The Double Bind: Trapped Between Neoliberalism and Authoritarianism, Turkey’s Academics Politicize Freedom

This article looks at past and current practices curbing academic freedoms in Turkey. Without setting apart so-called “liberal” contexts from “illiberal” ones, it imputes the global demise of the university and of the public intellectual to the neoliberalization of higher education that does not spare democratic countries. The political dimensions of the post-1980 repression in Turkey should be analyzed with this backdrop in mind. Two recent turning points that have politicized scholars are analyzed in the last part: 1. The Academics for Peace petition and the 2016 purges; 2. the Boğaziçi University resistance against the stifling of academic freedoms. The article claims that the battle cannot be won without transforming the authoritarian neoliberal conditions that enable and legitimize the erosion of all rights and freedoms, including academic ones.