New Book, wealth inequality, Alevis, Islamist psychologists, and more

Notebook 13

Hi folks,

This is a regular post on the things I’ve been reading and watching lately. The first item is free, the rest is for paid subscribers only.

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First, an announcement: my book is coming out on February 20!

The cover depicts the memorial dedicated to the people who resisted the July 15 coup attempt. It stands in the courtyard of the presidential palace in Ankara.

I thought this was fitting because July 15 is the national holiday of “New Turkey”. It is the moment people stopped talking of an Erdoğan government, and started talking about a new regime. (You can find my exploration of that language here.)

A lot of Turkey books these days are either journalistic accounts of the country, or PhD theses converted into a book. Mine is neither. It’s based on a combination of my historical analysis, current interviews, and personal experiences. You might call it a semi-academic book, meaning that it might be of interest to academics, but it’s supposed to be accessible to the wider public as well. Some of the ideas in the background relate to my PhD thesis (on Nietzsche’s political ideas), but that’s a light touch overall.

I start the book going into some of the history of Islamism in Turkey, my encounters with it, then discuss some of the most influential people behind it. Then I quickly get into the AK Party years and how they evolved in the 2000s and 2010s. The last two chapters are on foreign policy and how the Islamists conduct themselves in the world.

So the progression is:

history/political ideas —> domestic events in the 2010s —> geopolitics

I tried to narrate the relationship between political ideas and actual policy, which isn’t always easy, but I hope people find it interesting.

Here the official description:

Turkey is among a league of revisionist powers who are challenging the world order. Erdoğan and his Islamist movement have aimed to create the “New Turkey”, preparing for a future that is less dependent on Western treaty allies.

This book is about the political ideas driving Turkey's regime change and foreign policy. It de-exceptionalizes Turkish politics, arguing that the “New Turkey” is part of a forerunner in the a global trend of far-right nationalist movements like that of Donald Trump in the United States or Narendra Modi in India. In particular, the book reveals how far-right nationalist strands in Turkey have been nurtured by an existential resentment of the West, similar to those we are seeing in Russia. In tracing this resentment and its historical roots, the book invites policymakers and experts to better understand the new relationships Turkey is building with fellow revisionists including China and Russia, as well as Turkey's involvement in the wars in Syria and Ukraine and Erdogan's grand strategy for expansion.

You can pre-order it here, or on Amazon, wherever you are. And please do pre-order, as that sort of thing helps tremendously in the distribution process.

As we get closer to the release, I’ll think of different ways to discuss the book on this blog. Hopefully it’ll help to engage deeper with readers.

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An explosion in private wealth

This chart from the UBS World Wealth Report is interesting.

UBS being a big investment bank, is very bullish about how “people around the world are getting progressively wealthier” in a way I really can’t relate to.

Having said that, Turkey stands out in nearly all their charts, which got some attention in the Turkish media. There’s an explosion of wealth in the country, which skews a lot of the charts.

Here’s average wealth per adult, 2022-2023:

The currency effect is off the charts, and the community of Turkish millionaires is set to grow by 43% between 2023 and 2028.

Can one feel this sort of thing happening in Turkey? Yes, most definitely. I feel it all the more as someone who hops frequently between Turkey and the UK.

Life in Turkey has become very expensive very quickly. The rich are visibly richer. Real estate prices have gone through the roof and fancy restaurants are packed. The sale of top of the line luxury cars, like Bentleys, Ferraris and Lamborghinis, has been way up in 2023 and 2024.

Keep in mind also that Turkey’s special consumption tax is based on engine size, so these people are paying roughly triple the price of the car. Chart Source: Bloomberg

Meanwhile, the poor are getting poorer. People who work on a fixed income struggle with the basics like food security, transportation, and heating in ways they didn’t in the 2000s and 2010s. Retirement has basically disappeared.

There’s some people in the middle where people sort of hustle just enough to earn a decent income. Most people I know are desperately trying to get a hold of some real estate, even if it means pooling money with relatives. The people who really focus on wealth and move fast can make a pretty good income, but it’s a high-risk endeavor. Everyone is always talking about money and status, which I think leaves us off pretty miserable, and certainly shrinks the area for human flourishing and true creativity.

I don’t think any of this is planned, it’s just the result of the new elite’s economic instincts, which are predominantly neoliberal. Make of that what you will.