https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8211-8624
![Sample our Social Sciences journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/110822/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Social-Sciences.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
This article analyses the rising tides of celebrity politics in Turkey by contextualising it within the changing dynamics of Turkish politics during the last decade. More specifically, it tries to understand the fault lines of celebritisation of politics with reference to the installation and re-installation of the neoliberal conservative hegemony. Celebrity politics in Turkey has acquired a unique character within a political environment where the tides of social opposition are very high and as a trend of de-democratisation has been hanging over the country. This is what makes the content and nature of celebrity politics in Turkey different from the general tendency in the world, as the most widespread form of celebrity politics is the advocacy of policy matters such as philanthropy and raising awareness on sensitive and noble human causes. In Turkey, the existing neoliberal conservative hegemony, since its first installation, has been able to find new and/or different ways of consolidating, revising, shifting, and re-installing itself, and it has done this by finding new ways of creating the collective identities of us versus them. It is the argument of this study that celebrity politics has been one of the latest resorts in that task.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Web sites
Ankara Provincial Governate slaps indefinite ban on ‘Just a Dictator’ play, http://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/haber/english/911164/Ankara_Provincial_Governate_slaps_indefinite_ban_on__Just_a_Dictator__play.html
‘Only A Dictator’ play banned in parts of Turkey, http://www.dw.com/en/only-a-dictator-play-banned-in-parts-of-turkey/a-42339025
Dissident Turkish actor to face dismissal from Istanbul City Theater, http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/dissident-turkish-actor-to-face-dismissal-from-istanbul-city-theater–82134
Support for Füsun Demirel from Film Workers, http://m.bianet.org/bianet/human-rights/173094-support-for-fusun-demirel-from-film-workers
Syria war: Turkey arrests hundreds for criticising Afrin offensive, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-42863531
Turkey’s anti-war protesters detained: ‘Everything is a crime’, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-43731563
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-42863531
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/turkish-pm-blasts-eu-parliament-motion-on-afrin-operation/1091823
https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/EUR4481422018ENGLISH.pdf
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/23/world/middleeast/us-nato-turkey-afrin-manbij.html
http://www.diken.com.tr/erdogani-destekleyen-unluler-dizisinde-bu-hafta-zerrin-ozer/
Notes
1. This is what, they argued, that the left has globally failed to do since the 1980s. They maintained that the left was mistaken to argue that the centrist consensus could be seen as the sign of a more mature democracy; rather it was a danger for democracy, and it created the conditions for a right-wing populism growing. They defended the idea of left-wing populism that aims to create a people, a boundary between us and them, or a collective will in the Gramscian sense of the term. See, for instance, Gildas le Dem, interview with Chantal Mouffe, https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/3341-chantal-mouffe-we-urgently-need-to-promote-a-left-populism.
2. For a chronology of the events starting on 27 May 2013, see Gürcan and Peker (Citation2014) ‘Turkey’s Gezi Park Demonstrations of 2013: A Marxian Analysis of the Political Moment,’ Socialism and Democracy 28(1): 70–71.
3. The statistics are from The National Human Rights Institution of Turkey (Türkiye İnsan Hakları Kurumu – TIHK). ‘Gezi Parkı Olayları Raporu’.
4. On 10 August 2014, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was elected as President of the Republic of Turkey.
5. Among the government’s statements and decisions which were perceived as signs of a ‘majoritarian drift’, ‘subtle government violence’ or ‘authoritarian tendencies’ one can cite the following: the government’s interventions in the judiciary that risk undermining the separation of powers; Erdoğan’s increasing references to Islamic themes (such as his promise to raise ‘pious generations’, anti-abortion statements, a new law aiming to restrict alcohol consumption or insults against female and male students sharing the same house); Erdoğan’s statements aiming to justify government pressure on the media; the government’s plans to privatise public theatres and operas; encroachments on urban public spaces without paying any attention to the advice of city planners and architects, or allowing any public debate on these projects; the endorsement of transnationally determined neo-liberal economic policies fuelling consumerism and commercialism; excessive use of police force against almost every demonstration; long pre-trial detention periods; vague and broad definitions of ‘terrorism’ and ‘terrorist propaganda’ in the Anti-Terror Law; attempts to micro-manage even such lifestyle choices as which bread to eat and how much salt to add to one’s food.
6. http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkish-singer-actress-zuhal-olcay-sentenced-to-10-months-in-prison-for-insulting-erdogan-129141 Emphasis added.
7. ‘“Only A Dictator” play banned in parts of Turkey,’ http://www.dw.com/en/only-a-dictator-play-banned-in-parts-of-turkey/a-42339025.
8. Ankara Provincial Governate slaps indefinite ban on ‘Just a Dictator’ play, http://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/haber/english/911164/Ankara_Provincial_Governate_slaps_indefinite_ban_on__Just_a_Dictator__play.html.
9. ‘Dissident Turkish actor to face dismissal from Istanbul City Theater,’ http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/dissident-turkish-actor-to-face-dismissal-from-istanbul-city-theater–82134.
10. ‘Support for Füsun Demirel from Film Workers,’ http://m.bianet.org/bianet/human-rights/173094-support-for-fusun-demirel-from-film-workers.
11. For the details, see https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2018/04/turkey-sale-dogan-media-is-more-than-meets-the-eye.html.
16. For the EU’s reaction see, https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/turkish-pm-blasts-eu-parliament-motion-on-afrin-operation/1091823
17. ‘Syria war: Turkey arrests hundreds for criticising Afrin offensive’, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-42863531.
20. ‘Turkey’s anti-war protesters detained: “Everything is a crime”,’ http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-43731563 .
