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Unraveling the Cycle of Protest in Turkey’s Gezi Park

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 January 2025

Selin Bengi Gümrükçü
Selin Bengi Gümrükçü*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, USA
*
Email: bengigumrukcu@gmail.com
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Abstract

The Gezi Park protests that erupted in spring 2013 sparked renewed interest in social movements and collective action in Turkey. While much of the literature has emphasized the novelty and spontaneity of these protests, this article situates them within a broader context and historical framework of social movements in Turkey. It argues that the events surrounding the demolition of Gezi Park should be understood as a cycle of protest, best analyzed in relation to earlier cycles to gain deeper insights into the culture and agency of social movements in the country. In this regard, the article posits that the Turkish manifestations of the Global Justice Movement in the late 1990s and early 2000s provided crucial precedents for the Gezi Park protests, offering an organizational infrastructure, collective frames for mobilization, and adaptable models for action.

Keywords

protestcycles of protestsocial movementGlobal Justice MovementGezi ParkTurkey
Type
Article
Information
Review of Middle East Studies , First View , pp. 1 - 16
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Middle East Studies Association of North America

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Footnotes

I thank Prof. Belinda Davis, Mimi Kirk, Jake Passel and the anonymous referees for their comments on the earlier versions of this article.

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