Hegemonic conflict in post-cold war Türkiye: Established elites encountering rising elites and changing dynamics

Abstract

This paper aims at explaining why and how the civic sphere became a site of contestation in Turkey from the mid-1990s, using a Gramscian framework. Turkey, no longer having to choose between the two blocks after the Cold War, entered a period of uncertainty. This situation led to the outbreak of a long-hidden conflict between the hegemonic and counter-hegemonic civil movements. While the counter-hegemonic structure consisted of new urban religious people, the hegemons consisted of urban Kemalists. It is viewed that counter-hegemonic civil society sought to undermine the Kemalist hegemonic discourse, while some civil society organisations were appropriated by the state as apparatuses. This study draws on archival resources and periodicals to explore the state-society relationship in Turkey during the 1990s, with a specific focus on civil society. The paper begins with a historical overview of civil society in Turkey, tracing its development since the Ottoman period. Following this, a theoretical examination of civil society theory is presented. The final section discusses the hegemonic struggle over civil space in Turkey during the 1990s.

Keywords

• cold war
• türkiye
• 28 february
• civic space
• public space

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