Boğaziçi University Protests: An Unexpected Challenge to Authoritarianism

The roundtable will be streamed live here in an anti-troll format! This is a  follow up event to Bogazici University Protests (Part I) which is available here on the SNS YouTube Channel Speakers in conversation with Prof. Donatella Della Porta: Zeynep Gambetti, an independent scholar who worked as an Associate Professor of political theory at Bogazici University.  Mert Arslanalp, an Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Boğaziçi University. Oğulcan Yediveren, a graduate student at Bogazici University Social Policy program and an activist of LGBTQ+ rights in Turkey.  Abstract On January 1st, at midnight, Melih Bulu was appointed as the new rectorate for Boğaziçi University. This top-down assignment bypassed regular selection processes and violated the autonomy of the university, as well as academic freedom. Since that day, a growing protest wave erupted among students across the country, in alliance with LGBTQ+ and women’s movements. Students, academics, alumni, and administrative staff have been rejecting this decision and have shown civil disobedience with various forms of protest on campuses and streets. Since the 2016 coup attempt, which formally introduced a single-ruler system and imposed a state of emergency on all spheres of life, the intergenerational and widespread protests in solidarity with Bogazici university can be considered the most influential popular unrest within the past five years. Hosted by COSMOS and supported by SAR Italy, Donatella della Porta (Scuola Normale Superiore) will be in conversation with Bogazici academics and students, Zeynep Gambetti, Mert Arslanalp, and Oğulcan Yediveren who all are participating in the protests. This roundtable will discuss the emerging and recurring types of protests, the changing and evolving political context in which the current protests take place, and reflect on the legacy of the past, to finally address the question to what extent the Bogazici protests pose an unexpected challenge to authoritarianism in Turkey.