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Article Citation - WoS: 2Citation - Scopus: 2Legislative Committees in the Turkish Parliament: Performing Procedural Minimum or Effective Scrutiny?(Routledge Journals, Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2023) Bektas, Eda; Political Science and Public AdministrationThis study examines committee influence on government bills during the AKP's 2011-2015 majority government term in Turkey, an era characterised by democratic backsliding. It explores whether committees introduce more substantial amendments to government bills when they draw on their scrutiny powers (i.e. hearing sponsoring ministers, hearing stakeholders, forming subcommittees, secondary committee review) providing them diverse information and policy expertise. I hypothesise and test under what conditions committees use these competencies to initiate substantial changes. Overall findings based on a novel dataset indicate that legislative committees introduce more substantial amendments to government bills when they consult with sponsoring ministers and stakeholders. These findings suggest that the formal capabilities of legislative committees provide opportunities for legislators to influence government legislation even in adverse political contexts, as these mechanisms limit the government's ability to impose its legislative agenda unilaterally. It contributes to the debates on strengthening legislatures for effective government scrutiny.Article The Paradox of Power in Turkey: Omnipotent Leader, Impotent State(Wiley, 2026) Bektas, Eda; Muhurcuoglu, KorhanThis article examines a central paradox of contemporary authoritarianism: how the concentration of power in the hands of a seemingly omnipotent executive can simultaneously erode bureaucratic capacity and autonomy through subordination, producing an increasingly impotent state. Focussing on Turkey's transition to hyper-presidentialism after the 2018 elections, it argues that excessive centralisation has undermined the institutional competence and discretion required for coordinated and effective policy implementation. The government's response to the 6 February 2023 twin earthquakes provides a tragic and revealing case that affected millions of lives. Despite Recep Tayyip Erdo & gbreve;an's pledges that the presidential system would deliver efficiency and decisiveness, disaster governance was marked by delayed decision making, poor coordination, limited capacity for rapid mobilisation and communication and an emphasis on narrative control over effective execution. Drawing on bureaucratic capacity and autonomy as indicators of governance quality, this article shows how personalist rule hollows out state institutions, exposing its limits in delivering good governance.Article Neopatrimonial Rule Through Formal Institutions: The Case of Turkey(Cambridge University Press, 2025) Bektas, EdaThis study examines how formal institutions in hybrid regimes, particularly presidentialism, party organization and electoral rules, actively foster and sustain clientelistic networks, leading to particularistic outcomes. While existing literature highlights the weakening of formal institutions and pervasive clientelism as drivers of democratic breakdown, this study uses the concept of neopatrimonialism to analyse how formal institutions themselves consolidate patron-client relationships to maintain power and stability. Focusing on Turkey, the analysis demonstrates that the institutional incentive structure consolidates the president's role as the central ‘patron’, controlling resources and offices, and encourages clientelistic networks to coalesce around the presidency. The discretionary allocation of resources through patron-client relationships sustains neopatrimonial authority as long as clients' loyalty is rewarded. However, this governance increases clients' dependence on the patron, binding them at the expense of representation and responsiveness. The analysis offers insights into how such institutional configurations contribute to authoritarianism and particularistic governance in hybrid regimes. © 2025 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.Article Memory, Narrative, and Collective Gendering of Identity: Revolutionary Women in Turkey(Cambridge Univ Press, 2026) Bektas, Eda; Sensonmez, GokhanThis article examines the construction of gendered collective identity among leftist women in Turkey through their post-1980 coup prison memory. By analyzing 124 autobiographical narratives, we uncover a process of identity formation grounded in a continuous negotiation between past struggles and present concerns, constituting a counternarrative that challenges the master narrative of defeat and submission prevalent after the coup. The article's tripartite framework of distance, substance, and persistence underscores women's journey from marginalization to collective empowerment, producing shifting subject positions across time. By placing temporality at the center of collective identity formation, this study contributes to feminist memory literature and identity studies while addressing a significant historiographical gap by bringing the neglected struggles of leftist women in Turkey to light.
