This article focuses on the populist strategy of the Turkish Justice and Development Party between the 2007 presidential election, when Turkish politics experienced an impasse, and the 2010 referendum over the constitutional amendments. As a means of analysing populism, the symptomatic approach is preferred over other theoretical perspectives, including empiricism and historicism. An analysis of the discourse articulated by Prime Minister Erdoğan leads us to the conclusion that he has continually appealed to the masses with an anti-institutional rhetoric that divides society into ‘the people’ and ‘the elite’, thereby fulfilling the criteria of populism according to the symptomatic approach.
This article focuses on the plight of the Jews in Turkey during the Second World War, with the intention of analysing specific historical events through the lenses of leading theories of nationalism. First we review recent developments in historiography that contribute the framework for understanding both the hermeneutical possibilities and limitations when addressing historical texts. Then we employ three theories of nationalism -the ethno-symbolist, instrumentalist and social constructivist -as a means of analysing and interpreting the historical events of the Jewish predicament vis-a`-vis the Republic of Turkey. We conclude by suggesting what impact our findings may have on the narratives from this time period, and the way in which we can understand narratives today.
David Erdos presents a highly original study of the rise of bills of rights instruments in 'Westminster'-style democracies. The book has a strong theoretical and empirical focus with four case study chapters exploring the bill of rights instruments introduced in the UK, Canada and New Zealand, and a fifth chapter examining Australia, which remains the only 'Westminster'style democracy not to have introduced a national bill of rights. The book's key theoretical contribution, discussed in chapter 3, is the development of the 'postmaterialist trigger thesis' (PTT) to explain the 'deliberate adoption of a bill of rights in stable, advanced democracies' (p. 5). There are two aspects to the PTT. First, where bills of rights have been introduced in Westminster democracies there has been a gradual entrenchment of a post-materialist socio-political culture characterised by the growth of a powerful and influential 'postmaterialist rights constituency'. Secondly, these socio-political factors must be accompanied by a political trigger that gives incumbent political elites 'an immediate impetus for change' (p. 27) causing them to introduce a bill of rights. Erdos has identified two possible political triggers. First is an 'aversive' trigger, where a bill of rights is introduced by a resurgent political elite, either in reaction to the negative experiences of that elite in opposition, or to a government that was particularly authoritarian. Second is a 'threat to political stability' trigger, where a bill of rights is designed and implemented to provide political stability and national cohesion in the face of threats to both. The author builds a
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