Acar Kutay

• Kutay, Riza Acar (2024). Hegemony approach and political struggles over a new political order : the case of Turkey. Comparative Political Theory (CPT). ISSN 2666-9765. 80(1), p. 1–24. doi: 10.1163/26669773-bja10058. Show summary

  This paper proposes an analytical framework that employs a hegemony approach to political transformations, which bring about significant changes in the fundamental norms and values of a political community, as well as in the organizing principles of the social and economic system. The hegemony approach, drawing inspiration from the works of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, provides political theorists and social scientists with conceptual tools for analyzing struggles over political power. The paper argues that attempts at hegemonic formations, when extended to political transformations, involve articulations around social antagonisms, the construction of the people, establishment of political frontiers, and mobilization of the demands of excluded and oppressed groups. The Justice and Development Party, led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey, serves as a unique case study to illustrate this approach.

• Kutay, Riza Acar (2023). From social sphere to intermediary association : a critical analysis of civil society’s neoliberal transformation. Critical Sociology. ISSN 0896-9205. 50(1), p. 31–47. doi: 10.1177/08969205231180263. Show summary

  In this paper, I examine the neoliberal transformation of civil society through Mitchel Foucault’s insights concerning knowledge, power, and governmentality. The objective of this paper is to trace the evolving understandings of civil society and how they relate to governmental rationalities and technologies of power. The traditional notion of civil society as a distinct and autonomous sphere has shifted toward an intermediary associations approach under neoliberalism. I posit that the mobilization of non-governmental organizations and civil society organizations by states, international organizations, and donor agencies since the 1990s constitutes a form of governmental technology, influenced by neoliberal rationalities. This technology serves the neoliberal agenda of undermining the social state, promoting market creation, and encouraging non-partisanship. This argument suggests that the rise of civil society as intermediary associations coincides with the decline of society.

• Karolewski, Ireneusz Paweł; Libin, Xie; Patapan, Haig; Halmai, Gábor; Kutay, Riza Acar & Guasti, Petra [Show all 7 contributors for this article] (2023). Carl Schmitt and democratic backsliding. Contemporary Political Theory. ISSN 1470-8914. 22(3), p. 406–437. doi: 10.1057/s41296-023-00625-5.
• Kutay, Riza Acar (2022). Neoliberalism incites but also restrains revolutionary change in the Third World – why articulating multiple struggles is necessary to confront structures of domination. Globalizations. ISSN 1474-7731. 19(7), p. 1013–1028. doi: 10.1080/14747731.2021.2025289. Show summary

  Neoliberal policies that have been imposed or prompted by Western countries and international organizations have exasperated social inequalities, led to higher levels of unemployment and often ruined agricultural sectors. These policies have eventually incited revolutionary fervor. Nonetheless, in addition to local factors, two external issues have restrained revolutionary change and more substantive socioeconomic change in emerging and developing states: new constitutionalism and low-intensity democracy. Inspired by Chantal Mouffe and Ernesto Laclau, I argue that these implications (normative framework of neoliberalism and low-intensity democracy) serving imperial interests can be confronted by articulating multiple struggles that support social justice, political equality and self-government. Such insights, especially regarding antagonism and hegemony, inspire strategies of revolutionary change against neoliberal hegemony and structures of domination. This strategy, which can be applied to both international and local political struggles, reworks revolutionary change by engaging with Asaf Bayat's reflections and Hannah Arendt's approach to revolution.

• Kutay, Riza Acar (2022). Representing European civil society : a decentred and political approach . Javnost - The Public. ISSN 1318-3222. 29(3), p. 250–266. doi: 10.1080/13183222.2022.2067974. Show summary

  From the Maastricht treaty to the economic crisis in 2008, the practitioners were inclined to associate European Civil Society (ECS) with the EU supported- large NGOs located in Brussels. The EU institutions, particularly the European Commission, aimed to involve the citizens' interests, demands, and concerns through the organised actors of civil society when the EU was deemed to suffer from a democratic deficit and political legitimacy. This practice of mobilizing the organised actor of civil society within the scope of participatory governance would allay these concerns. Nonetheless, since the economic crisis in 2008, the EU institutions' focus on Brussels-based NGOs has become less prominent. On the one hand, the launching of the European Citizens Initiative opened new venues for the EU to contact citizens directly. On the other hand, in addition to the economic crisis in 2008, other pressing issues, including the rise of the populist right, Brexit, and migration, had a tectonic effect on ECS. Such effects are yet to be analyzed, and this article offers a conceptual/interpretive analysis of this change. This new perspective decentres ECS and reconsiders how citizens' interests can be linked to the European governance and what it means to represent the EU's social constituency.

• Kohler-Koch, Beate & Kutay, Riza Acar (2021). Civil society and the European Union. In List, Regina A.; Anheier, Helmut & Toepler, Stefan (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of Civil Society. Springer. ISSN 978-3-319-99675-2. p. 1–7.
• Kutay, Riza Acar (2021). A historical analysis of the AKP in power : hegemony, predominance, and interregnum. Statsvetenskaplig tidskrift. ISSN 2004-0598. 123(1), p. 55–73. Show summary

  AKP governments under the political leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan challenged the establishment of the old regime, which comprised the military, bureaucracy, and the judiciary. However, this challenge did not bring about a more liberally democratic political regime. Many commentators, even those who supported the AKP’s first government and who acted as a prime minister and ministers in the previous AKP governments, agree that the party has been drifting toward authoritarianism.

• Kutay, Riza Acar (2021). Political realism, liberal constitutionalism and Arab spring. International Journal of Human Rights and Constitutional Studies. ISSN 2050-103X. 8(4), p. 267–283. doi: 10.1504/IJHRCS.2021.117955. Show summary

  In this paper, I argue that constitutional and political transformations in the Middle East have been thus far largely shaped and evaluated by a hegemonic interpretation of constitutionalism. But, such interpretation is ahistorical, moralist and de-politicising. Political realism proposes an alternative theoretical perspective to liberalism in at least two grounds. First, following Raymond Geuss, its research agenda primarily submits to Ideologiekritik, that is, the task of political theory on this account is to unmask the origins, epistemic nature, and implications of liberal theory. Second, constitutionalism in liberal theory means resisting arbitrary power, but constitutions also generate legitimate political authority and create a political community that would organise and regulate its political institutions by the constitution.

• Kutay, Riza Acar (2020). Constitutional revolutions beyond liberalism : a realist critique. In Belov, Martin & Ninet, Antoni Abat i (Ed.), Revolution, transition, memory, and oblivion : reflections on constitutional change. Edward Elgar Publishing. ISSN 978 1 80037 052 4. p. 54–70.
• Ninet, Antoni Abat & Kutay, Riza Acar (2020). Europe's lack of solidarity in its response to the humanitarian crisis : jeopardizing the European Union's Constitutional Imaginary. Revista Catalana de Dret Públic. ISSN 1885-5709. p. 99–111. doi: 10.2436/rcdp.i61.2020.3403. Show summary

  The European Union’s (EU) constitution and constitutionalism is best seen as a sphere of contested imaginaries, competing narratives over the legal-political construction of Europe. These imaginaries have been historically reinforced by EU technocrats and political elites, as well as by various social and economic actors, whether progressive democrats or powerful businesses. When technocrats and elites turned their hands to the project of the constitutionalization of the EU in the early 1990s, what they had in mind was to legitimate the Union. In this respect, constitutionalization was necessary because the Union had ceased to be a typical international organization. Laws, regulations, and policies that were adopted at EU level had an impact on citizens; however, these had no influence over either law-making or policy-making processes. The first segment of this paper addresses the forging of the EU’s constitutional identity through the juridification of values, imaginary, and constellations. It then analyses the progressive creation of constitutional imagination at EU level and the effects on this imaginary that the lack of a proper answer to the humanitarian crisis has caused. The paper ends by posing a set of questions that relate the ideological project of European collective identity, the process of political integration and the role that the founding values of solidarity and human dignity may play in these processes. Keywords: imaginary, constellations, constitutional identity, solidarity, human dignity, European Union

• Kutay, Riza Acar (2019). From Weimar to Ankara: Carl Schmitt, sovereignty and democracy. Philosophy & Social Criticism. ISSN 0191-4537. 45(6), p. 728–752. doi: 10.1177/0191453719830150. Show summary

  In this article, I draw on Carl Schmitt’s political and constitutional thought in order to reflect on the political struggle over the foundational norms and values of a constitutional settlement in modern Turkey. This analysis, which focuses on the relationship between democracy and sovereign decision in Schmitt’s thought, extends the implications of his writings beyond the Weimar Republic. I argue that the political movement of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) successfully identified itself with two distinct (yet partly overlapping) narratives in order to establish a truer democracy than the old regime, which was guarded by the military and the bureaucracy. The first narrative concerns the subordination of the will of the people to the guardianship model of the old regime. The second narrative involves negating the political decision of the Kemalist elites on the grounds of identity, in particular, the dissonance between the Kemalist ruling class and the Muslim majority of the society. The party under the leadership of Erdogan used the first narrative to dismantle the old establishment, without replacing it with a liberal–democratic constitution, and the second one to justify its claim to be the founding agent of a new regime. The new regime, which brought a peculiar presidency with strong executive powers, retained the old regime’s approach to national homogeneity. Nonetheless, the new regime detaches the name of Atatürk from the Kemalist ideology and secularism from nationalism, thereby inventing an image of Atatürk and nationalism purified from the modernist/secularist orientations of the founding political decision.

• Kutay, Riza Acar (2017). From guardianship to civilian control : how did the Turkish military get here? Outlines of global transformations: politics, economics, law. ISSN 2587-9324. 10(3), p. 68–82. doi: 10.23932/2542-0240-2017-10-3-68-82. Show summary

  This article examines how civilian- military relations in Turkey have transformed from a guardianship of the military to civilian control. To this end, it covers the following issues. It surveys the ways in which the military has instituted its influence over civilians from the 1960 military coup up until the early 2000s. It elaborates major events and processes that took place during the 2000s under the AKP governments. Then, the paper describes the reasons behind the failed coup attempt of July 15, 2016, before concluding with a discussion of the implications of the coup attempt. There will be both immediate and long-term implications of the radical changes that the Turkish government made to civilianmilitary relations and to the organizational structure of the armed forces after the recent failed coup attempt. Keywords: civil-military relations, military forces, guardianship, civilian control, coup d’etat, Turkey

• Kutay, Riza Acar (2017). How does the European Commission create a European civil society with words? : a discourse theoretical inquiry. Journal of Common Market Studies. ISSN 0021-9886. 55(5), p. 1094–1109. doi: 10.1111/jcms.12526. Show summary

  The intent of this article is to make sense of European civil society from the point of view of post-structural discourse theory. This theory suggests examining meaning-making processes concerning European civil society by adopting a post-foundational philosophy and an interpretive approach to studying social phenomena. Post-foundational philosophy is anti-essentialist, combines discursive and non-discursive elements, and adopts a constructionist approach to language that recognizes agency as situated. Discourse theorists conduct empirical research by strictly following these philosophical presumptions. So conceived, discourse theory suggests that the conceptual link between NGOs and European civil society does not have any foundational ground or naturalistic explanation. Such a link is not a pre-given fact, and can be best understood as linguistically constructed and articulated; that is, the EU institutions, the European Commission in particular, have defined and constituted NGOs as civil society subjects that would stand for and make Europe's imagined civil society present.

• Kutay, Riza Acar (2016). A critical transnational public sphere : bringing back common good and social ontology in context. Globalizations. ISSN 1474-7731. 13(1), p. 47–61. doi: 10.1080/14747731.2015.1037125. Show summary

  The public sphere and public reason have recently become key ideas in global governance, with most scholars expressing related transparency and accountability concerns. This article contends that if transnational public sphere(s) and the use of reason in global policy-making aim to reinforce the common good and justice, they must go beyond the procedural concerns of transparency and accountability, with the proviso being that legitimacy be derived from the people. To this end, the author argues that, we must consider social ontology to unpack or deconstruct at least three hegemonic philosophical presuppositions that now inform global policy-making processes: a positivist approach to scientific knowledge; the Lockean view on the way in which the state, the economy, and society relate; and the putative monolithic perception of the transnational. It is suggested that procedural accounts coupled with positivist ontology may reinforce neoliberal hegemony, opening an empty space between political decisions and interests while obviating the will of the people.

• Kutay, Riza Acar (2015). After governance : a normative reflection on civil cociety participation in policy processes. Tidsskriftet Politik. ISSN 1604-0058. 18(2), p. 24–33. doi: 10.7146/politik.v18i2.27611. Show summary

  This paper discusses the normative implications of a political vision that aims to integrate civil society into new governance mechanisms, pragmatic governance in particular, by virtue of the funding of civil society organisations. is vision has led to a marked increase in both funding for civil society and in the assignment of governance tasks to civil society organisations that are normally performed by the public sector. However, some of the crucial aspects of these normative, ontological perspectives are either counter-factual or limited by at least two major factors: 1) the prevailing technocratic style of policy making used in pragmatic govern- ance, and 2) the proliferation of managerialism, i.e. the idea that any kind of social organisation must be administered by managers and that the public and civil society sectors should use of corporate/business sector professional management techniques and tools. Both pragmatic governance and managerialism a ect, and re-de ne, the traditional conception of civil society as autonomous, authentic, voluntary organisations that act as a check and balance on the excessive use of power by the state.

• Kutay, Riza Acar (2015). Dominant pluralism and discursive strategies of contemporary racism against Muslim minorities in Europe. Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs. ISSN 1360-2004. 35(1), p. 1–16. doi: 10.1080/13602004.2015.1018722. Show summary

  The growth of a societal base of xenophobia in Europe poses a challenge for the Muslim minorities to alter power relations in the society. In the light of the previous and the current research as well as established theoretical insights, this paper suggests that racial discourse now strategically allows a particular form of pluralism in society, a dominant pluralism, which occludes the possibility for the Muslims to be involved equally in the public and political life. The results of the qualitative analysis, based on interviews conducted with groups holding xenophobic ideas in Austria, Bulgaria and Italy, confirmed earlier observations on contemporary racism, which suggested incommensurability of Muslim minorities with the European culture; their non-assimilative adaptation to society; their expulsion if this adaptation fails and advocating populism. Space is a crucial aspect of exclusion in this discursive frame because minorities are excluded from public and communicative spaces. The discourse is supported by the conceptual sources of a dominant form of pluralism that are found in Michel Foucault and master–slave relationship in philosophy.

• Kutay, Riza Acar (2015). Limits of participatory democracy in European governance. European Law Journal. ISSN 1351-5993. 21(6), p. 803–818. doi: 10.1111/eulj.12156. Show summary

  The Lisbon Treaty (Article 11) recognises the provision on participatory democracy as a democratic principle of the European Union (EU), thus constitutionally legitimising the involvement of civil society in European governance. However, at least three issues relating to the democratic dimension of this practice remain unresolved. First, it is not possible to specify precisely how the participation of civil society relates to democracy. Second, having established representative democracy as the founding democratic principle of the EU (Article 10), the Lisbon Treaty does not allow assessing the provision on participatory democracy as an independent source for democracy. Third, the putative democratising potential of participation would not be construed independently, not only because representative democracy is defined as the founding principle of the EU but also because participation cannot be thought of as independent from the form of the consultation regime, the constitutional framework and the managerial and technocratic styles of policy-making.

• Kutay, Riza Acar (2014). Managerial formations and coupling among the state, the market, and civil society: an emerging effect of governance. Critical Policy Studies. ISSN 1946-0171. 8(3), p. 247–265.
• Kutay, Riza Acar (2013). Discursive representation : European civil society between ideals and facts . Eurosphere Working Papers. ISSN 1890-5986. p. 77–94.
• Kutay, Riza Acar (2013). European Union’s communication strategy through “Civil Dialogue” : represented, performed and contested . Eurosphere Working Papers. ISSN 1890-5986. p. 61–76.
• Kutay, Riza Acar (2013). Associative democracy and transnational governance : a critical assessment of normative and analytical approaches. Eurosphere Working Papers. ISSN 1890-5986. p. 45–60.
• Kutay, Acar (2012). Europeanisation of Civil Society through the Sponsored European Publics. Javnost - The Public. ISSN 1318-3222. 19(1), p. 19–33.
• Kutay, Acar & Arribas, Alberto (2011). The Role of SMOs/NGOs in the Articulation of the European Public Sphere. Eurosphere Working Papers. ISSN 1890-5986.

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• Kutay, Riza Acar (2021). NGOs, civil society and structural changes. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-3-030-71862-6. 226 p.
• Kutay, Riza Acar (2014). Governance and European Civil Society: Governmentality, Discourse and NGOs. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-70737-4. 224 p.

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• Karolewski, Ireneusz Paweł; Libin, Xie; Patapan, Haig; Halmai, Gábor; Kutay, Riza Acar & Guasti, Petra [Show all 7 contributors for this article] (2023). Correction to: Carl Schmitt and Democratic Backsliding (Contemporary Political Theory, (2023), 10.1057/s41296-023-00625-5). Contemporary Political Theory. ISSN 1470-8914. doi: 10.1057/s41296-023-00626-4.
• Kutay, Riza Acar (2020). Salgına bir geçiş süreci olarak bakmak. perspektif.online.
• Kutay, Riza Acar (2020). The concept of civil society, neoliberal governance and interpretive turn.
• Kutay, Riza Acar (2020). Turkey: the rise and fall of the influence of the military in politics. In Thompson, William R. & Nassif, Hicham Bou (Ed.), The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Military in Politics. Oxford University Press. ISSN 9780190921514. doi: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.1860. Show summary

  This encyclopedia provides the definitive resource for exploring the role that military personnel and organizations have played in politics. Many of the articles examine how the military has been involved in politics in specific states. Other articles link the country-specific accounts to broader questions concerning the military in politics, such as what factors encourage military coups, what are the consequences of military rule, how do military personnel vote, and whether military expenditures boost economic growth. No other work has examined the relationships between governments and their military with such breadth. As a result, the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Military in Politics is a necessary resource for students, specialists, and scholars.

• Kutay, Riza Acar (2018). Carl Schmitt and struggles over the political decision in Turkey.
• Kutay, Riza Acar (2018). A realist constitutional theory.
• Kutay, Riza Acar (2016). Constitution-making in the Middle East.
• Kutay, Riza Acar (2012). Civil society, media, and the European public sphere.
• Kutay, Riza Acar (2011). Governing Europe through civil society.
• Kutay, Riza Acar (2011). Democratizing EU governance through sponsored European publics : is it working, can it work?
• Kutay, Riza Acar (2011). Governing through managerial civil society.
• Kutay, Riza Acar (2010). Are European NGOs carriers of public use of reason or nuclei of new modes of governance?
• Kutay, Riza Acar (2009). Are Trans-European Networks of NGOs democratizing or governmentalizing?
• Kutay, Riza Acar (2004). A glance at the army-politics relations after the 1980s.
• Kutay, Riza Acar (2003). Ottoman legacy in rural relations and resurrection of Aşar in Republican era.
• Kutay, Riza Acar (2001). A neo-populist challenging to neo-liberalism: Hugo Chavez. Radikal Iki.
• Kutay, Riza Acar (2016). Civilian and military relations in Turkey : a historical survey . Chr. Michelsens institutt. ISSN 978-82-8062-623-3. Show summary

  This CMI Working Paper presents an analysis of civilian-military relations in Turkey, casting light on institutional, legal and economic aspects that have shaped the military’s role in society. An assessment of contemporary civilian-military relations in Turkey needs to be informed by a historical background. To that end, this paper chronicles how the military has evolved since the Ottoman Empire up till today, emphasising key historical processes that influence the dynamics between military and civilian powers. The paper concludes by observing that in recent decades the Turkish military has, by and large, withdrawn from the political scene, yet that recent political developments in the region and a corresponding intensification of security concerns leave open how this may evolve. Civilian-military relations have been considered in the context of the failed coup attempt of July 2015 in which the government aimed at absolute control over the armed forces and the military lost all of its major privileges.

• Kutay, Riza Acar (2008). Legitimising the postnational European polity : re-visiting the contract theory and governmentality. Unifob Global. ISSN 1890-5986. Show summary

  The main theme of this paper is to investigate how contract theory and governmentality-thinking contribute to the discussions of legitimacy in European governance. For legitimacy of the political rule, consent is a very crucial concept. That the ruled willingly accept to be bound by the decisions of the ruler is a prerequisite for the justified existence of the political system. The question of political obligation, why people obey the rules, has been central to political philosophy. Leaving aside the pre-modern forms of political communities, here the focus is on the modern state which has had the great success of acquiring the consent of the people for its actions in history. The question of how the modern state has secured its legitimacy and prolonged its survival will be discussed in two aspects; 1) social contract theory, 2) the governmentalization of the state argument of Foucault. While the first relates to the why aspect of the political power, the second illuminates the how aspect. The aim here is not to bridge opposing trends of political philosophy, but to use the traditional perspectives on the political re-structuring in Europe.

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