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The Cerattepe mining project for the extraction of gold and copper in the city of Artvin has been controversial since the mid-1980s. Local resistance against the project peaked in 2015-2016 in the form of blockages, sit-ins, social media protests, litigations, and signed petitions. This paper analyzes protests against the Cerattepe mining project in terms of their motivations, strategies, limitations, and political perceptions. Through an original survey analysis (N=253) and interview data, we find that the locals frame their activism as above party politics to keep a legitimate position in resisting the mining project. This strategy has remained intact for several years despite the politicization attempts of resistance from national-level political parties. We explain this strategy with the national consensus on prioritizing economic growth over environmental issues, neoliberal developmentalism with strong state support for private companies, and high levels of political polarization in society. Overall, the study offers an understanding of the challenges in front of environmental issue-based activism in Turkey and reveals the strategies of locals in resisting an environmentally destructive mining project.

İnsan hakları anlayışı, insanlar arasındaki dil, din, kültür, ırk gibi farklar dikkate alınmaksızın bireysel hak ve özgürlüklerin tesis edilmesi gerektiğini savunur. Siyasi devletçilik ise resmi ideolojik uygulamalara alan açan ve meşruiyet kazandırmaya çalışan bir anlayıştır. Siyasi devletçilik, devlet merkezli yaklaşımıyla bireyi resmi ideolojinin sınırlarına hapsederek toplumda devletçi bir zihniyet inşa ederken, insan hakları anlayışı birey merkezli hareket eder ve devlete sınırlarını hatırlatır. Türkiye'nin tek parti dönemi, devletçi zihniyetin insan hakları anlayışına baskın geldiği bir dönemdir. Tek parti döneminde inşa edilen resmi ideoloji, zamanla kurumsallaşmış ve rejimin temeline yerleştirilmiştir. Bu çalışmada öncelikle devletçi zihniyet ve insan hakları teorik açıdan özetlenmiş, daha sonra, Türkiye'nin tek parti dönemi özelinde bu iki olgu arasındaki ilişki incelenmiştir. Çalışmada, devletçi yaklaşımın tek parti döneminde inşa edilen resmi ideolojiden beslendiği savunulmuş ve bu dönemdeki siyasi devletçiliğin sebep olduğu insan hakları sorununa dikkat çekilmiştir.

Based on the existing literature, the study tests the relevance of electoral and intra-party alliance concerns on party organization change for the AKP in its 2017 District Congress. We believe that both the electoral and intra-party alliance concerns the party faced in 2017, make it a suitable case to test the basic hypothesis of the study. The dataset used in the analysis consists of secondary data on 971 districts present in Turkey. District presidency change is employed as the key independent variable to estimate organization change. The result of the logistic regression indicates that the effect of increasing percentage of swing voters and members of the former alliance, despite being valid, have moderate positive effects on the AKP's decision to change its organization. The insignificancy of the electoral safety of the party in the district reveals that in 2017 the AKP changed its organization regardless of the nature of the electoral competition it faces. Interestingly, results indicate that socioeconomic development and ethnic presence in districts are also significant factors that constrain organization change in the AKP. Based on these results we suggest that change in party organization becomes a more difficult issue in parties with strong clientelistic networks where political parties built electoral support through the conditional distribution of resources to voters. Similarly, ethnicity also acts as a constraint due to the peculiarity of the relations political parties develop with these groups. As such clientelism and ethnicity seem to have constraining effects on the abilities of parties to change their organizations. The results highlight the necessity of further research to generalize the validity of the effectiveness of clientelism and ethnic groups on political parties' organization change on different settings.

This article studies Egyptian and Tunisian transitions by investigating the effect of two factors, namely electoral system choice and the presence of competitive oppositionparties. It suggests that, between 2011 and 2015, the electoral system choice and the presence of competitive political parties contributed to the transition to democracy inTunisia while the same two factors were causes of the failed transition in Egypt. It concludes by arguing that during transitional phases, electoral system choice andpresence of competitive political parties help institutionalization of normal, limited political uncertainty in a polity. Accordingly, these two factors compel cooperation andnegotiation between different political actors, which in turn help democracy survive transitions.

Haredi (ultra-orthodox) political parties in Israel, namely Yahadut HaTora and Shas, have been constantly affecting the domestic political agenda. Despite already flourished literature that covers the various roles these parties play; security dimension is yet to be addressed so far. This paper aims to analyse the Haredi politics in Israel in the identity-security nexus by questioning the political reflections of the Haredi parties' persistent attachments to the security language in four core topics which are the Haredi educational autonomy, the exemption of religious school (yeshiva) students from the army service, the conversion to Judaism process (giyur), and the nationwide Shabbat regulations. By analysing the coalition documents that Haredi parties took part in, campaign posters of the 2013 and the 2015 elections, individual and institutional Haredi responses to certain crises regarding these topics, this paper claims that Haredi politics is organized by the articulation of
identity-security concerns at varied levels.

This paper analyzes the creative city policy for Istanbul, which has recently become a popular throughout the world. Cities are expected to be creative milieus that foster free circulation of people, ideas, and interactions for economic growth, global competitiveness, and social development. Drawing on Foucault and governmentality studies, this paper first argues that the creative city policy is a neoliberal political rationality that seeks to stimulate individuals' creative capacities through structuring urban space. Neoliberalism includes the de-governmentalization of state and the active participation of non-state actors in the governing processes. Second, using examples from street gentrification, industrial heritage re-functioning, and co-working spaces in Istanbul, this paper dissects how creativity, freedom, and economic growth intersect in urban space and how a broad coalition of political parties, state agencies, local authorities, non-governmental organizations, small-scale cultural entrepreneurs, and creative professionals have been formed around the creative city. As a result, creative city policy is a form of governmentality that includes official documents as well as spatial strategies of a heterogeneous coalition of state and non-state actors.

This article delves into the transformative decade between 1999 and 2009, exploring the intricate web of Jewish-Arab relations in Israel and the consequential impact of Jewish-Arab tensions on Arab politics and Arab voter behavior in Israeli elections. During this decade, internal factors, such as generational shift, leadership changes, and political pluralism, played a pivotal role in reshaping the societal landscape in the Arab sector. On the other hand, external factors, including the collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation process and the eruption of the Second Intifada, intensified the predicament of Israeli citizens of Arab origin, amplifying their national identity dilemma. The primary objective of this study is to analyze voting patterns within the Arab sector during the elections of 1999, 2001, 2003, 2006, and 2009, thereby highlighting the profound political implications of the Jewish-Arab tensions on Arab political engagement and voting behaviors. By doing so, this research provides insights into the changing patterns of Arab votes and their impact on the broader political landscape of Israel. The findings reveal that the growing social marginalization and disconnection from the Jewish sector significantly influenced the Arab sector's electoral participation. This period witnessed a decline in Arab voter turnout and a shift in support from left-wing Jewish-Zionist parties to Arab parties, paradoxically contributing to the electoral performances of both Arab parties and right-wing Jewish-Zionist parties.

Iran-China cooperation is not one-dimensional that based only on the economic interests of the two parties. It has other dimensions such as seeking new strategies to minimize the domination of the United States in Central Asia and the Middle East to ensure the efficient operation of their future political, economic, and strategic policies. In 2013, with the declaration of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Iran-China cooperation increasingly became more critical for the two countries' political, national, and international interests. To this end, Iran and China have decided to sign a long-term (25 years) strategic cooperation agreement and Iran was admitted to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) as a full member in September 2021. Since Iran and China have common interests in political, economic, security, and military cooperation, it is predicted that the strategic and long-standing cooperation between Iran and China will be one of the most significant factors to change the balance of the Middle East and Central Asia both politically and economically. From this point of view, this study aims to explore the dynamics affecting Iran-China strategic cooperation and analyze the core factors behind this rapprochement.

According to the data of the Presidency of Migration Management (2021), the largest group of irregular migrants detected in Türkiye in 2021 were Afghans. The arrival of irregular migrants from Afghanistan to Türkiye alongside the Syrian refugees have caused a negatively charged reaction in Turkish society and from the main parties in the opposition. Based on this apparent reaction against the arrival of Afghan
refugees, the claim can be made that Afghans are now the new "other" category in Türkiye. We identify two hashtags used on Twitter to protest the arrival of Afghans, which are #sınırnamustur (border is honor) and #hudutnamustur (frontier is honor) having the same meaning in Turkish and are Trend Topics on Twitter. The purpose of this study is to examine the reason why there are two hashtags on Twitter to protest the arrival of Afghan immigrants, what the differences and similarities are between
the two in terms of how Afghans are defined and what kinds of hate speech they are subjected to. For this purpose, we applied Craswell's mixed model in this study using both content analysis and social network analysis techniques. The investigation results reveal that the hashtag #sınırnamustur is a manifestation of a political endeavor, asserting that Afghan refugees are associated with a 'security challenge'. In contrast, the hashtag #hudutnamustur represents a response from the general populace, embodying elements of cultural superiority.