Introduction to the Routledge Handbook on Contemporary Turkey

Over the last decades, the people have not only seen a growth of Turkish studies but also witnessed the field becoming more diverse and comparative, critically interrogating hegemonic epistemologies and questioning taboos, such as the Armenian genocide and the Kurdish issue. This chapter looks at how political parties function as platforms maintaining social support by connecting their constituencies to state resources. The chapter examines regression in the wider context of Turkey's multiparty history. It concludes that, although the AKP produces a post-truth conditionality in the political game with its rivals, it also follows in the footsteps of the Kemalists and their centralised, programmatic agenda of truth-making. The chapter shows that homosexual relationships were common and accepted practices during the Ottoman Empire, but this acceptance decreased in the early nineteenth century, particularly in the attempt to modernise the Empire and ameliorate relations with Western states.