In Pursuit of “Contemporary Civilization”: Judicial Empowerment in Turkey

Shambayati, Hootan; Kirdiş, Esen

doi:10.1177/1065912909346741

Cited by 31 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…288-289, Yüzbaşıoglu 1993. Not surprisingly, the AYM is often argued to have abused the power to dissolve parties, by endorsing Kemalism as its official ideology, and by acting as the agent of the state elites that had drafted the constitution (Hirschl 2012, p. 324;Kogacıoglu 2003;Shambayati and Kirdis 2009).…”

Section: Eternity Clauses and Constitutional Guardianship Under The Cmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Hegemonic Preservation Thesis Revisited: The Example of Turkey

Seven

Vinx

2016

Hague J Rule Law

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This paper offers a critical rereading of the history of judicial review of constitutional amendments in Turkey. We argue that, contrary to appearances, the claim to a power of amendment review on the part of the Turkish Constitutional Court does not fit Ran Hirschl's model of hegemonic preservation, which aims to explain the genesis of strong constitutionalism and judicial review as the result of an anti-democratic elite consensus that tries to leverage the prestige of judicial institutions. Attempts to impose Hirschl's model on the constitutional history of the Turkish Republic have been very popular in the jurisprudential literature on Turkey, but the model offers a misleading and incomplete diagnosis of what ails Turkish constitutionalism. It is not the supposed excessive strength of formal constitutionalism and judicial review in Turkey, but rather the normative weakness of the Turkish Constitution of 1982, that is responsible, at least in part, for Turkey's repeated constitutional crises. We therefore suggest an alternative template for understanding Turkish constitutional history-the theory of sovereignty as the power to decide on the exception put forward by Carl Schmitt.

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Section: Eternity Clauses and Constitutional Guardianship Under The Cmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Hegemonic Preservation Thesis Revisited: The Example of Turkey

Seven

Vinx

2016

Hague J Rule Law

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“…Historically, the Turkish regime was defined by laicism, where the Turkish state, composed of the military, the judiciary and the bureaucracy as “the guardians of laicism,” saw themselves as the carriers of a “civilizing mission” to modernize Turkish politics and society top-down, and proactively supervised religious activity throughout the country by bringing all mosques and religious education under its roof (Shambayati and Kirdiş, 2009). Within this arrangement, religious organizations were legally banned but informally allowed to work as apolitical religious foundations under the surveillance of the Directorate of Religious Affairs.…”

Section: To Form a Political Party Versus To Stay As A Social Movementmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As a result, the “guardians of the state” intervened into Turkish politics at different times and for various reasons. For instance, the military intervened and suspended democratic life twice (in 1960 and 1980) in order to “save” democracy from politicians and political polarizations, and the Turkish Constitutional Court banned multiple political parties for their opposition to laicism (Shambayati and Kirdiş, 2009). In such a context, although participation would allow political access, such influence would also remain limited.…”

Section: To Form a Political Party Versus To Stay As A Social Movementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Same context, different political paths: Two Islamic movements in Turkey

Kirdiş

2016

International Area Studies Review

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Two Islamic actors in Turkey have transformed the state’s strict control of the religious field (laicism). While the National Outlook Movement, the “mother-movement” of the governing Justice and Development Party, did so through its “participation” in party politics, the Gülen Movement, Turkey’s most powerful Islamic movement that operates hundreds of schools and a major media network, contributed to this transformation through its “non-participation” in party politics as a social movement, providing an alternative to laicist establishments outside of institutional channels. These two movements, by following different political paths, have embodied different opportunities for and challenges to Turkish democratization. To understand their influence in Turkish politics today, this article will adapt a “method of difference” and ask what explains these two Islamic movements’ variation in regards to party politics and what the consequences of this variation are for Turkish politics. Based on qualitative fieldwork in Turkey, this article will argue that both movements have made their decisions about party politics by strategically and differently evaluating the political opportunities/threats of party politics in light of their varying ideological priorities and organizational needs, and that these strategic decisions have transformed the movements themselves and the Turkish regime altering the laicist status quo between them.

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“…Although the TCC has a relatively apolitical structure on paper, it is well established that the constitutional court judges are administrative agents who defend the values and interests of the state elites (Beige 2006;Shambayati and Kirdi § 2009). If this is the case, then the court should favor the state elite opposition parties over non-state elite opposition parties.7 However, in his empir ical analysis of the TCC decisions, Hazama (2012, 435) shows that the court does not respond differently to unconstitutionality claims by the state elite and non-state elite opposition parties.…”

Section: T H E Political and Judicial C O N Te X T In T U Rk E Ymentioning

confidence: 99%

Judicialization of Politics by Elected Politicians

Aydin-Cakir

2014

Political Research Quarterly

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Political Research Q u a rte rly 2014, Vol. 67(3) 4 89-503 © 2 0 1 4 U nive rsity o f Utah Reprints and permissions: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav A b s tra ctThis study argues that the proxim ity to a general election would affect the frequency of the opposition parties' referrals to the constitutional court. This effect is hypothesized to be conditioned on the opposition parties' prediction o f the upcoming election results. To test this theory, I constructed an original data set including all acts promulgated by Turkish Parliament and all cases that were brought to the constitutional court by the opposition parties during 1984-2011. The results show that once the opposition party believes that it will lose the election, it increases its referrals to the court as election approaches.

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In Pursuit of “Contemporary Civilization”: Judicial Empowerment in Turkey

Cited by 31 publications

References 23 publications

The Hegemonic Preservation Thesis Revisited: The Example of Turkey

The Hegemonic Preservation Thesis Revisited: The Example of Turkey

Same context, different political paths: Two Islamic movements in Turkey

Judicialization of Politics by Elected Politicians

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