Jean Monnet Chair at Istanbul 29 Mayıs University cordially invites you to a webinar, join us on this Saturday (29 May 2021):
The fourteenth Jean Monnet Chair event will be a webinar by Dr. Oğuzhan Göksel from Faculty of Economics, Marmara University with the title of “The Narratives of Turkish Model & the Arab Spring in European Media”.
The 2011 Arab uprisings were initially hailed by many observers in the Western world as the harbinger of a “modern” Middle East. Finally, it was believed, the hegemony of corrupt autocrats and the prolonged “dark age” of the Arab world were coming to an end. In the context of this narrative, the so-called Turkish model gained popularity as a potential guide for the modernization of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.
This study criticizes much of this literature on the Arab uprisings, arguing that the excessive enthusiasm shown by Western mainstream media and governments toward the promotion of the Turkish model reveals the limits of their understanding of the complexities of MENA societies and polities. In order to develop a generalizable understanding of modernization in the MENA region, the Eurocentrism of mainstream literature needs to be replaced with more flexible frameworks such as Post-Colonialism, Multiple Modernities Paradigm, and the Uneven and Combined Development Theory.
Please contact Oğuzhan Barçın (Assistant to the Jean Monnet Chair) at oguzbarcin@gmail.com for any inquiries related to the Zoom connection or more broadly to this event.
The working language will be English, with no translation. This webinar will be held on Zoom and registration is required. The details of the Zoom meeting will be sent prior to the meeting, please fill out this form to register.
