Books by Acar Kutay
Comparative Political Theory, 2024
This paper proposes an analytical framework that employs a hegemony approach to political transfo... more This paper proposes an analytical framework that employs a hegemony approach to political transformations, which bring about significant changes in the fundamental norms and values of a political community, as well as in the organizing principles of the social and economic system. The hegemony approach, drawing inspiration from the works of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, provides political theorists and social scientists with conceptual tools for analyzing struggles over political power. The paper argues that attempts at hegemonic formations, when extended to political transformations, involve articulations around social antagonisms, the construction of the people, establishment of political frontiers, and mobilization of the demands of excluded and oppressed groups. The Justice and Development Party, led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey, serves as a unique case study to illustrate this approach.
Palgrave Macmillan, 2021
This book suggests that our notions of civil society have undergone radical changes—including str... more This book suggests that our notions of civil society have undergone radical changes—including structural changes in the nature of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). Such massive structural changes greatly problematize the older liberal view of a simple split between state and civil society actors which nonetheless remains dominant in much of social and political sciences. The author argues that the naturalist and behaviorist approaches to civil society occlude the fact that citizens increasingly live within a particular and highly contestable way of imagining and constructing civil society. The book suggests that changes in how civil society is conceptualized and organized around new practices, might mark radically new conceptions of the state that are ideologically neo-liberal and subtle in the ways they disempower ordinary citizens.
"This book provides a critical analysis of the European Union’s approach to ‘governance’, focusin... more "This book provides a critical analysis of the European Union’s approach to ‘governance’, focusing on the way in which civil society is incorporated within the EU decision-making process and arguing that it is not conducive to the democratisation of EU governance. Using a governmentality approach, Kutay demonstrates that civic actors are not incorporated into EU decision-making processes as they are; rather, they are formed, manipulated and guided by political programming. The author explains how this acts to prescribe and construct particular types of subjectivities, thereby limiting and constraining the types of participation that might emerge as part of European civil society and the process of political participation. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of European Union politics, global governance, civil society and democracy, Central and East European studies and political / international theory."
Peer-reviewed articles by Acar Kutay
Critical Sociology, 2024
In this paper, I examine the neoliberal transformation of civil society through Mitchel Foucault’... more In this paper, I examine the neoliberal transformation of civil society through Mitchel Foucault’s insights concerning knowledge, power, and governmentality. The objective of this paper is to trace the evolving understandings of civil society and how they relate to governmental rationalities and technologies of power. The traditional notion of civil society as a distinct and autonomous sphere has shifted toward an intermediary associations approach under neoliberalism. I posit that the mobilization of non-governmental organizations and civil society organizations by states, international organizations, and donor agencies since the 1990s constitutes a form of governmental technology, influenced by neoliberal rationalities. This technology serves the neoliberal agenda of undermining the social state, promoting market creation, and encouraging non-partisanship. This argument suggests that the rise of civil society as intermediary associations coincides with the decline of society.
Globalizations, 2022
Neoliberal policies-namely, structural adjustment programs, marketization, and privatization-that... more Neoliberal policies-namely, structural adjustment programs, marketization, and privatization-that have been imposed or prompted by Western countries and international organizations have exasperated social inequalities, led to higher levels of unemployment and often ruined agricultural sectors. These policies have eventually incited revolutionary fervor. Nonetheless, in addition to local factors, two external issues have restrained revolutionary change and may have bridled more substantive socioeconomic change in emerging and developing states: new constitutionalism and low-intensity democracy. New constitutionalism refers to the institutional and normative framework that organizes and controls neoliberalism globally. Low-intensity democracy denotes cosmetic or façade democracies wherein popular participation to affect political decisions is severely limited. While neoliberalism has hampered the democratic ideals of political sovereignty and equality or has brought about postdemocracy in the Western world, these consequences have been more extreme on the periphery. Neoliberalism has manifested in low-intensity democracies, or, when they have failed, neoliberal policies have been adopted by repressive states. Inspired by Chantal Mouffe and Ernesto Laclau, I argue that these implications (normative framework of neoliberalism and low-intensity democracy) serving imperial interests can be confronted by articulating multiple struggles that support social justice, political equality and selfgovernment. Such insights, especially regarding antagonism and hegemony, inspire strategies of revolutionary change against neoliberal hegemony and structures of domination. This strategy, which can be applied to both international and local political struggles, reworks revolutionary change by engaging with Asaf Bayat's reflections and Hannah Arendt's approach to revolution.
Contemporary Political Theory
Globalizations
Neoliberal policies-namely, structural adjustment programs, marketization, and privatization-that... more Neoliberal policies-namely, structural adjustment programs, marketization, and privatization-that have been imposed or prompted by Western countries and international organizations have exasperated social inequalities, led to higher levels of unemployment and often ruined agricultural sectors. These policies have eventually incited revolutionary fervor. Nonetheless, in addition to local factors, two external issues have restrained revolutionary change and may have bridled more substantive socioeconomic change in emerging and developing states: new constitutionalism and low-intensity democracy. New constitutionalism refers to the institutional and normative framework that organizes and controls neoliberalism globally. Low-intensity democracy denotes cosmetic or façade democracies wherein popular participation to affect political decisions is severely limited. While neoliberalism has hampered the democratic ideals of political sovereignty and equality or has brought about postdemocracy in the Western world, these consequences have been more extreme on the periphery. Neoliberalism has manifested in low-intensity democracies, or, when they have failed, neoliberal policies have been adopted by repressive states. Inspired by Chantal Mouffe and Ernesto Laclau, I argue that these implications (normative framework of neoliberalism and low-intensity democracy) serving imperial interests can be confronted by articulating multiple struggles that support social justice, political equality and selfgovernment. Such insights, especially regarding antagonism and hegemony, inspire strategies of revolutionary change against neoliberal hegemony and structures of domination. This strategy, which can be applied to both international and local political struggles, reworks revolutionary change by engaging with Asaf Bayat's reflections and Hannah Arendt's approach to revolution.
International Journal of Human Rights and Constitutional Studies, 2021
In this paper, I argue that constitutional and political transformations in the Middle East have ... more In this paper, I argue that constitutional and political transformations in the Middle East have been thus far largely shaped and evaluated by a hegemonic interpretation of constitutionalism. But, such interpretation is ahistorical, moralist and de-politicising. Political realism proposes an alternative theoretical perspective to liberalism in at least two grounds. First, following Raymond Geuss, its research agenda primarily submits to Ideologiekritik, that is, the task of political theory on this account is to unmask the origins, epistemic nature, and implications of liberal theory. Second, constitutionalism in liberal theory means resisting arbitrary power, but constitutions also generate legitimate political authority and create a political community that would organise and regulate its political institutions by the constitution.
Revista de Catalan Dret Public, 2020
International Encyclopedia of Civil Society (main author Beate Kohler), 2020
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics, 2020
The continued influence of the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) on politics characterized the political... more The continued influence of the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) on politics characterized the political history of the Turkish Republic, until such influence was first bridled and then ultimately broken by the Justice and Development Party governments during the 2000s. When the new regime was established in 1923, the military identified itself with its founding ideology, namely Kemalism, which was built on the ideas of modernism, secularism, and nationalism. Because the TAF assumed the roles of guardian of the regime and vanguard of modernization, any threat to the foundational values and norms of the republican regime was considered by the military as a threat to the constitutional order and national security. As a self-authorized guardian of the regime and its values, the TAF characterized itself as a non-partisan institution. The military appealed to such identity to justify the superiority of the moral and epistemological foundations of their understanding of politics compared with that of the elected politicians. The military invoked such superiority not only to intervene in politics and take power (1960, 1971, 1980, 1997, and 2007). They also used such identity to monitor and control political processes by means of the National Security Council (established after the 1960 military intervention) and by more informal means such as mobilizing the public against the elected government’s policy choices. In the context of the Cold War, domestic turmoil and lasting political polarization helped legitimate the military’s control over security issues until the 1980s. After the end of the Cold War, two threats to national security drew the TAF into politics: the rising power of Islamic movements and the separatist terrorism of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which posed threats to the constitutional order.
Turkey’s EU membership bid is one of the most important aspects that bridled the influence of the TAF on politics. Whereas the democratic oversight of the military and security sector constituted a significant dimension of the EU reforms, events that took place around the nomination of the Justice and Development Party’s candidate, Abdullah Gül, for the presidency created a rupture in the role and influence of the military on politics. Two juristic cases against members of the TAF in 2008 and 2010 made a massive impact on the power of the military, before the ultimate supremacy of the political sphere was established after the coup attempt organized by the Gülenist officers who infiltrated the TAF during the 2000s.
Philosophy&Social Criticism, 2019
In this paper, I draw on Carl Schmitt's political and constitutional thought in order to reflect ... more In this paper, I draw on Carl Schmitt's political and constitutional thought in order to reflect on the political struggle over the foundational norms and values of a constitutional settlement in modern Turkey. This analysis, which focuses on the relationship between democracy and sovereign decision in Schmitt's thought, extends the implications of his writings beyond the Weimar Republic. I argue that the political movement of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) successfully identified itself with two distinct (yet partly overlapping) narratives in order to establish a truer democracy than the old regime, which was guarded by the military and the bureaucracy. The first narrative concerns the subordination of the will of the people to the guardianship model of the old regime. The second narrative involves negating the political decision of the Kemalist elites on the grounds of identity, in particular, the dissonance between the Kemalist ruling class and the Muslim majority of the society.
Journal of Common Market Studies: JCMS, 2017
The intent of this article is to make sense of European civil society from the point of view of p... more The intent of this article is to make sense of European civil society from the point of view of poststructural discourse theory. This theory suggests examining meaning-making processes concerning European civil society by adopting a post-foundational philosophy and an interpretive approach to studying social phenomena. Post-foundational philosophy is anti-essentialist, combines discursive and non-discursive elements, and adopts a constructionist approach to language that recognizes agency as situated. Discourse theorists conduct empirical research by strictly following these philosophical presumptions. So conceived, discourse theory suggests that the conceptual link between NGOs and European civil society does not have any foundational ground or naturalistic explanation. Such link is not a pre-given fact, and can be best understood as linguistically constructed and articulated; that is, the EU institutions, the European Commission in particular, has defined and constituted NGOs as civil society subjects that would stand for and make Europe's imagined civil society present.
European Law Journal, 2015
The Lisbon Treaty (Article 11) recognises the provision on participatory democracy as a democrati... more The Lisbon Treaty (Article 11) recognises the provision on participatory democracy as a democratic principle of the European Union (EU), thus constitutionally legitimising the involvement of civil society in European governance. However, at least three issues relating to the democratic dimension of this practice remain unresolved. First, it is not possible to specify precisely how the participation of civil society relates to democracy. Second, having established representative democracy as the founding democratic principle of the EU (Article 10), the Lisbon Treaty does not allow assessing the provision on participatory democracy as an independent source for democracy. Third, the putative democratising potential of participation would not be construed independently, not only because representative democracy is defined as the founding principle of the EU, but also because participation cannot be thought of as independent from the form of the consultation regime, the constitutional framework and the managerial and technocratic styles of policy-making.
Globalizations, 13:1, Feb 1, 2016
This paper discusses the normative implications of a political vision that aims to integrate civi... more This paper discusses the normative implications of a political vision that aims to integrate civil society into new governance mechanisms, pragmatic governance in particular, by virtue of the funding of civil society organisations. This vision has led to a marked increase in both funding for civil society and in the assignment of governance tasks to civil society organisations that are normally performed by the public sector. However, some of the crucial aspects of these normative, ontological perspectives are either counter-factual or limited by at least two major factors: 1) the prevailing technocratic style of policy making used in pragmatic governance, and 2) the proliferation of managerialism, i.e. the idea that any kind of social organisation must be administered by managers and that the public and civil society sectors should use of corporate/business sector professional management techniques and tools. Both pragmatic governance and managerialism affect, and re-define, the traditional conception of civil society as autonomous, authentic, voluntary organisations that act as a check and balance on the excessive use of power by the state.
By taking up the fact that some non-governmental organizations adapt to managerialism under gover... more By taking up the fact that some non-governmental organizations adapt to managerialism under governance mechanisms, this article addresses an emerging governance effect that paves the way for a particular relationship among the state, the market, and civil society. Such relationship, defined here as coupling, is formed and perpetuated through managerial organizational knowledge, professionalized communication techniques, and the reflexive surveillance mechanisms inherent in governance settings. This argument suggests that economic and market rationalities now penetrate into wider fields of social life, notwithstanding actual and possible contestations, resistances, and failures. I draw inspiration primarily from Michel Foucault’s notion of governmentality in examining how coupling develops. I also engage with some other key social theorists, including Max Weber, Jurgen Habermas, and Jodi Dean, to advance a critique of the contemporary influence of managerial formations on the field of governance.
Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, Volume 35, No.1, 2015, Apr 6, 2015
The growth of a societal base of xenophobia in Europe poses a challenge for the Muslim minorities... more The growth of a societal base of xenophobia in Europe poses a challenge for the Muslim minorities to alter power relations in the society. In the light of the previous and the current research as well as established theoretical insights, this paper suggests that racial discourse now strategically allows a particular form of pluralism in society, a dominant pluralism, which occludes the possibility for the Muslims to be involved equally in the public and political life. The results of the qualitative analysis, based on interviews conducted with groups holding xenophobic ideas in Austria, Bulgaria and Italy, confirmed earlier observations on contemporary racism, which suggested incommensurability of Muslim minorities with the European culture; their non-assimilative adaptation to society; their expulsion if this adaptation fails and advocating populism. Space is a crucial aspect of exclusion in this discursive frame because minorities are excluded from public and communicative spaces. The discourse is supported by the conceptual sources of a dominant form of pluralism that are found in Michel Foucault and master–slave relationship in philosophy.
Outlines of Global Transformations, 2017
This article examines how civilian-military relations in Turkey have transformed from a guardians... more This article examines how civilian-military relations in Turkey have transformed from a guardianship of the military to civilian control. To this end, it covers the following issues. It surveys the ways in which the military has instituted its influence over civilians from the 1960 military coup up until the early 2000s. It elaborates major events and processes that took place during the 2000s under the AKP governments. Since 2002, Turkey has tended to control the military, as the military has intervened four times since the commencement of democratic elections so as to restore peace and maintain secular values. Even though soldiers did not accept the right of civilians to be wrong, after each intervention, they returned to their barracks and left power to civilians. Nevertheless, solders left with exit guarantees that enabled them to control and influence the political field without having to take direct control. The AKP promised to build a better democracy, and such a promise meant ending the military influence over politics. Turkish people trusted the military as an institution but also wanted the right of civilians to decide their own future under a democratic system. Turkey's EU membership bid must be seen as the most significant factor that changed the nature and future of the civilian-military relations. A series of laws that were adopted in line with the EU accession bid brought significant changes in legal and institutional terms. The electoral victory of the AKP in 2007 following the Chief in General's disapproval of the AKP's presidential candidate, Abdullah Gul, was a notable turning point, as it gave the government crucial power vis-à-vis the military. The Ergenekon and Sledgehammer cases weakened the institutional structure of the armed forces. But the implications after July 15, 2016, on the military cannot be compared with any of these events.
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Books by Acar Kutay
Peer-reviewed articles by Acar Kutay
Turkey’s EU membership bid is one of the most important aspects that bridled the influence of the TAF on politics. Whereas the democratic oversight of the military and security sector constituted a significant dimension of the EU reforms, events that took place around the nomination of the Justice and Development Party’s candidate, Abdullah Gül, for the presidency created a rupture in the role and influence of the military on politics. Two juristic cases against members of the TAF in 2008 and 2010 made a massive impact on the power of the military, before the ultimate supremacy of the political sphere was established after the coup attempt organized by the Gülenist officers who infiltrated the TAF during the 2000s.
Turkey’s EU membership bid is one of the most important aspects that bridled the influence of the TAF on politics. Whereas the democratic oversight of the military and security sector constituted a significant dimension of the EU reforms, events that took place around the nomination of the Justice and Development Party’s candidate, Abdullah Gül, for the presidency created a rupture in the role and influence of the military on politics. Two juristic cases against members of the TAF in 2008 and 2010 made a massive impact on the power of the military, before the ultimate supremacy of the political sphere was established after the coup attempt organized by the Gülenist officers who infiltrated the TAF during the 2000s.