Senem Aydın-Düzgit, professor of international relations at Sabanci University and director of the Istanbul Policy Centre, on her article “Foreign Policy as Domestic Politics in Populist Competitive Authoritarianism: The Case of the May 2023 Elections in Turkey,” published in the journal South European Society and Politics. The conversation looks at how Erdogan uses foreign policy, defence policy and strongman diplomacy to burnish his reputation and reinforce public backing for the regime in Turkey. This strategy comes amid greater opportunity, as growing geopolitical uncertainty opens doors for ambitious players to reshape the international system based on raw power politics. Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=2998854&fan_landing=true Substack: https://turkeybooktalk.substack.com/

Nora Fisher Onar, Associate Professor and Chair of Global Studies at University of San Francisco, on “Contesting Pluralism(s): Islamism, Liberalism, and Nationalism in Turkey and Beyond” (Cambridge University Press). The book aims to “challenge the received wisdom that a binary contest between ’Islam’ and ’secularism’ is the driving force in Turkey’s politics”. It voices the same scepticism about other binary divides often used to explain Turkey’s political history, including ”Turks vs. Kurds”, ”Sunnis vs. Alevis”, etc. Instead, Onar proposes an alternative theory of alliances between pluralist and non-pluralist forces that shift over time. Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=2998854&fan_landing=true Substack: https://turkeybooktalk.substack.com/

Sean Mathews, Athens-based journalist at Middle East Eye, on “The New Byzantines: The Rise of Greece and Return of the Near East” (Hurst). The book examines Greece’s comeback as a regional player, arguing that this has largely been triggered by neighbouring Turkey’s growing assertiveness and revisionism. It suggests that this competition increasingly means we should view Greece as a Levantine or even Middle Eastern country, anchored in the East Mediterranean. The conversation also addresses the past, present and future of Turkey-Greece relations at a time when the geopolitical landscape is becoming increasingly uncertain. Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=2998854&fan_landing=true Substack: https://turkeybooktalk.substack.com/

Perin Gurel, associate professor of American Studies and associate professor of Gender Studies at the University of Notre Dame, on “Türkiye, Iran, and the Politics of Comparison: America’s Wife, America’s Concubine” (Cambridge University Press). The book looks at diplomatic history, popular culture and media portrayals to explore the cultural history of Turkey–Iran comparisons in the West, from Cold War-era modernisation theory to post-9/11 studies of “moderate Islam”. Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=2998854&fan_landing=true Substack: https://turkeybooktalk.substack.com/

Gokhan Bacik, professor in the department of politics and European studies at Palacky University, on his article “Selling Citizenship in Turkey: Political Parties, Pragmatism, and Polarization,” recently published in the journal “Nationalism and Ethnic Politics”. The article examines the Turkish government’s Citizenship By Investment scheme, first introduced in 2016 and amended several times since then. It looks at the programme’s economic and social consequences, as well as the way it has been discussed – or avoided – in the national political debate. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=2998854&fan_landing=true Substack: https://turkeybooktalk.substack.com/

Amy Marie Spangler on the late great author Leyla Erbil’s What Remains. Amy co-translated the novel, along with Alev Ersan and Mark David Wyers, for an edition that will be published by Deep Vellum in October. First appearing in Turkish in 2011, two years before Erbil passed away, What Remains is a multilayered narrative that sweeps the reader from the Byzantine Empire to 20th century Turkey. It is also a dark elegy to the Istanbul of eras past and all that has been lost in its transformation. Amy is the co-founder of the AnatoliaLit literary agency, so our conversation also touches on broader trends in Turkey’s contemporary literary marketplace and the growing role of AI. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=2998854&fan_landing=true Substack: https://turkeybooktalk.substack.com/

Özgür Özkan, visiting scholar at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, on the domestic and regional implications of Turkey’s push for the Kurdish militant group’s dissolution. The conversation digs into issues raised by his recent article “Turkey’s Dangerous Illusion of Peace with the PKK”. Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=2998854&fan_landing=true Substack: https://turkeybooktalk.substack.com/

Christopher Dole, professor of anthropology at Amherst College, on “Living On: Psychiatry and the Future of Disaster in Turkey” (Stanford University Press). The book is an account of the psychiatric response to the August 1999 Marmara Earthquake, which killed over 20,000 people and left hundreds of thousands injured or displaced. It also examines the legacy of the earthquake in the communities and lives of its survivors and among the Turkish mental health professionals who responded to it. Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=2998854&fan_landing=true Substack: https://turkeybooktalk.substack.com/

Mustafa Kutlay, senior lecturer in comparative politics at City St George’s University of London, discusses his recent Foreign Affairs article “Turkey’s Middle-Power Dilemma”. Turkey is widely cited as one of the increasingly influential players in the emerging world order, with greater appetite and greater capacity to play a bigger role both in its region and elsewhere. Mustafa’s article focuses on the successes and failures of the Turkish government’s bid to carve out that greater role in the name of “strategic autonomy”. It also underlines the risks posed by this new world of increasingly ambitious, competitive powers clashing and cooperating with each other. Please support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=2998854&fan_landing=true Substack: https://turkeybooktalk.substack.com/

Bilge Yabanci, Ikerbasque Fellow and Ramón y Cajal Fellow at the University of Deusto in Bilbao, on “Civil Society and Authoritarianism: Co-optation, Repression and Contestation in Turkey” (Edinburgh University Press). The book examines the transformation of NGOs, activist groups, businesses, charities, religious groups, and others, under pressure from authoritarianism. It is published amid an escalating crackdown on Turkey’s main opposition CHP, which may ultimately shift the country to a new post-democratic regime, devoid of electoral competition. This latest political crackdown comes after years of the Erdogan government monopolising institutions and chipping away at democratic checks and balances. However, during this time the number of civil society organisations has also risen significantly, while the scale of issues under debate has expanded. Through on-the-ground research with groups across the political spectrum, the book seeks to explain this paradoxical situation. Support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=2998854&fan_landing=true Substack: https://turkeybooktalk.substack.com/

Erik-Jan Zürcher, professor emeritus of Turkish Studies at Leiden University, on the uses and abuses of nostalgia for empire in contemporary Turkey and the UK. The conversation is based on a lecture that Zürcher delivered at the Istanbul Policy Center in May, “The Poison of Nostalgia”, which compared neo-Ottomanist tendencies in Turkey with the view of empire in Britain’s Brexit debate. Support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=2998854&fan_landing=true Substack: https://turkeybooktalk.substack.com/

Talin Suciyan, Associate Professor of Turkish Studies at Ludwig Maximilian University, on “Armenians in Turkey after the Second World War: An Archival Reader of USSR Consular Documents” (IB Tauris/Bloomsbury). The book highlights reports from the Soviet consulate in Istanbul in 1945-46, particularly focusing on the oral testimonies of thousands of Armenians in Turkey who registered for a campaign encouraging Armenians around the world to migrate to Soviet Armenia. This campaign led to many Armenians from across the world moving to Soviet Armenia, but its Turkey chapter was ultimately cancelled for reasons still not clear today. Nevertheless, the book still sheds fascinating light on Turkish politics and society at the time, pre-Cold War geopolitical dynamics, and the sentiments of Armenians from villages and towns across Turkey about their lives and why they wanted to emigrate. Support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=2998854&fan_landing=true Substack: https://turkeybooktalk.substack.com/

David Tonge on “The Enduring Hold of Islam in Turkey: The Revival of the Religious Orders and Rise of Erdogan” (Hurst). The book meticulously explores the political, economic and social influence of major Islamic orders in the country over the last few decades, including the flourishing of several key groups under Erdogan’s AKP. Support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=2998854&fan_landing=true Substack: https://turkeybooktalk.substack.com/

Richard Calis, assistant professor in cultural history at Utrecht University, on “The Discovery of Ottoman Greece: Knowledge, Encounter, and Belief in the Mediterranean World of Martin Crusius” (Harvard University Press). The book examines the life and impact of Martin Crusius. Born in Bavaria in 1526, Crusius became celebrated as Europe’s preeminent expert on the Greek world past and present, as well as the Orthodox Greeks in the Ottoman Empire. In his seminal work “Turcograecia”, he wrote the period’s richest record of Greek life under Ottoman rule, which served for centuries as a key source of knowledge on the Ottoman Empire itself. The conversation addresses how Crusius’s work affected European views of the Ottoman Empire and the deep chasm between the Christian and Muslim worlds that his perspective reflected. Support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=2998854&fan_landing=true Substack: https://turkeybooktalk.substack.com/

Fiona Mullen, director of the Nicosia-based Sapienta Economics consultancy, on uncertainty around the future of the decades-long Cyprus divide amid mounting geopolitical uncertainty and regional competition. Fiona recently wrote that informal UN-brokered talks over the island suggest that the Cyprus paradigm may be changing. Ankara has in recent years pushed for a formal split on the island between Turkish and Greek sides, but shifting regional dynamics make calculations on all sides increasingly unpredictable. Support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=2998854&fan_landing=true Substack: https://turkeybooktalk.substack.com/

Bilge Yesil, professor of media culture at the College of Staten Island (CUNY) and author of “Talking Back to the West: How Turkey Uses Counter-Hegemony to Reshape the Global Communication Order” (University of Illinois Press), returns to the podcast. The conversation addresses Turkey’s narrowing media landscape and internet crackdown amid political turbulence, protests and mounting pressure on critics. Support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=2998854&fan_landing=true Substack: https://turkeybooktalk.substack.com/

Berk Esen, political scientist at Sabanci University, on whether Ekrem Imamoglu’s arrest heralds Turkey’s shift from competitive authoritarianism to autocracy. The conversation addresses the dynamics driving the government’s intensifying crackdown, the international context for this escalation, and the critical choices facing the country’s embattled opposition. Support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=2998854&fan_landing=true Substack: https://turkeybooktalk.substack.com/

Cuma Çiçek, author of “The Kurds of Turkey: National, Religious and Economic Identities” (IB Tauris), on the dynamics behind Ankara’s latest push to put an end to over four decades of the PKK’s insurgency. The conversation discusses jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan’s call for the group’s disarmament, the implications for affiliated forces in Iraq and Syria, and what it means for Turkish politics. Support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=2998854&fan_landing=true Substack: https://turkeybooktalk.substack.com/

Selim Koru, analyst at the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey and fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in US, on ”New Turkey and the Far Right: How Reactionary Nationalism Remade a Country” (IB Tauris/Bloomsbury) The book dives deep into the stark worldview driving Turkey’s regime change over the past couple of decades, and its profound implications for the country’s domestic and foreign policy. It frames Erdogan’s “New Turkey” in the context of a global trend of civilisation-fixated, far-right movements thriving in the US, Russia, India, Hungary and elsewhere - a pioneer of the emerging anti-liberal world order. Support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=2998854&fan_landing=true Substack: https://turkeybooktalk.substack.com/

Claudia Liebelt, professor of social and cultural anthropology at the Free University of Berlin, on ”Istanbul Appearances: Beauty and the Making of Middle-Class Femininities in Urban Turkey” (Syracuse University Press). Hair transplants, dental implants, botox, nose jobs, lip fillers, eye lifts... Turkey has become almost synonymous with the booming cosmetic sector among international ”health tourists” in recent years. Liebelt’s book is based on extensive research in beauty salons and cosmetic surgery centres across Istanbul, speaking to customers, workers and surgeons to explain the sector’s extraordinary growth among both locals and foreigners. Support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=2998854&fan_landing=true Substack: https://turkeybooktalk.substack.com/