A Gramscian Reading of the Attack on Women’s Freedom and on their Role in Establishing Peace and Security in Illiberal Democracies
Abstract
The current Turkish government has failed to realize a holistic framework for gender equality. Its reluctance to implement UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on WPS agenda proves its essentialist and victimhood-oriented approach. This article tries to show how this approach has determined its political project—authoritarian, patriarchal, and conservative-confessional New Turkey—by concentrating on the policies issued by the Justice and Development Party (hereafter AKP) during the last twenty years. As a result of this project’s implementation, women in Turkey and their CSOs have been negatively affected, especially after the 2016 crisis and the AKP adoption of increasingly sectarian/repressive policies.
To shed light on the ongoing feminist-women/government tension, this article looks at the role of AKP’s ‘organic intellectuals’ who operate within the Turkish society to support the government’s project, relying on Gramscian and Marcusean insights while analysing AKP’s authoritarianism according to Gramsci’s Caesarist-Bonapartist model. Its organic intellectuals consolidate this traditional and religious vision of women in society. By putting women at the centre of religious discourses and making them a bearer of moral or ethical principles, the government reproduces, approves and reasserts their second-class position within society.References
References
Abdel-Monem, T 2009, ‘Opuz v. Turkey: Europe's Landmark Judgment on Violence Against Women’, Human Rights Brief vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 29-33.
AKP, ‘AKP program’, 2001, https://www.akparti.org.tr/parti/parti-programi/, accessed 15 September 2021.
Aksoy, HA, 2018, ‘Gendered Strategies between Democratization and Democratic Reversal: The Curious Case of Turkey’, Politics and Governance, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 101–111. Doi: 10.17645/pag.v6i3.1423.
Alemdar, Z & Yinanc, B 2021, ‘Women, Peace and Security Agenda in Turkey and Women in Diplomacy: How to Integrate the WPS Agenda in Turkish Foreign Policy’, CATS: Center for Applied Turkey Studies, pp. 1-17, .
Alemdar, Z 2019, ‘Women, Peace and Security Agenda: A Roadmap for Turkey’, Independent and cutting-edge analysis on global affairs, 8 September, viewed 28 September 2021, .
Altuntaş, N & Demirkanoğlu, Y 2017, ‘Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi’nin Kadına İlişkin Söylem ve Politikalarına Bakış: Muhafazakâr Demokratlıktan Muhafazakârlığa Doğru Evrilişin İzdüşümleri’, Journal of Academic Approaches, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 65-96.
Antonini, F 2021, Caesarism and Bonapartism in Gramsci: Hegemony and the Crisis of Modernity, Brill, Leiden, Boston.
Arat, Y & Pamuk, Ş 2019, Turkey between democracy and authoritarianism, Cambridge University Press.
Arat, Y, ‘Religion, Politics and Gender Equality in Turkey: implications of a democratic paradox?’, Third World Quarterly, vol. 31, no. 6, pp. 869-884. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27896586.
Ayata, AG & Doğangün, G 2017, ‘Gender Politics of the AKP: Restoration of a Religio-conservative Gender Climate’, Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, vol. 19, no. 6, pp. 610-627.
Aytaç, GB 2021, ‘Women, Peace and Security Agenda: Mainstreaming, Peacekeeping and Turkey's Defence Policies’, pp. 1-17, CATS: Women Peace and Security Policy Reports for Turkey, .
BBC News 2014, ‘Erdoğan: Kadın-erkek eşitliği fıtrata ters’, 24 November, viewed 26 September 2021, .
‘Barış için Kadın Girişimi’ 2014 [Women’s Initiative for Peace], Heinrich Boll Stiftung Dernegi Turkiye Temsilciligi, 13 November, viewed 28 September 2021, http://www.kadinininsanhaklari.org/portfolio-view/baris-icin-kadin-girisimi/.
Bianet 2014, ‘Erdoğan: 1-2-3-4 Çocuk, Gerisi Allah Kerim’ 18 September, viewed 18 September 2021, .
Blázquez, RB 2020, ‘European Judicial Cooperation and Protection of Gender-Based Violence Victims, Fact or Fiction?’, Ceza Hukuku ve Kriminoloji Dergisi-Journal of Penal Law and Criminology, vol. 8, no.1, pp. 95-115. https://doi.org/10.26650/JPLC2020-0007.
Bozarslan, H 2008, ‘Kurds and the Turkish State’, in Reset Kasaba (ed.), The Cambridge History of Turkey, vol. 4: Turkey in the Modern World, Cambridge University Press, pp. 333-357.
CEDAW 2016, “Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, Concluding Observations on the Seventh Periodic Report of Turkey,” 25 July, viewed 28 September 2021, .
Coşar, S & Yeğenoğlu, M 2011, ‘New Grounds for Patriarchy in Turkey? Gender Policy in the Age of AKP’, South European Society and Politics, vol. 16, no. 4, pp. 555-573. https://doi.org/10.1080/13608746.2011.571919.
Çakır, S 1994, Osmanlı Kadın Hareketi, Metis, Istanbul.
Çalışkan, K 2018, ‘Toward a new political regime in Turkey: From competitive toward full authoritarianism’, New Perspectives on Turkey, vol. 58, pp.5-33.
Daloglu, T 2014, “Erdogan rejects women’s equality”, in NENA, 02 Dicember, viewed 20 October 2021, .
Dogan, S 2020, ‘Istanbul Convention: Violence, Women and Turkey’, European Law and Gender, 18 August, viewed25 September 2021, .
European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) 2009, ‘Chamber judgment Opuz v. Turkey’, 09 June, viewed 20 October 2021, https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/fre#{%22itemid%22:[%22003-2759276-3020932%22]}.
Erensü, S & Alemdaroglu, A 2018, ‘Dialectics of Reform and Repression: Unpacking Turkey’s Authoritarian “Turn”’, Review of Middle East Studies, vol. 52, no. 1, pp. 16-28.
Esen, B & Gumuscu, S 2016, ‘Rising Competitive Authoritarianism in Turkey’, Third World Quarterly, vol. 37, no. 9, pp. 1581–1606. https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2015.1135732.
Euronews 2017, ‘Erdoğan: "3 değil 5 çocuk yapın"’, 19 March, viewed 18 September 2021, .
Evrensel 2021, ‘Cumhurbaşkanı Erdoğan, kadını “aile” ile tarif etti, yine “En az 3 çocuk” dedi’, 19 February, viewed 18 September 2021, .
Fontana, B 2004, ‘The Concept of Caesarism in Gramsci’, in P Baehr & M Richter (eds), Dictatorship in History and Theory: Bonapartism, Caesarism, and Totalitarianism, Cambridge University Press, pp. 176-177.
Gagliardi, A 2016, ‘Tra rivoluzione e controrivoluzione. L’interpretazione gramsciana del fascismo’, Laboratoire Italien, https://doi.org/10.4000/laboratoireitalien.1062 .
Ghetti, N 2020, Gramsci e Le Donne: Gli affetti, gli amori, le idee, Donzelli, Roma.
Gramsci, A 1992, Selections from the prison notebooks, Q Hoare & G Nowell-Smith (eds.), Lawrence & Wishart, London.
Gramsci, A 1977, Quaderni dal Carcere, Valentino Gerratana (ed.), vol. 3, Einaudi, Torino.
Gramsci, A 1977a, Quaderni dal Carcere, Valentino Gerratana (ed.), vol. 2, Einaudi, Torino.
Güneş, AA & Doğangün, G 2017, ‘Gender Politics of the AKP: Restoration of a Religio-conservative Gender Climate’, Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, vol. 19, no. 6, pp. 610-627. https://doi.org/10.1080/19448953.2017.1328887.
Hoar, Q & Smith, GN (eds.) 1992, Selection of Prison Notebooks, Lawrence & Wishart, London.
Hurriyet 2008, ‘Erdoğan: En az üç çocuk doğurun’, 7 March, viewed 18 September 2021, .
Karatas, Ezgi 2017, ‘KHK’lar, kadınlar ve çocuklar’, taz, 16 October, viewed 29 September 2021, .
Kirby, P & Shepherd, LJ 2021, ‘Women, peace and security: mapping the (re)production of a policy ecosystem’, Journal of Global Security Studies, vol. 6, no. 3. https://doi.org/10.1093/jogss/ogaa045.
Kirby, P & Shepherd, LJ 2016, ‘The futures past of the women, peace and security agenda’, International Affairs, vol. 92, no. 2, pp. 373-392. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2346.12549.
Kuru, D & Ozahishali, G 2020, ‘Interview with Feride Acar: Feride Acar anlattı: İstanbul Sözleşmesi ve etrafındaki tartışmalar’, Uluslararasi Af Orgutu, 24 December, viewed 27 September 2021, .
Ledwith, M 2009, ‘Antonio Gramsci and Feminism: The elusive nature of power’, Educational Philosophy and Theory, vol. 41, no. 6, pp. 684-69. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-5812.2008.00499.x.
Marcuse, H 2002, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society, Routledge, London & New York.
NTV 2009, ‘Erdoğan: İş işten geçmeden en az 3 çocuk’ 10 September, viewed 18 September 2021, .
Özbudun, E 2015, ‘Turkey’s Judiciary and the Drift Toward Competitive Authoritarianism’, The International Spectator 50, no. 2, pp. 42–55. https://doi.org/10.1080/03932729.2015.1020651.
Peace & Freedom, “What are WPS National Action Plans?”, in 1325 National Action Plans (NAPs), viewed 20 October 2021, http://1325naps.peacewomen.org/.
Paechter, C 2018, ‘Rethinking the possibilities for hegemonic femininity: Exploring a Gramscian framework’, Women’s Studies International Forum, vol. 68, p.121-128. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2018.03.005.
Sarıgil, BÖ 2021, ‘Women, Peace and Security Agenda and Humanitarian Assistance: A New Terrain for Turkey’s Humanitarian Diplomacy’, CATS: Women Peace and Security Policy Reports for Turkey, .
Shepherd, LJ 2008, Gender, Violence & Security, Zed Books Ltd, London.
Simon, J 2013, ‘Locating Gender and Resistance Through a Feminist Application of Gramsci’s “Organic Intellectual”: An Analysis of Time Magazine's 2002 “Person(s) of the Year”’, Southern Communication Journal, vol. 78, no. 1, pp. 56-69. https://doi.org/10.1080/1041794X.2012.721046.
Slaughter, J 2011, ‘Gramsci's place in women’s history’, Journal of Modern Italian Studies, vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 256-272. https://doi.org/10.1080/1354571X.2011.542985.
Šimonović, D 2008, ‘Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women’, Audiovisual Library of International Law, viewed 13 September 2021, .
Telseren, A 2020, ‘Changing Gender Politics in Turkey throughout the 2000s: A Feminist Analysis of Gender Policies Pursued by Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi - AKP) Governments’, Interdisciplinary Political Studies, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 357-395. https://doi.org/10.1285/i20398573v6n2p357.
Thomson, J 2019, ‘The Women, Peace, and Security Agenda and Feminist Institutionalism: A Research Agenda’, International Studies Review, vol. 21, no. 4, pp. 598-613. https://doi.org/10.1093/isr/viy052.
Tugal, C 2009, Passive Revolution: Absorbing the Islamic Challenge to Capitalism, Stanford University Press.
The Constitutional Court, “Constitution of the Republic of Turkey”, viewed 20 October 2021, .
Vacca, Giuseppe 2020, In cammino con Gramsci: con un saggio di Marcello Mustè, Viella, Roma.
Vatan 2010, ‘Kadınla erkek eşit olamaz!’, 20 July, viewed 26 September 2021, .
World Economic Forum 2020, ‘the Global Gender Gap Report’, viewed 17 September 2021, .
Yavuz, MH & Öztürk, AE 2019, ‘Turkish secularism and Islam under the reign of Erdoğan’, Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, vol. 19, no. 1: Islam, Populism and Regime Change in Turkey: Making and re-Making the AKP, pp.1-9.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14683857.2019.1580828.
Yilmaz, IG, Caman, ME & Bashirov, G 2020, ‘How an Islamist Party Managed to Legitimate its Authoritarianization in the Eyes of the Secularist Opposition: the Case of Turkey’, Democratization vol. 27, no. 2, pp. 265–282. https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2019.1679772.
Yılmaz, SA, 2015, ‘A New Momentum: Gender Justice in the Women’s Movement’, Turkish Policy Quarterly, vol. 13, no. 4.
Yılmaz, Z & Turner, BS 2019, ‘Turkey’s deepening authoritarianism and the fall of electoral democracy’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 46, no. 5, pp. 691-698. https://doi.org/10.1080/13530194.2019.1642662.
Full Text: pdf
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.