Turkey’s Rising Tide of Dissent: Charting the Wave of Non-Legal Strikes in the Mid-2010s

Abstract

In Turkey, legal strikes have been on the decline since the mid-1990s. This is a trend that has accelerated since the mid-2010s under the ruling Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi as the government increasingly resorted to banning legal strikes against a backdrop of increasing autocratisation. Nevertheless, the country has witnessed non-legal strikes that are neither formally recognised nor documented. The data collated here through a protest event analysis methodology sheds light on these non-legal strikes, revealing a substantial, arguably historic strike wave in 2015. This study delves into the trajectory, dynamics and outcomes of this strike wave. The fact that workers managed to organise such a significant strike wave demonstrates the continuing relevance of working-class agency in today’s world. Particularly noteworthy is that it is primarily the workers themselves, without union support, who organised this strike wave. This working-class agency proved to be effective to a certain extent, demonstrating that its efforts were not in vain. Together with other social movements, the strike wave formed Turkey’s rising tide of dissent in the mid-2010s, prompting the regime to resort to further autocratisation to suppress it.