Blow by blow: the assault on academic freedom in Turkey. By AYSE CAGLAR

Since 2015, the curtailment of academic freedom and the diminishing autonomy of universities in Turkey has attracted attention in the Turkish and international media. As the assaults on academic institutions in Turkey assumed unprecedented dimensions – with massive purges, restrictions and control on academics and universities imposed by the government, especially after the failed coup attempt in July, 2016 – these attacks on and violations of academic freedom have rightly become the subject of numerous reports, communiqués and calls from Turkish and international academics and institutions and human rights organizations. 

The erosion of the universities’ autonomy has been part of the systematic dismantling of democratic institutions in Turkey. This requires analysis in the context of the broader dynamics of the reconfiguration of authoritarian and democratic politics which we also observe in places like Hungary, India and Russia. Here, however, I focus solely on the inner workings and the consequences of these assaults on academic institutions in Turkey, in order to highlight the politics of law in this regime’s authoritarian form of governance.

It is important to situate the curtailment of the autonomy of universities within the structural context of higher education in Turkey. Two important characteristics of higher education are important here. First, all these attacks have been taking place within a university system which has already been centralized and hierarchically regulated mainly by the Higher Education Law (HE law) and the Council of Higher Education (CHE), which were established in 1981 after the military coup in 1980. Both the HE law and the CHE had already restricted the autonomy of universities substantially by establishing wide-ranging powers to control and discipline them. Since 2016, the power of the CHE over universities and academic institutions has become even more comprehensive and alarming. 

Second, the HE law of 1981 allowed the establishment of non-profit, privately funded universities in Turkey, sometimes referred to as foundation universities. In 1981 there were only 19 public (state) universities in Turkey. In 2015 there were 109 public and 76 private universities. In Istanbul alone, there were 38 private and 9 public universities in 2015. So we are talking here about a higher education landscape that has been increasingly privatized and commercialized, and in which the number of universities and students has continuously grown thanks to the actions of the government. During the 15 years since the current governing party, the AKP, came to power in 2002, 120 universities have been founded.


However it is important to note the weak boundaries between private and public universities in terms of their organizational and employment autonomy… read more:
http://www.eurozine.com/blow-by-blow-the-assault-on-academic-freedom-in-turkey/


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