In 2012, Duncan McCargo (Columbia) and Ayse Zarakol (Cambridge) published an article in the Journal of Democracy entitled “Turkey and Thailand: Unlikely Twins.” The article highlighted striking similarities in the history and politics of two nations at opposite ends of ‘Asia’ (broadly imagined), and raised critical questions about issues such urban-rural divides, national myths, the role of the military, and trends towards authoritarianism. Since then, much has happened to confirm and to qualify their arguments: Thailand experienced a military coup in May 2014, while there was an unsuccessful coup attempt in Turkey two years later. In this seminar, the two authors will revisit their analysis and debate the significance of subsequent developments for understanding this apparent parallelism.

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Hosted by Weatherhead East Asian Institute and Sakip Sabanci Center for Turkish Studies at Columbia University.