Between Authoritarianism and Internationalisation: Making Sense of Higher Education Policies in Turkey

This work aims to provide a systematic analysis of higher education policies in Turkey since the 1980s with the start of the introduction of neoliberal policies and the application of New Public Management at the universities. It is going to be a comparative analysis of the two periods: the 1982-2001 period (beginning with the adoption of the new constitution after the military coup in 1980) and the 2002-2020 period (the period of the AKP governments). The central aim of the comparison is to explore whether the higher education policies in Turkey demonstrate continuity or rupture, particularly in the last decade during the authoritarian populist phase of the AKP governments. There is a growing literature arguing that the authoritarian tendencies of the AKP governments have intensified and authoritarian populism has been consolidated especially since 2013. By doing this comparative analysis of the two periods, I would like to determine the extent of similarities and differences in higher education policies over time. Moreover, I will try to examine the degree of the internationalization of the Turkish higher education system and situate Turkey’s policies within the global higher education policy environment. One of the goals of this paper is to assess whether the higher education policies in Turkey are in conflict or in accord with global policies. By doing so it also seeks to initiate a discussion on the interaction of different policy levels that influence the higher education policies.