BİLGE YABANCI

By

bilgeyabanci

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Publications

Book(s), articles and other publications

Monograph: 

Civil Society and Autocratization: Co-optation, Repression and Contestation in Turkey, 2025. Edinburg University Press. https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-civil-society-and-autocratisation.html 

  • Theorises autocratisation as a socially grounded process beyond the monopolisation and capture of formal institutions
  • Demonstrates how civil society -a nominally democratic and pluralistic space- both facilitates and resists autocratisation
  • Outlines three parallel mechanisms—cooptation, repression, and contestation—that have led to the transformation of civil society
  • Analyses the reasons and potential consequences of polarisation and politicisation within civil society
  • Connects to gender studies and diaspora studies through a special focus on civil society and interest group mobilisation regarding diaspora communities and women with political, economic and ideological ties to power-abusing incumbents
  • Offers a systematic account of the resilience of civil society under the pressure of autocratisation.

Book

Contesting Autocratisation Actors and Institutions of Democratic Resistance in a Global Perspective, 2026, Routledge

https://www.routledge.com/Contesting-Autocratisation-Actors-and-Institutions-of-Democratic-Resistance-in-a-Global-Perspective/Yabanci-Akkoyunlu-Oktem/p/book/9781041198864

While authoritarianism continues to gain ground globally, this book offers a global and nuanced perspective into how, when, and where autocratisation may be contested and sometimes reversed. Drawing on rich case studies from across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Southeastern Europe, the chapters in this book map the actors and institutions of resistance, ranging from political parties and bureaucrats to social movements and transnational alliances. Rather than offering a binary view of success or failure of opposition and resistance, this book adopts a dynamic, process-driven approach, considering the conditions under which resistance emerges, adapts, and persists even in shrinking civic and political spaces.

Whether through informal bureaucratic defiance, legal mobilisation, elite rivalries, transnational alliances, strategic litigation, or protest coalitions, these strategies reveal the agency of opposition actors navigating complex and often hostile terrains. These diverse experiences force us to rethink resistance as an ongoing, collective effort rather than a single moment of reversal.

This volume spans multiple disciplines, including political science, sociology, international relations, and legal studies, making it essential reading for students, scholars, and policymakers to understand how resistance emerges, evolves, and endures in the face of authoritarian resurgence.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Third World Quarterly.

Special Issue: Limits of Autocratisation

Editors: Bilge Yabanci, Karabekir Akkoyunlu, Kerem Öktem

Limits of Autocratisation: Actors and Institutions of Democratic Resistance and Opposition. 2025. Third World Quarterly.

Link to the editors’ introduction: https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2025.2462248

Peer-Reviewed Articles:

  • Yabanci, Bilge. 2025. ” Building an Authoritarian Regime from Below: The Practice of Youth Camps and Summer Schools in Crafting ‘Desired’ Citizens.” Turkish Studies, online first. 10.1080/14683849.2025.2468432.
  • Yabanci, Bilge. 2025. “Overcoming Prejudices and Stigmatization towards Refugees: A Novel Approach through Deliberative Citizen Dialogues in Turkey.” Migration Studies, online first. https://doi.org/10.1093/migration/mnae051.
  • Yabanci, Bilge. 2024. “Surveil, Datafy, Publicize: Digital Authoritarianism and Migration Governance in Turkey.” Democratization online first. https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2024.2433091.
  • Yabanci, Bilge . 2024. Civic Opposition and Democratic Backsliding: Mobilization Dynamics and Rapport with Political Parties, Government & Opposition, first view, https://doi.org/10.1017/gov.2024.9
  • Yabanci, Bilge, E. Saglam. 2023. Negotiated Conformism: Gender Roles, Everyday Politics, and Pro-Government Actors. International Spectator. 58(3): 20-39. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/03932729.2023.2220861
  • Yabanci, Bilge. 2023. “At the Intersections of Populism, Nationalism and Islam: Justice and Development Party and Populist Reconfiguration of Religion in Politics.” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 50(2): 351-375. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13530194.2021.1972794
  • Yabanci, Bilge. 2021. “Work for the Nation, Obey the State, Praise the Ummah: Turkey’s Government-Oriented Youth Organizations in Cultivating a New Nation.” Ethnopolitics 20 (4): 467–99. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17449057.2019.1676536
  • Yabanci, Bilge. 2021. “Home State Oriented Diaspora Organizations and the Making of Partisan Citizens Abroad: Motivations, Discursive Frames, and Actions Towards Co-Opting the Turkish Diaspora in Europe.” Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies 21 (2): 139–65. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3138/diaspora.21.2.2021.05.20.2
  • Yabanci, Bilge. 2020. “Fuzzy Borders between Populism and Sacralized Politics: Mission, Leader, Community and Performance in ‘New’ Turkey.” Politics, Religion & Ideology 21 (1): 92–112. https://doi.org/10.1080/21567689.2020.1736046
  • Yabanci, Bilge. 2019. “Turkey’s Tamed Civil Society: Containment and Appropriation under a Competitive Authoritarian Regime.” Journal of Civil Society 15 (4): 285–306. https://doi.org/10.1080/17448689.2019.1668627
  • Yabanci, Bilge, and Dane Taleski. 2018. “Co-Opting Religion: How Ruling Populists in Turkey and Macedonia Sacralise the Majority.” Religion, State and Society 46 (3): 283–304. https://doi.org/10.1080/09637494.2017.1411088
  • Yabanci, Bilge. 2016. “Populism as the Problem Child of Democracy: The AKP’s Enduring Appeal and the Use of Meso-Level Actors.” Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 16 (4): 591–617. https://doi.org/10.1080/14683857.2016.1242204
  • Yabanci, Bilge. 2016. “The (Il)Legitimacy of EU State Building: Local Support and Contention in Kosovo.” Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 16 (3): 345–73. https://doi/abs/10.1080/14683857.2016.1156345
  • Yabanci, Bilge. 2016. “Populism and Anti-Establishment Politics in Kosovo: A Case Study of Lëvizja Vetëvendosje.” Contemporary Southeastern Europe 3 (2): 17–43. https://www.ceeol.com/search/journal-detail?id=2446

Book Chapters:

  • Yabanci, Bilge. 2023. Acts of Compliance and Tactful Contention: The Polarized Terrain of Women’s Organizations in Turkey under Authoritarian Pressure. Lobbying the Autocrat, Max Grömping and Jessica Teets. Michigan University Press. pp.132-156. ISBN 978-0-472-90322-1.
  • Bilge Yabanci & C. Maritato. 2023. Gender Politics under Autocratization and Two Decades of Women’s Movement in Turkey. Gender, Religion and Populism in the Mediterranean. Teresa Toldy et. al. Routledge. pp.150-170. ISBN 9781032259741.
  • Yabanci, Bilge. Turkey’s Civil Society between Repression, Neoliberalisation and Grassroots Mobilisation. A Companion to Modern Turkey’s Centennial Political, Sociological, Economic and Institutional Transformations since 1923. Erdi Ozturk & A. Ozerdem. Edinburg University Press. ISBN 9781474492515.
  • Yabanci, Bilge. 2022. “Civil Society and Latent Mobilisation Under Authoritarian Neoliberal Governance.” In Authoritarian Neoliberalism and Resistance in Turkey: Construction, Consolidation, and Contestation, edited by İmren Borsuk et.al., 211–34. Singapore: Springer.
  • Yabanci Bilge & Taleski, Dane. 2020. Coopting Religion in Religion and the Rise of Populism, eds. Daniel Nilsson DeHanas & Marat Shterin. London: Routledge, pp. 107-128. ISBN: 978-1-00-050757-7 (published as indexed article first)
  • Yabanci, Bilge. 2019. Populism as the Problem Child of Democracy: The AKP’s Enduring Appeal and the Use of Meso-Level Actors in Exit from Democracy: Illiberal Governance in Turkey and Beyond eds. eds. Kerem Öktem, Karabekir Akkoyunlu. Oxon: Routledge, pp. 123-150. ISBN: 978-1-00-050757-7 (published as indexed article first).
  • Yabanci, Bilge. “The EU’s Democratization and State-Building Agenda in Kosovo: An Analysis through the Fragmented Local Agency.” In An Agenda for the Western Balkans from Elite Politics to Social Sustainability, Nikos Papakostas and Nikos Passamitros., 23–52. Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag, 2015. ISBN: 978-3838206684 

Working Papers, Reports, Blogs:

  • Yabanci, Bilge. 2022. “Religion, Nationalism, and Populism in Turkey Under the AKP.” in Turkish Views: Crisis and Opportunities for Turkey in 2023, Washington: Middle East Institute (MEI). https://www.mei.edu/publications/religion-nationalism-and-populism-turkey-under-akp.
  • Yabanci, Bilge. 2021. “Compliance and Push-Back: Politicization of Turkey’s Civil Society and Interest Groups under Autocratization.” American Political Science Association Democracy and Autocracy 19 (3): 16-22.
  • Yabanci, Bilge. 2020. In the Shadow of ‘Thin’ Ideology: Neoliberal Populism and Clientelism (Original in Turkish: İdeolojisizliğin Gölgesinde: Neoliberal Popülizm ve Kliyentalizm). Iktisat ve Toplum, vol. 115, ISSN: 1309-9418
  • Yabanci, Bilge 2018. Authoritarian Populism on Europe’s Periphery: Strategies of Majoritarian Governments in Turkey, Eastern Europe, and the Balkans (Original in Turkish: Avrupa’nın çeperinde popülizm: Türkiye, Doğu Avrupa ve Balkanlar’da çoğunluk iktidarlarının otoriterlik stratejileri). Birikim, vol. 354, p. 9-21, ISSN: 1300-8358

Podcasts, Media Interviews:

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