Brand Turkey and the Gezi Protests: Authoritarianism, Law, and Neoliberalism

Faced with social movements resisting these tendencies, Erdoğan has recently announced that if the environmentalist youth have complaints, they should address these directly to him, their Prime Minister. If one ignores his persistently derisive and accusatory tone towards the protesters, this call might appear to be reasonable. And yet, this was precisely one of the problems: Erdoğan now stands as the sole “go-to” authority, because his government has bureaucratized and centralized previously autonomous institutions.

Aslı Iğsız in Brand Turkey and the Gezi Protests: Authoritarianism, Law, and Neoliberalism (Jadaliyya)