle, the Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) long-lasting dominance was challenged by emerging Islamist parties, including the New Welfare Party (YRP), the Free Cause Party (HÜDA-PAR), the Felicity Party (SP), and the Future Party (GP). This article examines the growing polarisation within Turkish political Islam, which split into two main blocs in 2023: populist Islamists in the ruling People’s Alliance and liberal Islam…
Teaching Israel-Palestine Across the Atlantic: Addressing Affective Polarization and Dehumanization through Dialogic Education
This article examines the pedagogical challenges and opportunities of teaching the Israeli–Palestinian conflict amid rising global polarization and campus tensions. We report on a cross-institutional course taught concurrently at Middlebury College (United States) and Yeditepe University (Turkey) after October 7 that was designed to address affective polarization and dehumanization through dialogic education. Drawing on mixed methods including pr…
How to Fight Turkey’s Authoritarian Turn
The arrest of Istanbul’s mayor, Ekrem İmamoğlu, marks the latest turn in Turkey’s prolonged autocratization process, signaling a possible shift from competitive to the hegemonic authoritarianism of Russia and Venezuela. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s regime intends to consolidate more power and weaken the ever-growing opposition using partisan courts and media. However, Erdoğan’s increasingly authoritarian regime may soon reach its material and coercive …
The AKP and stealth Islamization in Turkey
This article argues that the AKP has dismantled secularism in Turkey through stealth Islamization. Defined as incremental and top-down Islamization of social and political life, this process entails four processes: (1) institutionalization of Turkish Islamist political imaginary; (2) redesigning the Diyanet and public education system to spread Islamic beliefs and practices (da'wa); (3) the privileging of Muslim identity at the expense of secular…
Competitive yet unfair: May 2023 elections and authoritarian resilience in Turkey
On May 14, Turkish voters headed to the polls to vote for presidential and parliamentary elections. This was the most challenging race yet for authoritarian populist Erdoğan, as the ongoing economic crisis and deadly earthquakes severely diminished his performance legitimacy. Moreover, the opposition parties united against his regime by rallying behind a joint presidential candidate. However, Erdoğan turned the tables on the opposition and won th…
How Erdoğan’s Populism Won Again
Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan won a third presidential term in May 2023 in a close race that constituted the opposition’s best chance ever to defeat the long-serving president at the polls. The election was neither free nor fair, but it was real. Erdoğan coupled sophisticated strategies with ethnoreligious themes to win the race against a backdrop of rampant inflation and disastrous relief efforts following the massive earthquakes that struck Tur…
Why did Turkish democracy collapse? A political economy account of AKP’s authoritarianism
After decades of multiparty politics, Turkey is no longer a democracy. A theory-upending case, the country has descended into a competitive authoritarian regime under the Justice and Development Party ( Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi—AKP), despite rising income and education levels and strong links with the West. What accounts for democratic breakdown in such an unlikely case? Instead of ideological and institutional factors, we offer a political eco…
Killing Competitive Authoritarianism Softly: The 2019 Local Elections in Turkey
On 31 March 2019 Turkish voters ended the Islamist local governance in the country’s largest cities after 25 years and handed the ruling AKP its most serious electoral defeat since its rise to power in 2002. The article explores the electoral strategies of major parties in the local election, offers a comparative analysis of the results, and discusses post-election developments, including the rerun in Istanbul. The election and its aftermath reaf…
The Perils of “Turkish Presidentialism”
Turkey has switched to a presidential system via a referendum held in April 2017 that will take full effect after the 2019 presidential elections. Turkish presidentialism increases the prominence of the executive at the expense of the legislative branch and concentrates power in the office of the president. Executive aggrandizement will deepen ideological polarization and electoral mobilization by significantly raising the stakes of the game for …
Building a Competitive Authoritarian Regime: State–Business Relations in the AKP’s Turkey
The most recent global wave of democratic reversal is marked by executive takeovers. Politically motivated interventions in domestic markets aimed at restructuring the underlying power dynamics in society have been part and parcel of these takeovers. This article investigates the new political economy behind the AKP’s competitive authoritarian rule in Turkey as an example of this larger trend. The article argues that the AKP government has built …
A Small Yes for Presidentialism: The Turkish Constitutional Referendum of April 2017
Following four elections in three years, on 16 April 2017 Turkish voters once again went to the polls - this time under the emergency law established after the failed coup attempt of July 2016 - to vote on constitutional amendments aimed at replacing the existing parliamentary system with an executive presidency. This article reviews the content of the proposed constitutional amendments, analyses the campaign including the strategies employed by …
Turkey: How the Coup Failed
On 15 July 2016, Turkey was shaken by an attempted coup. For the first time in modern Turkish history—a history littered with attempted coups—the elected government thwarted the putsch. We suggest that the success of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in defeating the coup attempt is part and parcel of its competitive authoritarian regime. On the one hand, AKP’s extensive access to public and private resources, as well as its control …
Rising competitive authoritarianism in Turkey
Since the Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in 2002 Turkey has undergone double regime transitions. First, tutelary democracy ended; second, a competitive authoritarian regime has risen in its stead. We substantiate this assertion with specific and detailed evidence from 2015 election cycles, as well as from broader trends in Turkish politics. This evidence indeed confirms that elections are no longer fair; civil liberties are bei…
The Emerging Predominant Party System in Turkey
In the Turkish national elections of 12 June 2011 the ruling Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi (AKP, Justice and Development Party) registered an exceptional success in Turkish democracy. For the first time, an incumbent party had managed to increase its votes for three elections in a row and established its predominance. This article argues that the AKP, like the Christian Democrats in Italy, Liberal Democrats in Japan or Social Democrats in Sweden, ha…
The March 2009 Local Elections and the Inconsistent Democratic Transformation of the AKP Party in Turkey
The Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi (Justice and Development Party, or AKP) was established in 2001 by a group of former members of the Milli Gorus movement (National Outlook, or MG) as a conservative–d
Class, Status, and Party: The Changing Face of Political Islam in Turkey and Egypt
This article argues that socioeconomic changes within Islamist constituencies are critical parts of understanding of how moderate Islamists emerge and succeed. The diverging paths of economic reform in Turkey and Egypt have generated different effects on the Islamist constituencies in these two countries. Economic liberalization has played both a constitutive and a causal role in transformation of political Islam in Turkey by facilitating the gro…
The Power of the Devout Bourgeoisie: The Case of the Justice and Development Party in Turkey
Historically, the closure of a party is a common phenomenon in Turkish politics. While the recent case against the governing Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi, AKP) was reminiscent of this trend, the decision of the Constitutional Court demonstrated that there are changes in the dynamics of the Turkish political structure. Although the literature cites the so-called '28 February Process', the impact of EU accession, and th…
Rising competitive authoritarianism in Turkey
Since the Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in 2002 Turkey has undergone double regime transitions. First, tutelary democracy ended; second, a competitive authoritarian regime has risen in its stead. We substantiate this assertion with specific and detailed evidence from 2015 election cycles, as well as from broader trends in Turkish politics. This evidence indeed confirms that elections are no longer fair; civil liberties are bei…
Killing Competitive Authoritarianism Softly: The 2019 Local Elections in Turkey
On 31 March 2019 Turkish voters ended the Islamist local governance in the country’s largest cities after 25 years and handed the ruling AKP its most serious electoral defeat since its rise to power in 2002. The article explores the electoral strategies of major parties in the local election, offers a comparative analysis of the results, and discusses post-election developments, including the rerun in Istanbul. The election and its aftermath reaf…
Turkey: How the Coup Failed
On 15 July 2016, Turkey was shaken by an attempted coup. For the first time in modern Turkish history—a history littered with attempted coups—the elected government thwarted the putsch. We suggest that the success of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in defeating the coup attempt is part and parcel of its competitive authoritarian regime. On the one hand, AKP’s extensive access to public and private resources, as well as its control …
Why did Turkish democracy collapse? A political economy account of AKP’s authoritarianism
After decades of multiparty politics, Turkey is no longer a democracy. A theory-upending case, the country has descended into a competitive authoritarian regime under the Justice and Development Party ( Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi—AKP), despite rising income and education levels and strong links with the West. What accounts for democratic breakdown in such an unlikely case? Instead of ideological and institutional factors, we offer a political eco…
Class, Status, and Party: The Changing Face of Political Islam in Turkey and Egypt
This article argues that socioeconomic changes within Islamist constituencies are critical parts of understanding of how moderate Islamists emerge and succeed. The diverging paths of economic reform in Turkey and Egypt have generated different effects on the Islamist constituencies in these two countries. Economic liberalization has played both a constitutive and a causal role in transformation of political Islam in Turkey by facilitating the gro…
A Small Yes for Presidentialism: The Turkish Constitutional Referendum of April 2017
Following four elections in three years, on 16 April 2017 Turkish voters once again went to the polls - this time under the emergency law established after the failed coup attempt of July 2016 - to vote on constitutional amendments aimed at replacing the existing parliamentary system with an executive presidency. This article reviews the content of the proposed constitutional amendments, analyses the campaign including the strategies employed by …
The Emerging Predominant Party System in Turkey
In the Turkish national elections of 12 June 2011 the ruling Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi (AKP, Justice and Development Party) registered an exceptional success in Turkish democracy. For the first time, an incumbent party had managed to increase its votes for three elections in a row and established its predominance. This article argues that the AKP, like the Christian Democrats in Italy, Liberal Democrats in Japan or Social Democrats in Sweden, ha…
The Power of the Devout Bourgeoisie: The Case of the Justice and Development Party in Turkey
Historically, the closure of a party is a common phenomenon in Turkish politics. While the recent case against the governing Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi, AKP) was reminiscent of this trend, the decision of the Constitutional Court demonstrated that there are changes in the dynamics of the Turkish political structure. Although the literature cites the so-called '28 February Process', the impact of EU accession, and th…
How Erdoğan’s Populism Won Again
Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan won a third presidential term in May 2023 in a close race that constituted the opposition’s best chance ever to defeat the long-serving president at the polls. The election was neither free nor fair, but it was real. Erdoğan coupled sophisticated strategies with ethnoreligious themes to win the race against a backdrop of rampant inflation and disastrous relief efforts following the massive earthquakes that struck Tur…
Competitive yet unfair: May 2023 elections and authoritarian resilience in Turkey
On May 14, Turkish voters headed to the polls to vote for presidential and parliamentary elections. This was the most challenging race yet for authoritarian populist Erdoğan, as the ongoing economic crisis and deadly earthquakes severely diminished his performance legitimacy. Moreover, the opposition parties united against his regime by rallying behind a joint presidential candidate. However, Erdoğan turned the tables on the opposition and won th…
The AKP and stealth Islamization in Turkey
This article argues that the AKP has dismantled secularism in Turkey through stealth Islamization. Defined as incremental and top-down Islamization of social and political life, this process entails four processes: (1) institutionalization of Turkish Islamist political imaginary; (2) redesigning the Diyanet and public education system to spread Islamic beliefs and practices (da'wa); (3) the privileging of Muslim identity at the expense of secular…
How to Fight Turkey’s Authoritarian Turn
The arrest of Istanbul’s mayor, Ekrem İmamoğlu, marks the latest turn in Turkey’s prolonged autocratization process, signaling a possible shift from competitive to the hegemonic authoritarianism of Russia and Venezuela. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s regime intends to consolidate more power and weaken the ever-growing opposition using partisan courts and media. However, Erdoğan’s increasingly authoritarian regime may soon reach its material and coercive …
The March 2009 Local Elections and the Inconsistent Democratic Transformation of the AKP Party in Turkey
The Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi (Justice and Development Party, or AKP) was established in 2001 by a group of former members of the Milli Gorus movement (National Outlook, or MG) as a conservative–d
The Power of the Devout Bourgeoisie: The Case of the Justice and Development Party in Turkey
Historically, the closure of a party is a common phenomenon in Turkish politics. While the recent case against the governing Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi, AKP) was reminiscent of this trend, the decision of the Constitutional Court demonstrated that there are changes in the dynamics of the Turkish political structure. Although the literature cites the so-called '28 February Process', the impact of EU accession, and th…
The March 2009 Local Elections and the Inconsistent Democratic Transformation of the AKP Party in Turkey
The Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi (Justice and Development Party, or AKP) was established in 2001 by a group of former members of the Milli Gorus movement (National Outlook, or MG) as a conservative–d
Class, Status, and Party: The Changing Face of Political Islam in Turkey and Egypt
This article argues that socioeconomic changes within Islamist constituencies are critical parts of understanding of how moderate Islamists emerge and succeed. The diverging paths of economic reform in Turkey and Egypt have generated different effects on the Islamist constituencies in these two countries. Economic liberalization has played both a constitutive and a causal role in transformation of political Islam in Turkey by facilitating the gro…
The Emerging Predominant Party System in Turkey
In the Turkish national elections of 12 June 2011 the ruling Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi (AKP, Justice and Development Party) registered an exceptional success in Turkish democracy. For the first time, an incumbent party had managed to increase its votes for three elections in a row and established its predominance. This article argues that the AKP, like the Christian Democrats in Italy, Liberal Democrats in Japan or Social Democrats in Sweden, ha…
Rising competitive authoritarianism in Turkey
Since the Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in 2002 Turkey has undergone double regime transitions. First, tutelary democracy ended; second, a competitive authoritarian regime has risen in its stead. We substantiate this assertion with specific and detailed evidence from 2015 election cycles, as well as from broader trends in Turkish politics. This evidence indeed confirms that elections are no longer fair; civil liberties are bei…
A Small Yes for Presidentialism: The Turkish Constitutional Referendum of April 2017
Following four elections in three years, on 16 April 2017 Turkish voters once again went to the polls - this time under the emergency law established after the failed coup attempt of July 2016 - to vote on constitutional amendments aimed at replacing the existing parliamentary system with an executive presidency. This article reviews the content of the proposed constitutional amendments, analyses the campaign including the strategies employed by …
Turkey: How the Coup Failed
On 15 July 2016, Turkey was shaken by an attempted coup. For the first time in modern Turkish history—a history littered with attempted coups—the elected government thwarted the putsch. We suggest that the success of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in defeating the coup attempt is part and parcel of its competitive authoritarian regime. On the one hand, AKP’s extensive access to public and private resources, as well as its control …
The Perils of “Turkish Presidentialism”
Turkey has switched to a presidential system via a referendum held in April 2017 that will take full effect after the 2019 presidential elections. Turkish presidentialism increases the prominence of the executive at the expense of the legislative branch and concentrates power in the office of the president. Executive aggrandizement will deepen ideological polarization and electoral mobilization by significantly raising the stakes of the game for …
Building a Competitive Authoritarian Regime: State–Business Relations in the AKP’s Turkey
The most recent global wave of democratic reversal is marked by executive takeovers. Politically motivated interventions in domestic markets aimed at restructuring the underlying power dynamics in society have been part and parcel of these takeovers. This article investigates the new political economy behind the AKP’s competitive authoritarian rule in Turkey as an example of this larger trend. The article argues that the AKP government has built …
Killing Competitive Authoritarianism Softly: The 2019 Local Elections in Turkey
On 31 March 2019 Turkish voters ended the Islamist local governance in the country’s largest cities after 25 years and handed the ruling AKP its most serious electoral defeat since its rise to power in 2002. The article explores the electoral strategies of major parties in the local election, offers a comparative analysis of the results, and discusses post-election developments, including the rerun in Istanbul. The election and its aftermath reaf…
Why did Turkish democracy collapse? A political economy account of AKP’s authoritarianism
After decades of multiparty politics, Turkey is no longer a democracy. A theory-upending case, the country has descended into a competitive authoritarian regime under the Justice and Development Party ( Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi—AKP), despite rising income and education levels and strong links with the West. What accounts for democratic breakdown in such an unlikely case? Instead of ideological and institutional factors, we offer a political eco…
Competitive yet unfair: May 2023 elections and authoritarian resilience in Turkey
On May 14, Turkish voters headed to the polls to vote for presidential and parliamentary elections. This was the most challenging race yet for authoritarian populist Erdoğan, as the ongoing economic crisis and deadly earthquakes severely diminished his performance legitimacy. Moreover, the opposition parties united against his regime by rallying behind a joint presidential candidate. However, Erdoğan turned the tables on the opposition and won th…
How Erdoğan’s Populism Won Again
Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan won a third presidential term in May 2023 in a close race that constituted the opposition’s best chance ever to defeat the long-serving president at the polls. The election was neither free nor fair, but it was real. Erdoğan coupled sophisticated strategies with ethnoreligious themes to win the race against a backdrop of rampant inflation and disastrous relief efforts following the massive earthquakes that struck Tur…
The AKP and stealth Islamization in Turkey
This article argues that the AKP has dismantled secularism in Turkey through stealth Islamization. Defined as incremental and top-down Islamization of social and political life, this process entails four processes: (1) institutionalization of Turkish Islamist political imaginary; (2) redesigning the Diyanet and public education system to spread Islamic beliefs and practices (da'wa); (3) the privileging of Muslim identity at the expense of secular…
Teaching Israel-Palestine Across the Atlantic: Addressing Affective Polarization and Dehumanization through Dialogic Education
This article examines the pedagogical challenges and opportunities of teaching the Israeli–Palestinian conflict amid rising global polarization and campus tensions. We report on a cross-institutional course taught concurrently at Middlebury College (United States) and Yeditepe University (Turkey) after October 7 that was designed to address affective polarization and dehumanization through dialogic education. Drawing on mixed methods including pr…
How to Fight Turkey’s Authoritarian Turn
The arrest of Istanbul’s mayor, Ekrem İmamoğlu, marks the latest turn in Turkey’s prolonged autocratization process, signaling a possible shift from competitive to the hegemonic authoritarianism of Russia and Venezuela. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s regime intends to consolidate more power and weaken the ever-growing opposition using partisan courts and media. However, Erdoğan’s increasingly authoritarian regime may soon reach its material and coercive …
Fragmenting faith: The splintered landscape of Turkish political Islam in the 2023 elections
In the 2023 election cycle, the Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) long-lasting dominance was challenged by emerging Islamist parties, including the New Welfare Party (YRP), the Free Cause Party (HÜDA-PAR), the Felicity Party (SP), and the Future Party (GP). This article examines the growing polarisation within Turkish political Islam, which split into two main blocs in 2023: populist Islamists in the ruling People’s Alliance and liberal Islam…
Politics (17 works) · Turkey's Politics and Society (16 works) · Law (15 works) · Political science (15 works) · Political economy (14 works) · Law (13 works) · Democracy (12 works) · Turkish (9 works) · Authoritarianism (8 works) · Economics (8 works)