Neoliberal Spirit as an Oppositional Political Culture in Turkey’s Gezi Park Movement

• In Event: 147 - Regular Session. Political Sociology 2

Abstract

Turkey’s incorporation into neoliberal globalization started when the US-aided 1980 military coup suppressed the radical left of the 1960s and 1970s. In the following decades, the Turkish society was held subject to a depoliticization process. The 1980s and 1990s generations were regarded as products par excellence of this neoliberal transition: apolitical, consumerist, and individualist. Yet, these products of the neoliberal transition turned out to be not so perfect, as it was them that turned the Gezi Park Protests of 2013 (GPP) into a historical moment. Their sudden appearance in millions has challenged not only the seemingly unassailable Erdoğan government and its economic policies but also the entire top-down political tradition in Turkey right and left alike. In this paper, I look at the reasons behind the sudden irruption of the Turkish youth as a radical agent during the GPP. I argue a crucial motive behind the Turkish youth’s uprising has been the perception of Turkish neoliberalism’s incompatibility with the premises of the neoliberal globalization. The government’s attempts to appropriate popular culture (the Internet, and mass media) had been a breaking point alongside its contradictory gentrification policies, which denies the city to those city dwellers with cultural capital. Thus, the GPP’s autonomism and rejection of leadership has also been shaped by the neoliberal spirit, which asserts the autonomy, freedom, and creativity of the individual. I conclude with a few notes on the difficulties of sustaining collective resistance on the basis of such neoliberal spirit.

Author

• Onur Kapdan, UCSB