Police Reform in Turkey: Human Security, Gender and State Violence Under Erdogan

Description

How has the supposedly liberalizing project of police reform in Turkey become central to the increasingly authoritarian regime of Erdogan's AKP Party? Engaging political theory and a gender studies perspective, this book traces the implementation of security sector reform in Turkey, showing how various agents, including Islamist policy-makers, Turkish police and the women's movement in Turkey have contributed to and resisted growing police powers. A critical study which also employs case studies, this is a timely intervention on the 'authoritarian turn' in Turkey and contributes to a growing number of studies of neoliberalism and security in the context of liberal internationalism. Produced in association with the British Institute at Ankara

Funda Hulagu is currently on the teaching staff at the University of Marburg, Germany. She was previously Assistant Professor at Maltepe University, Turkey and Mersin University, Turkey. She has published over 10 peer reviewed articles, including in Science & Society and Journal fur Entwicklungspolitik.

This book provides a critical but constructive engagement with feminist theory, coupled with a powerful critique of the mainstream/liberal approaches to the state-society relations. Thereby, it could be considered as an important contribution to the development of a "materialist-cum-feminist theory of state" by adopting a relational perspective to enhance our understanding of "the limits and promises of the feminist interventions in and against the state" in general, and with a detailed critical analysis of "the capitalist-patriarchal gender selectivities of the state" in Turkey in particular. * Galip L. Yalman, Emeritus Professor, Middle East Technical University, Turkey *