The Spatial Politics of Turkey's Justice and Development Party (AK Party): On Erdoganian Neo-Ottomanism

Abstract

My dissertation analyzes the architectural voice of the Islamic bourgeoisie by evaluating contemporary government-funded urban renewal projects in Turkey. This topic also discusses the counter voices' response to the urban renewal programs which sparked the Gezi Park protests of summer 2013. My dissertation explores how the AK Party is framing Ottoman history and remaking the Turkish urban landscape by urban development projects. I spell out specific ways in which Erdogan uses cultural capital of the Ottoman past to frame Erdoganian Neo-Ottomanism. My work investigates the AK Party's Islamic form of neoliberalism with Pierre Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital. Specifically I look at the application of Istanbul as the European Capital of Culture (ECoC), an urban renewal project by the AK Party in the Ankara neighborhood of Hamamonu, and the protests at Istanbul's Gezi Park and Ankara's Ulucanlar prison complex.