Challenging Neoliberalism at Turkey's Gezi Park ― From Private Discontent to Collective Class Action

In Challenging Neoliberalism at Turkey's Gezi Park, Gurcan and Peker focus on the Turkey's struggle against neoliberalism with its Islamic characteristics, and ask what material, objective, and subjective factors account for the emergence and persistence of this robust protest cycle. The authors also study the effect the movement has had on the development of collective leadership mechanisms and political consciousness that can potentially alter the configuration of social forces in the country. Through a Marxist political sociological perspective, the authors shed light on the class basis, conjunctural underpinnings, organizational forms, and political expressions of the Gezi Park Protests as an exceptional cycle of mass mobilization in neoliberal times.

Efe Can Gurcan is a PhD student in Sociology at Simon Fraser University, Canada. His research interests lie in the areas of Marxism, political sociology (social movements and the state), Latin America, development and food studies, and Turkish politics and society.

Efe Peker is a joint-PhD Candidate in Sociology at Simon Fraser University, Canada and History at Universite Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne, France. His research interests focus on the political/historical sociology of social movements and state building, sociology of religion/ideology, modernity and secularism, urban sociology, and labor studies.