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Durham Research Online Deposited in DRO: 08 June 2017 Version of attached le: Published Version Peer-review status of attached le: Unknown Citation for published item: Diagoupis, Antonios S. (2017) 'Assessing Gezi Park movement's transformative dynamics : the women and the football fans.', Discussion Paper. Durham University, HH Sheikh Nasser Al-Sabah Programme, Durham. 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Durham University Library, Stockton Road, Durham DH1 3LY, United Kingdom Tel : +44 (0)191 334 3042 | Fax : +44 (0)191 334 2971 https://dro.dur.ac.uk 0 HH Sheikh Nasser al-Mohammad al-Sabah Publication Series Assessing Gezi Park Movement’s Transformative Dynamics: The Women and the Football Fans Antonios S. Diagoupis Number 19: May 2017 About the Author Antonios S. Diagoupis is a policy-making administrator at the American-Hellenic Chamber of Commerce. His is conducting PhD level research on the geopolitics of Anatolia. He holds an MA in International Relations from the School of Government and International Affairs, Durham University. Ἡ Παιδεία εὐτυχοῦσι μὲν ἐστι κόσμος, ἀτυχοῦσι δὲ καταφύγιον – Δημόκριτος. Disclaimer The views expressed in the HH Sheikh Nasser al-Mohammad al-Sabah Publication Series are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the School or of Durham University. These wide ranging Research Working Papers are products of the scholarship under the auspices of the al-Sabah Programme and are disseminated in this early form to encourage debate on the important academic and policy issues of our time. Copyright belongs to the Author(s). Bibliographical references to the HH Sheikh Nasser al-Mohammad al-Sabah Publication Series should be as follows: Author(s), Paper Title (Durham, UK: al-Sabah Number, date). Assessing Gezi Park Movement’s Transformative Dynamics: The Women and the Football Fans Antonios S. Diagoupis Abstract This paper traces the Gezi Park protests in Istanbul and analyses the protests within the realm of what is referred to as ‘contentious politics’. In its examination of the protests it aims to contribute to contextualising contentious politics in Turkey, a country located on the cross-roads of Europe and Asia and along the heated region of the Middle East, which has been transformed radically through contentious politics since 2011. By assessing the Gezi Park movement within its historical and sociological context I aim to pursue a textual analysis of contentious politics in the form of the cries uttered and voices heard in Istanbul and beyond during this social protest. 2 environmental activists taking up positions in Exordium and around the park.4 “You never change things by fighting the Before long, the Gezi Park became a social existing reality. To change something, build a platform for the promotion of free speech, new model that makes the existing model through which protesters would express their obsolete”. 1 The Gezi Park movement grievances against the government on a broad embraced this concept in pursuit of spectrum of concerns. In the course of the early transforming Turkish contentious politics. The stand-off the government was forced to recall movement succeeded in successfully the police forces, and while the protesters redefining the social roles of the various remained at the park for two more weeks they oppressed social groups by Turkey’s president initiated a whole new social movement aiming and prime-minister during the Gezi Park to politically combat the government. 5 The protests, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his party, ideologically diverse protesters formed various the Justice and Development Party (AKP). The groups that comprised the social movement.6 Gezi Park protests started in May 2013 and The movement’s heterogeneous composition were an unprecedented series of was perceived as its Achilles heel by the demonstrations staged by the Gezi Park government and thus, it tried to propagate movement throughout Turkey, especially in against it in order to disintegrate it. AKP Istanbul.2 Particularly, on 27 May at midnight politician and minister of education stated that: bulldozers and demolition vehicles entered the [i]n five days, we achieved uniting contending social groups under a fog Gezi Park, located in the centre of Istanbul, to against us. Normally these fractions uproot the trees and pedestrianise it so that the cannot come together, for it was something that the Parliamentary former Taksim military barracks can be opposition has worked on for years. reconstructed and serve as mosque and When the fog disperses, however, these contending identities will be shopping mall. However, a group of young shocked when they realize that they environmental activists had camped in the park are sitting next to each other.7 and was preventing the vehicles from However, his prediction was far from true. demolishing the park. 3 Four days later, the Despite their stark ideological differences, the police attempted to violently escort them by protesters shared major common objectives force, but forced eviction failed. Soon, which were directed against Erdogan’s thousands of people from across Turkey conservative Islamic agenda. The women gathered in the Gezi Park and the surrounding joined the Gezi Park movement to resist the areas to protest in solidarity with the enduring oppression of their personal life and social role. 8 Additionally, the football fans 3 joined the movement to protest against police review. The research aims to assess how the brutality and Erdogan’s interference in sport Gezi Park movement’s dynamics transformed and football club affairs. 9 Various minority contentious politics in Turkey. Dynamics in groups joined the movement, each of which this paper refers to the behaviour of groups and arguably had their own experiences of the individual interaction that stimulates oppression by the AKP. The government’s change within a social system. 11 It corrupt practices, the undermining of the concentrates on two ideologically dissimilar democratic processes and civil society, the empirical cases, namely the women’s group interference in citizens’ personal and social and Istanbul United, to accomplish its aim. daily life, the oppression of homosexuality and In terms of methodology, this study employs the persecution of transgender sex-workers, Tilly’s historical sociology theory to examine the environmental degradation, the mass the empirical cases. Initially, it conducts a deportations of migrants from the critical literature review on contentious gecekondular, the oppression of the Alevis and politics through four other prominent the Kurds, censorship, and the imprisonment theoretical frameworks that are pertinent to of journalists, leftists, and other perceived studying the Gezi Park movement’s dynamics: political enemies of the political order were Namely, the theory of political opportunity, only some of the reasons that instigated the Hobbes’ theory on collective action, Rosler’s Gezi Park movement that united the various feminist theory, and Foucault’s theory of groups against Erdogan’s authoritarian sexuality. Subsequently, for further insights, it policies. The Gezi Park movement was a form critically analyses Tilly’s historical sociology of collective action that drastically theoretical framework which is based upon the transformed Turkish contentious politics. following three elements: Campaigns, This paper, therefore, is positioned within the repertoires, and displays of worthiness, unity, discourse of contentious politics. It aspires to numbers, and commitment (WUNC). It contribute to contextualising contentious concludes that Tilly’s theory provides the most politics in Turkey, a country located in the effective theoretical framework for assessing heated region of the Middle East which has Gezi Park movement’s dynamics. been transformed radically through I argue that the redefinition of the social role of contentious politics since 2011, by assessing the groups that comprised the Gezi Park the Gezi Park movement within its historical movement evolved the dynamics of Turkish and sociological context. 10 Specifically, it contentious politics by transforming social performs a textual analysis on contentious movements into effective platforms for social politics in the form of an extensive literature collectivity. Furthermore, the empirical cases’ 4 analysis evinces that the Gezi Park I will air my reflections on the protests and movement’s groups, regardless of their discuss my findings in greater detail. ideological orientation, can generate transformative effects on Turkey’s contentious Contentious Politics politics by redefining their social roles. In this, they conform to Tilly’s historical sociology Theory and the Gezi Park theoretical framework’s three criteria. In the first part of this paper I will conduct a review of the literature on contentious politics Movement theory. The

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