Each speaker will focus on the failure of different key  institutions to check/ balance the authoritarian slide in Turkey. Riza Türmen will focus on the judiciary and parliament; Kemal Goktas on the press:  and Funda Uztek-Spilda on academia. The guiding questions will be why these institutions could not stop this slide? Is it because they were simply crushed under the political power exercised by the government; or were there other concurrent reasons, such as the lack of historical legitimacy of these institutions, weak institutional set-up, the absence of professional solidarity, or other possible causes. The objective is to peer behind the scenes to help build up the picture of what went wrong.

Convened in association with Timothy Garton Ash and the Free Speech Debate

Our Hilary 2018 SEESOX seminar series on South East Europe looks at regional developments from a thematic, interdisciplinary and cross-country perspectives and touches upon issues which are at the forefront of the region’s current affairs. We look at South East Europe from international politics, political economy, and/or societal perspectives, by engaging with a selection of topics ranging from the challenges to democracy and free speech, to geopolitics, energy, migration and European integration. Co-Convenors: Othon Anastasakis, David Madden, Jonathan Scheele (St Antony’s College)