The Spring 2025 issue of New Perspectives on Turkey arrives at a time of significant global developments, including the recent elections in the United States and their broad geopolitical implications, ongoing instability in Turkey’s neighboring regions, and evolving yet uncertain changes regarding the Kurdish issue. In the midst of waves of political, economic, and cultural shifts, we offer in Issue no 72 a diverse array of articles covering gender politics, international relations, historical geopolitics, urban historiography, economic policy analysis, and anthropological studies.
We were saddened by the passing away on October 18, 2024 of E. Fuat Keyman, a distinguished social scientist, following a brief but courageous battle with cancer. We commence this issue on a solemn note with an obituary by Berrin Koyuncu-Lorasdağı honoring Keyman’s scholarship.
Our first feature article, authored by Zafer Çeler, is a timely piece given that the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has declared 2025 as the “Year of the Family,” in order to further foster conservative familialist policies. Çeler’s article delves into the gender politics of the AKP, examining how “gender ideology,” linked with moral panics, has created an oppressive political climate for women and LGBTI+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex +) communities, ultimately leading to Turkey’s controversial withdrawal from the İstanbul Convention.
The subsequent article, authored by Elif Korkmaz Tümer and Josephine van Zeben, provides an analysis of Turkey’s Europeanization process through climate change policies, illustrating the impact of European Union (EU)–Turkey trade relations on policy convergence and demonstrating the EU’s soft power through regulatory and market influence. This article also provides a timely analysis as the United States seems to be retreating from the Western alliance and Europe is searching for new defense, energy, and foreign policies and alliances.
The third article in this issue is a historical study by Fulya Özkan on Turkish foreign policy during the Iranian oil crisis (1951–1953). Özkan explores how Turkey navigated Cold War geopolitics, prioritizing its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) membership and regional strategic interests amid Iran’s internal political turmoil. Again, this article offers an interesting historical analysis of the role and significance of NATO at a time when NATO’s future is uncertain.
The next article, also on foreign policy, examines the Cyprus negotiations of 2017. Ahmet Sözen and Devrim Şahin analyze why the talks failed, emphasizing the ongoing mistrust and lack of inclusivity in the negotiation process, and propose alternative methods based on Northern Ireland’s Good Friday Agreement.
Derya Gultekin, Ipek Ilkkaracan, Ayşe Aylin Bayar, and Pınar Ozcanlı-Baran discuss Turkey’s “care crisis” in the fifth article of the issue, suggesting that significant public investments in education and healthcare could enhance employment rates, particularly improving women’s participation in the labor market and aiding the integration of Syrian refugees.
The expected earthquake in İstanbul has become an even more urgent issue in the disastrous aftermath of the 2023 Kahramanmaraş earthquakes. The sixth article by Ebru Kayaalp is an ethnographic study of İstanbul’s earthquake preparedness, highlighting how differing engineering practices and legal frameworks lead to varied interpretations of building safety, which complicates public perceptions of risk and preparedness policies.
The next article by Burak Basaranlar examines the local socio-economic factors underlying the 1934 expulsion of Jews from Eastern Thrace. Basaranlar suggests that financial tensions heightened by the Great Depression played a significant role in nationalist scapegoating and violence against the Jewish community.
In this issue we have two articles on Ottoman history. Gürbey Hiz challenges traditional urban historiography and explores Reşad Ekrem Koçu’s academically underexplored Lügat of İstanbul to demonstrate how subjective interpretations and anecdotal narratives provide unique insights into the everyday cultural history of İstanbul.
Finally, Aret Karademir critically evaluates Ottoman–Armenian intellectual contributions to hikmet-i cedide, highlighting their engagement with Enlightenment and positivist thought, and addressing ethnocentric perspectives that have influenced analyses of late Ottoman philosophy.
This issue of New Perspectives on Turkey maintains our commitment to integrating historical inquiry with contemporary analysis. In this issue we feature an engaging roundtable discussion centered on Ayşe Buğra’s notable new publication, Social Policy in Capitalist History: Perspectives on Poverty, Work and Society. Guy Standing, Andrew Fischer, and Tuba Ağartan critically examine Buğra’s arguments, and revisit theories on and historical aspects of social policy, which are particularly pertinent given the ongoing changes in the capitalist economy at the close of the first quarter of the twenty-first century. We extend our sincere gratitude to Başak Akkan for organizing and moderating this insightful roundtable, as well as to our associate editor Umut Türem for supervising the publication process.
Complementing this roundtable are six comprehensive book reviews that underscore our journal’s dedication to exploring both historical and contemporary contexts. Anıl Aşkın reviews Locusts of Power: Borders, Empire, and Environment in the Modern Middle East by Samuel Dolbee, while Onur İnal evaluates Anatolian Livestock Trade in the Late Ottoman Empire by Yonca Köksal Özyaşar and Can Nacar. Alexis Rappas analyzes Britain’s Levantine Empire, 1914–1923 by Daniel-Joseph MacArthur-Seal, and Bülent Küçük reviews Veli Yadırgı’s The Political Economy of the Kurds of Turkey: From the Ottoman Empire to the Republic of Turkey. Fırat Genç’s review of Sarah El-Kazaz’s Politics in the Crevices: Urban Design and the Making of Property Markets in Cairo and Istanbul, and Souad Osseiran’s examination of Syrian Refugees and Agriculture in Turkey: Work, Precarity, Survival by Saniye Dedeoğlu are the final two reviews of this issue.
We are happy to be presenting to our readers in this issue a set of research articles, a roundtable discussion, and book reviews that enhance our understanding of the turbulent period that the world is going through.
