Acknowledgments
This book spans two centuries redolent with drama, including the transformation – these twenty plus years – of Turkey, its region(s), and the world. Writing such a book, you become aware of accretions and rupture. You sense history percolating in patterned ways, even as fissures – subtle and dramatic – transform all that you (think you) know. If this dynamic describes states and societies, writing about it has also been a journey of continuity and rupture.
It has been eight years or so since I properly began producing this monograph. It has evolved against a backdrop blurred by change. We traversed continents, countries, and states, taking on a dozen jobs and as many homes. Throughout this, at times, painful process, mentors and colleagues, friends, and family have been my vital source of continuity. I am indebted, in fact, to so many people that I cannot possibly do justice to all the names and ways. As such, the acknowledgments below are limited to those who were directly engaged in the preparation of this manuscript or components thereof or provided support that significantly advanced this particular project.
First and foremost, I am indebted to the incredibly kind and brilliant souls who took on the entire text at various stages in its development: Şebnem Gümüşçü, Soli Özel, and Halil İbrahim Yenigün. Hearty thanks also to my tireless and thoughtful research assistants, Sinan Ekim and Brian Anderson. I cannot sufficiently express, moreover, my most sincere gratitude to the anonymous reviewers for their thorough and constructive comments.
I am further indebted to those who shared precious time and insights on one or several chapters: Karabekir Akkoyunlu, Ayça Alemdaroğlu, Zeynep Atalay, Nicholas Danforth, Seda Domaniç, Berk Esen, Pelin Ayan Musil, Ahmet Erdi Öztürk, Christine Philliou, Orçun Selçuk, Matthew Specter, Alp Eren Topal, and Jeremy Walton.
I have strived to do justice to the rich feedback thus received. Any remaining problems are mine alone.
More holistically, there would be no book – or me in current form – if it weren’t for Sabri Sayarı and Charles King, who have nurtured my scholarship ever since I took their classes as a Georgetown undergrad. Across the Atlantic, Kalypso Nicolaïdis – advisor extraordinaire and treasured friend – parts of this book were produced under your watch. But all of it is inspired by your matchless model of interdisciplinary creativity and interpersonal generosity. Also reverberating in my head since Oxford days are the eloquent voices of Othon Anastasakis, Dimitar Bechev, Ayşe Kadıoğlu, and Kerem Öktem.
Substantial primary research for the book’s contemporary section was conducted as an early career scholar at Sabancı and Bahçeşehir universities in Istanbul. It was a joy to work with and/or learn from Meltem Müftüler-Baç, Selma Bardakçı, Başak Kale Lack, Fuat Keyman, Hande Paker, Meriç and Neslihan Özgüneş, Kristen Biehl Öztuzcu, Susan C. Pearce, Özdem Sanberk, Joshua Walker, and Gündüz Vassaf, among many valued interlocutors. During this period, a generative conversation with James Liu and Mark Woodward laid the groundwork for this book’s complexity-inspired framework. I am also grateful to the German Marshall Fund (GMF) – especially Ian Lesser, Corinna Horst, Özgür Ünlühisarcıklı, and Ceylan Akman Canbilek – for their support during and long after my 2012–2013 Ronald Asmus, nonresidential fellowship – which helped to conduct many of the 100+ interviews that inform this work. I am humbled, moreover, by all those I interviewed for so thoughtfully opening windows onto their worlds.
Leaving Turkey was an anguished decision. But it would not have been possible without the National Humanities Center. During my 2013–2014 residency, NHC fellows and members of the broader Duke/UNC Chapel Hill communities – especially Cemil Aydın, Banu Gökarıksel, Erdağ Göknar, Enseng Ho, and Sarah Shields – graciously taught me the ropes of North American academe, as did Amitav Acharya and Rudra Sil in ensuing years.
The following year, the Transatlantic Academy of the GMF tasked me with making sense of “Religion and the Liberal Order” – and Turkey’s role therein. Research and relationships thus generated permeate this book. Enormously kind Stephen Szabo and Michael Barnett supported my efforts during and after the fellowship. Clifford Bob and Lucian Leustean engaged generously, as did fellow fellows from the wider TA orbit, especially Şeyla Benhabib, Janice Stein, and Sarah Wolff. A shout out also to Ted Reinert for his superb editorial contributions.
Subsequently, George Washington University’s Institute for Middle East Studies (IMES) and the Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS) and their respective gurus Nathan Brown and Marc Lynch provided calm waters to carry on producing. Lauren Baker’s editorial eye – and camaraderie – infuse this book’s treatment of Istanbul. Many thanks also to the Brookings Institution and Kemal Kirişçi for supporting my preliminary work on populism, which figures so centrally in the book’s argument.
Presenting the first, (semi-)baked version of the project at a 2018 Southeast Regional Middle East and Islamic Studies Society (SERMEISS) retreat was transformative: Curtis Ryan, Krista Wiegand, and Dylan Baun set me on the path that led to a book contract. I will always be grateful, moreover, for the engagement of Coastal Carolina University colleagues like Pamela Martin, Suheir Daoud, Miriam Dekanozishvili, and Richard Kilroy.
At the University of San Francisco, these pages have been hammered out at every possible writing event convened by the Center for Research, Artistic and Scholarly Excellence (CRASE) and the Dean of Arts & Sciences – including two magical, multiday retreats. Ken Yoshioka of Education Technology Services kindly helped to format the figures. My department stoically bore with me through the push to publication despite pandemic and associated delays. A very sincere thank you, as such, to Brian Dowd-Uribe, Ilaria Giglioli, Quỳnh Pham, John Zarobell, and Dana Zartner. I also thank Sadia Saeed for the delightful commiseration regarding the substance and craft of writing.
Ozan Ceyhan of Muteferriqa, an invaluable online Ottoman Turkish research portal, was knowledgeable and generous in helping to find historical images.
This book has benefited from the feedback of insightful colleagues and audiences at the American Political Science Association (APSA); European Union Studies Association (EUSA); International Studies Association (ISA); Middle East Studies Association (MESA); Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and its Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies; Southeast European Studies at Oxford (SEESOX); and UNC Chapel Hill’s Center for Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies.
Finally, I could not have begun, much less completed, this process without my beloved family. Alan Fisher left us in 2017. But his love of words and the (post-)Ottoman world mark every page. So does rahmetli Ataman Onar’s supple sense of modern Turkey’s swirling energies. I have been buoyed through many stages of this process by the bottomless strength and active help of Patricia Fisher and Nuran Abdullah. For their respective ways of showing support throughout the writing process, I thank Aide Abdullah, Çağlayan Erendağ, Çağla İnselbağ, and Sedef Onar. Kaya and Aksel – my sweet babies who are babies no more – finally you will meet a version of mom who is not working on this book!
Last but actually first, I thank Levent. Your labor and wisdom pulsate through these pages and my ability to produce them. Prince among men, my island of hope in a stormy sea, this book is dedicated to you and the bedrock that is our love.
