Cihan Tuğal is a professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. His books include Passive Revolution and The Fall of the Turkish Model.
Turkey’s main opposition party has long been a centrist and unradical force. But the jailing of Istanbul mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu has forced it into a more activist posture as it faces a growing mass movement in defense of Turkish democracy.
What distinguished Michael Burawoy from other socialists was that he did not sidestep or ignore conservative criticisms of Marxism. Rather, he took them head-on and developed a sociology that could make sense of actually existing capitalism and socialism.
Turkey’s ruling AKP views the fall of Assad in Syria as an opportunity to project power across the region. But the conflicting interests of the Gulf monarchies, Israel, and the US will make attempts by any one power to exert influence over Syria fraught.
Donald Trump’s second term could empower the organized far right much more than the first. Its current mobilizing strength suggests it’s far from ready to take over the state apparatus — but it does have opportunities to build a dangerous threat.
Ukrainian elites have for decades been divided between Westernized professionals and pro-Russian oligarchs, each with a narrow social base. The missing force has been the working class, unable to develop its own distinct project for the country’s future.
The coup against Erdoğan failed, but that doesn’t mean democracy was preserved.