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Article Citation - WoS: 11Citation - Scopus: 16Overcoming Environmental Challenges by Antagonizing Environmental Protesters: the Turkish Government Discourse Against Anti-Hydroelectric Power Plants Movements(Routledge Journals, Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2014) Ozen, HayriyeDue to the growing public importance of environmental concerns in the contemporary world, governments that prioritize economic interests over environmental concerns may try to counter environmental challenges not by openly declaring that they do not want to consider environmental demands, but by attempting to antagonize the protesters who voice such demands. This essay explores such a governmental response by analyzing the discourse articulated by the Turkish Government against movements that oppose the construction of hydroelectric power plants (HEPPs) on environmental grounds. In particular, the analysis focuses on how HEPPs, environmental claims and demands of movements, and environmental protesters are represented within the pro-HEPP discourse, and in what ways these representations appeal to popular perceptions. It is demonstrated that the discourse of the government attempts to counter the challenges of protesters by establishing an antagonist relation between the protesters and society by representing HEPPs as crucial for the economic development and, therefore, as compatible with the interests of society as a whole. Moreover, it also attempts to achieve this through portraying the protesters as criminals and terrorists who block the economic development of the country and pose significant threats to the commonwealth, not for legitimate environmental concerns but for some dubious motives and incentives. It is concluded that, with this approach, the government has managed to gain popular consent not only for the construction of HEPPs, but also for the repression of such movements.Article Citation - WoS: 22Citation - Scopus: 27Located Locally, Disseminated Nationally: the Bergama Movement(Routledge Journals, Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2009) Ozen, HayriyeHow and with what consequences did the Bergama struggle evolve from a local environmental campaign against the operation of a goldmine to a broader political struggle that mobilised a set of heterogeneous social groups at the national level? The constituency of and support for the Bergama struggle increased as it provided a 'discursive space' for the articulation of a disparate set of particular social demands neither mediated nor fulfilled within the existing political system in Turkey. As the Bergama movement expanded through the articulation of a number of social demands for changes in the broader economic and political structures, several status quo forces became involved in the struggle against the movement and played a crucial role in the gradual demise of the movement.
