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On 11th January 2016, Academics for Peace (AfP) published a petition, which was signed by more than one thousand academics, calling for the state of Turkey to stop the violations of human rights, and compensate the victims, in the Southeast region and for the AKP government to solve the Kurdish question. The petition resulted in an uproar both at the state and societal levels. While the majority of academics supported the AfP’s initiative in accordance with academic freedom, a significant minority of academics published a counter-petition declaring their support for the state’s actions in the region. However, academic freedom was massively curtailed with police probes, arrests and detentions, disciplinary proceedings, defamation and targeting in the media, and even intimidation by colleagues and students against signatories of the AfP’s petition. This article will discuss academic freedom in Turkey in relation to the consolidation of the authoritarian framework of neoliberal-conservatism. Firstly, it will summarise the neoliberal-conservative transition of the global and domestic capitalist systems. Secondly, it will summarise the neoliberal-conservative restructuring of the higher education system. Thirdly, it will examine the recent authoritarian practices aimed to curtail academic freedom. Finally, it will discuss possibilities to counter such authoritarian practices to compel the neoliberal-conservative system to retreat.

The neoliberal transition of the global capitalist system has meant the consolidation of the hegemony of finance capital at the international and domestic levels including in Turkey. Since neoliberalism requires the free movement of capital and the control over potentially opposing social forces (Harvey, 2007), it has resulted in authoritarian restructuring of the state and societal formation in Turkey. This has been followed by a purge of the social democratic welfare state with an authoritarian regulatory state whose democratic framework was significantly curtailed, including flexibilisation and deregulation of the labour force through limitations on the right to unionise and strike, and favouring both international and domestic capital through privatisation, subcontracting and narrowing the public sector, and promoting import-dependent exports and attracting short-term speculative capital (Boratav, 2014). In the meantime, in the face of deteriorating economic, social and political conditions for the subordinate classes, the AKP government has consolidated its conservative/Islamist project both at the state and societal levels. In this way, it has aimed to veil the class struggles and create an obedient society.

Within this framework, the AKP broadened........

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