Browsing by Author "Ozen, Sukru"
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Article Citation Count: 21Interactions in and between Strategic Action Fields: A Comparative Analysis of Two Environmental Conflicts in Gold-Mining Fields in Turkey(Sage Publications inc, 2011) Özen, Hayriye; Ozen, Sukru; Department of Public Administration and Political ScienceThis study addresses how multinational corporations and protesters in an environmental struggle learn from the proximate struggles within the same field and how they structure the broader institutional field. Drawing on the literature integrating the social movement and new institutional theory, particularly the "strategic action fields" (SAFs) approach of Fligstein and McAdam, the authors comparatively study the interactions in and between two sequential environmental struggles in the field of gold mining in Turkey. The findings suggest that the interactive processes in an SAF and their consequences are largely built on the lessons drawn from both "successes" and "failures" in the proximate SAF that preceded it. Furthermore, those actors that act proactively are more likely to stabilize the SAF according to their interests. Finally, state interventions from the outside create temporary stability that involves the acquiescence of challengers, whereas the consent-seeking actions of incumbents are more likely to generate a permanent stability, stabilizing the broader field.Article Citation Count: 35Peasants Against MNCs and the State: The Role of the Bergama Struggle in the Institutional Construction of the Gold-Mining Field in Turkey(Sage Publications Ltd, 2009) Özen, Hayriye; Ozen, Hayriye; Department of Public Administration and Political ScienceIn this article, we argue that the emergent literature that integrates the neo-institutional and social movement theories for a better understanding of institutional change offers a partial picture concerning the roles of the state and society in institutional wars due to its preoccupation with the liberal polities prevalent in the Anglo-Saxon countries. We suggest that the macro-institutional perspective that recognizes the influences of varied polities should be introduced to this emergent literature, if it is to provide a full picture. Incorporating the macro-institutional insights into the integrative approach, we examine a struggle between a group of protesters, a multinational gold-mining company and governmental actors regarding an environmental issue in Bergama, Turkey, where a statist polity mediates worldwide currents towards the neo-liberal order. The findings indicate that the Turkish state repressed the mobilizations against the neo-liberal construction of the mining field and reinforced the existing neo-liberal logic in the mining field through introducing a new regulatory framework. On the basis of the findings, we suggest that both the trajectory and consequences of institutional wars are influenced by the kind of polity in which they take place.Article Citation Count: 6What comes after repression? The hegemonic contestation in the gold-mining field in Turkey(Pergamon-elsevier Science Ltd, 2018) Özen, Hayriye; Ozen, Sukru; Department of Public Administration and Political ScienceIt is widely known that many local environmental mobilizations against resource extraction projects of trans national capital have been repressed by the use of the state force in the late-industrializing world. What is less known is the aftermath of these repressions. Do they conceal all the traces of these mobilizations and lead to naturalization of the extractive operations of transnational capital at the local spaces? We address this question by examining two subsequent local environmental mobilizations in Turkey against gold-mining MNCs. Drawing on Laclauian insights on political struggles and hegemony, we first conceptualize repression of dissent not only as the repression of dissidents or protesters, but also that of protest discourse. Then, we argue that the forceful repression of the actors of those mobilizations succeeding to articulate an appealing protest discourse can make the hegemony and domination of transnational capital at the local level highly fragile, thus providing the conditions of possibility of subsequent similar mobilizations. The protest discourse constituted through such mobilizations may sediment despite the repression of protesters and become highly influential on the discursive trajectory of subsequent mobilizations. Yet, such an influence, as we also demonstrate in this study, may not only enable subsequent movements, but also limit their hegemonic capabilities.Article Citation Count: 23What Makes Locals Protesters? A Discursive Analysis of Two Cases in Gold-mining Industry in Turkey(Pergamon-elsevier Science Ltd, 2017) Özen, Hayriye; Ozen, Sukru; Department of Public Administration and Political ScienceThis study addresses the question why a struggle emerges between local communities and mining MNCs. Many studies in the extant literature tend to explain the emergence of these struggles by relying on some "objective conditions" such as the characteristics of the industry, strategies of companies, features of community, and governmental policies. Drawing on Foucauldian and Laclauian insights, we argue that the analysis of such struggles should rather focus on meaning-making processes, through which each party to a struggle articulates surrounding conditions in particular ways, thereby giving shape to new meanings and identities. By comparatively examining Efemcukuru and copler goldmine cases from Turkey, in which a struggle emerges in the former but not in the latter in spite of similar conditions, we demonstrate that the emergence of struggles is mainly due to the construction of rival discourses that construct the issues of mining, environment, and development in highly different ways. We argue that already-prevalent conditions play a role in the emergence of struggles to the extent that they are employed, framed, and refrained in the rival anti-mining and pro-mining discourses. The argument goes further that the availability of anti-mining discourse when the local meaning systems are dislocated by the arrival of MNCs, as well as its popular appeal at the local level are critical in the emergence of local mobilizations against gold-mining. Finally, emphasis is put on the relational nature of struggle processes, where anti-mining and pro-mining discourses are mutually constituted and reconstituted through a constant reformulation of hegemonic strategies. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.