Democratic backsliding and the instrumentalization of women's rights in Turkey
In: Politics & gender, Volume 18, Issue 4, p. 911–941
ISSN: 1743-9248
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In: Politics & gender, Volume 18, Issue 4, p. 911–941
ISSN: 1743-9248
World Affairs Online
In: Politics & gender, Volume 18, Issue 4, p. 911-941
ISSN: 1743-9248
AbstractThis article examines the instrumentalization of women's rights and the transformation of the gender rights regime in the context of democratic backsliding in Turkey. I show how the Islamically rooted Justice and Development Party governments and their allies used women's rights in constructing authoritarian rule and promoting a conservative gender agenda. The governing elites had different needs at different political stages and instrumentalized women's rights to meet those needs. First, they needed to legitimize their rule in a secular context, so they expanded liberal laws on women's rights. Second, in the process of backsliding, they sought to construct and legitimize their conservative ideology, so they reinterpreted existing laws to promote conservative goals. Finally, they wanted to mobilize conservative women in support of the newly authoritarian regime, so they built new institutions and marginalized existing women's NGOs. The article contributes to the literature on regime types and gender rights by shifting the focus from regime type to regime change.
In: Journal of Middle East women's studies: JMEWS ; the official publication of the Association for Middle East Women's Studies, Volume 13, Issue 1, p. 175-177
ISSN: 1558-9579
In: Frontiers: a journal of women studies, Volume 37, Issue 3, p. 125-150
ISSN: 1536-0334
In: International journal of Middle East studies: IJMES, Volume 45, Issue 4, p. 807-809
ISSN: 1471-6380
As a student of politics whose primary research interest is in women's political participation in Turkey, my engagement with the study of violence is through the lens of gender. In gender studies, "violence" is arguably the most important critical concept for the articulation of the personal as the political. Women's recognition that violence in their personal lives and intimate relationships needed to be problematized in the political realm and transformed through public debate was a revolutionary development. Bringing this recognition into the canon of political thought has been a major contribution of feminist theorists.
In: Third world quarterly, Volume 31, Issue 6, p. 869-884
ISSN: 1360-2241
In: The Middle East journal, Volume 64, Issue 2, p. 235-251
ISSN: 0026-3141
World Affairs Online
In: International journal of Middle East studies: IJMES, Volume 35, Issue 3, p. 515-516
ISSN: 1471-6380
In: Human rights review: HRR, Volume 3, Issue 1, p. 27-34
ISSN: 1874-6306
In: New perspectives on Turkey: NPT, Volume 25, p. 31-46
ISSN: 1305-3299
The development of liberalism with both the courage and the capacity to engage itself with a different world, one in which its principles are neither well understood nor widely held, in which indeed it is, in most places, a minority creed, alien and suspect, is not only possible, it is necessary.-Clifford Geertz. 2000.Available Light.Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, p. 258.Over the past two decades, the debate over multiculturalism challenged the justice of neutral, "difference blind" rules in liberal democracies. Allegedly neutral institutions were shown to be implicitly biased toward the priorities, experiences, or interests of the dominant groups in the society. Criticism of difference-blind rules and claims for justice to minority groups defined the relationship between government and opposition in many contexts. Arguments for special rights to protect minorities, women, or ethnocultural groups gained legitimacy (Young 1990, Jones 1990, Phillips 1991, Taylor 1994, Kymlicka 1995, Kymlicka and Norman 2000).
In: Signs: journal of women in culture and society, Volume 21, Issue 3, p. 777-779
ISSN: 1545-6943
In: Women's studies international forum, Volume 17, Issue 2-3, p. 241-248
In: New perspectives on Turkey: NPT, Volume 9, p. 119-135
ISSN: 1305-3299
World Affairs Online
In: Boundaries and Belonging, p. 318-336