President Erdogan’s “New Turkey”: What does it Mean?

ISPD FORUM with Toni Alaranta, Gareth Jenkins, Halil M. Karaveli & Paul T. Levin

Friday, September 19, 2014, 09.30-11.30

The election of Recep Tayyip Erdogan as president on August 10 has ushered in a new era in Turkey. His election has been hailed as the announcement of the advent of a “New Turkey”. As the first popularly elected president of the Turkish republic, Erdogan has made clear that he intends to put his stamp on the country. As his critics accuse him of aspiring to break with the legacy of Ottoman and Turkish Westernization, his successor as prime minister has said that the “New Turkey” closes a “hundred year old historic parenthesis.” What are the implications of this ideological rhetoric, and what does it mean in terms of Turkey’s nearly century long quest to become accepted as part of the Western world? This will be discussed by a panel that includes Toni Alaranta, Gareth Jenkins, Halil M. Karaveli & Paul T. Levin.

Toni Alaranta is a Senior Research Fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, focusing on Turkish politics and history. He is the author of Contemporary Kemalism: from universal secular-humanism to extreme Turkish nationalism (Routledge 2014).

Gareth Jenkins is a Nonresident Senior Fellow with the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program Joint Center. He is a writer and analyst based in Istanbul, Turkey, since 1989. He is a regular contributor to the Turkey Analyst and author among other of Political Islam in Turkey: Running West, Heading East? (Palgrave 2008).

Halil M. Karaveli is a Senior Fellow with the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program Joint Center and Editor of the biweekly Turkey Analyst. He is author, among other, of Reconciling Statism with Freedom – Turkey’s Kurdish Opening (Silk Road Paper, 2010).

Paul T. Levin is the founding Director of the Stockholm University Institute for Turkish Studies (SUITS). Among numerous other publications on international relations and public administration, Dr. Levin is the author of Turkey and the European Union: Christian and Secular Images of Islam.

Location: ISDP, Västra Finnbodavägen 2, Stockholm-Nacka. For a map and directions, please go here.

To attend: RSVP to Ms. Pauline Dupuis at pdupuis@isdp.eu