ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a broad overview of the emergence and evolution of environmental politics in Turkey within the context of and in response to neoliberal economic policies that have been in force since the early 1980s. In so doing, it advances three interrelated propositions. First, environmental politics in Turkey are predominantly in the shape of localized and reactive environmental conflicts targeting specific projects, such as mining investment or infrastructure construction, rather than institutional struggles for overall greening of the economy and society at large. Second, with the important exception of the Gezi uprising, environmental conflicts in Turkey have been primarily rural affairs. Third, despite sustainability being a boundary concept par excellence, environmental conflicts have subsumed rather than amplified various loci of progressive struggles, be it ethnicity, religion or gender and sexuality. The chapter therefore concludes that despite their vibrancy and increasing popularity, environmental conflicts in Turkey have not yet fulfilled their potential for radical socioeconomic transformation.
