It would be an understatement to say that Şerif Mardin’s center-periphery thesis (CPT) has been influential on contemporary understandings of Turkey. This essay reflects on the impact of the CPT, considers the challenges from both critics and a changing empirical reality, and discusses whether it still has something to offer us today. It argues that some of the criticisms levied at Mardin’s thesis are based on a misunderstanding of the role of simplification in social science, while others point to important shortcomings of the theory without presenting an alternative framework. However, the article suggests that the anomalies in the CPT have by now amassed to the point that it no longer serves as a meaningful approximation of key dynamics in Turkish politics, primarily because it fails to capture the importance of the Kurdish issue and the consolidation of the ruling AKP at the center. 

Turkey threatens to continue blocking Sweden’s application to join NATO unless the Scandinavian country gets tough on terrorism (i.e., crack down on Kurdish groups operating in the country) and stops Koran burnings. Given Sweden’s robust freedom of speech protections, there is little more Stockholm can do but to continue implementing the deal with Ankara negotiated last June. That can take time and is not guaranteed to convince President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to soften his position on NATO enlargement, especially in an election year. Finland is now preparing legislation that would allow it to join NATO on its own, essentially leaving up to Turkey and Hungary whether to treat the Swedish and Finnish applications together or not.While mindful of not interfering in the next Turkish elections, the United States and other allies should work with Ankara to provide incentives to ratify enlargement to Sweden and disincentives to act in ways that benefit Russia. Earthquake relief should be generous and unconditional.

This article discusses the life, career, and associations of Süreyya Ağaoğlu, Turkey’s first female lawyer, in the years leading up to Turkey’s watershed 1950 election, in order to understand Turkey’s liberal opposition. Considering her writings and experiences reveals not only the contested nature of liberalism in this period but also ways in which postwar liberalism was intertwined with the networks undergirding the emerging American-led Cold War order. Not only did she interact in her professional life with champions of liberalism from around the world, but she was also connected through her family to important figures in Turkey’s own liberal tradition. Her experience as a both a product of the ‘Kemalist’ state-building project and a critic of its excesses helps us think about the nature of political opposition during Turkey’s late 1940s democratization.

Where does Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s resilience derive from? Why did he, and the AKP, win the double May 2023 elections again? How did the opposition perform? What were the opposition’s mistakes? How will domestic and foreign policy issues unfold after the elections?These are just a few of the questions the present collection tries to answer. Demonstrating how Turkey’s politics have developed the present volume brings together approaches from politics, sociology, and history, and sheds much-needed light on these crucial questions. They offer scholars and non-specialists alike a comprehensive overview of the implications of the recent elections in almost every aspect of Turkish society. Finally, the chapters that are hosted here provide informed deliberations about Turkey’s future.