Lexington Books Societal Peace and Ideal Citizenship for Turkey

Globalisation and neo-liberalism have been impacting the nation-state and leading the full citizenship concept into crisis, not only in Turkey but also in the world. While one reason for this crisis is the decline of the welfare state, another reason stems from the fluidity of borders that distorts the classical patterns of the nation-state such as meta-identity. The existing Turkish citizenship inherited a strong state idea with passive citizenship tradition from the Ottoman Empire. However, this understanding is no longer sustainable for Turkish society. The definition of citizenship through state-led nationalism, secularism, and a free market economy creates societal crises in politics and society. The aim of this book is to find out the answer of what should be the ideal citizenship regime for Turkey. Various scholars dealing with Turkish socio-politics analyze different aspects and problems of Turkish citizenship regime that should be tackled for finding a recipe for ideal citizenship in Turkey. Review This book is long overdue. Well-crafted and timely, it will appeal to those scholars, experts, and students who want to know more about the transformation of the Turkish social landscape. Rather than focus on the conflict between Islamists and secularists, Dönmez and Enneli challenge us to consider diverse societal forces and identity-based social movements. The result is a deeper and richer understanding of the societal landscape of Turkey. There are two main features of the current normative conflict in Turkey: disputes over different lifestyles and the search for legitimacy, and the deepening clash of values between the political elite and the masses. The book not only provides a new interpretation of the origins of the current normative conflict, but offers new ways of addressing these conflicts.--M. Hakan Yavuz, University of Utah This book brings together various analyses that portray how various social movements are changing the citizenship regime in Turkey. This is a change that is transforming the state-society relations that are critical in the achievement of societal peace. The analyses included in this book describe how the issues pertaining to Kurds, Alevis, Romanis, women, LGBT groups, economically poor people, the youth, environmentally conscious, and Afro-Turkish community are bringing about denationalization of citizenship in the Turkish context. While the existing analyses focus on how the European Union accession processes have been triggering such a transformation, this book is distinguished by virtue of shedding light onto the transformative impact of such social movements.--Ayse Kadioglu, Sabanci University, Istanbul About the Author Rasim Özgür Dönmez is associate professor of international relations at Abant Izzet Baysal University in Turkey. Pinar Enneli is assistant professor at Abant Izzet Baysal University in Turkey.