violence by police forces attracted some of the protestors to violently react to it which
caused to rethink the legitimacy of this political sphere.
B. Prime Minister s Rhetoric
Another significant actor of the Gezi Protest is the PM himself. From the very early
days of the protests, he has been inclined to evaluate the protests as a coup towards
himself as well as developed a pejorative rhetoric to the protestors by defining them as
capulcular that literally means looters . )n lieu of approaching to the protests as an
opportunity to take one step further to the consolidated democracy by carving out
new channels of democratic engagement, he blatantly criticised protestors to be
manipulated by the foreign governments and international investors to redesign
Turkish politics in accordance with their political and economic interests. There is of
course no doubt that the international actors are excited to shape the political
structure of Turkey by abusing the Gezi protests, nonetheless internal political and
sociological aspects/dynamics of it can t be underestimated either. )t may sound a bit
odd but PM s strong stance on the protests as well as rhetoric successfully contracted
the political sphere of the protests via watering down their legitimacy on the eyes of
Turkish society. Moreover, his emphasis on the environmental policies of AKP
government negated the arguments of protestors that were highly influential on the
Turkish public including AKP supporters.
C. Position taken by the Traditional Elite
Three successful election results of AKP weakened the accumulated power of
traditional elite of the modern Turkey whom is the staunch supporter of Kemalist
regime. The Kemalist elite consisted of businessmen, academics, and journalists so
and so forth, has been acting as the loyal safeguard of the status quo in Turkey. AKP s
success in political arena and economy mobilised ordinary citizens located in the
periphery to move towards to the centre threatened the status of traditional elite.
Members of the traditional elite attempted to take advantage of Gezi Protests either in
direct or indirect ways to be able to debilitate AKP government that couldn t be
beaten through elections. Consequently, the position taken by traditional elite was
seen as an attempt to preserve their political and economic power and narrowed the
political sphere of protestors who were also criticising the attitudes of Kemalist elite
during the protests.
D. Violent Extremist Groups
The last exogenous actor can be put forward as the most influential factor on
contracting the political sphere of Gezi Protests due to the fact that any kind of
violence delegitimise the political opposition and action. PM s success in convincing
the majority of Turkish public was mostly motivated by the violent attacks carried out
some of the leftist movements. The conventional wisdom that argues the legitimacy of