The politics of silence: Discussing deliberative and agonistic democracy vis-a-vis gendered responses to the militarization of everyday life in Turkey
Item
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Title
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The politics of silence: Discussing deliberative and agonistic democracy vis-a-vis gendered responses to the militarization of everyday life in Turkey
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Identifier
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d_2009_2013:e2fbb6a2b038:11023
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identifier
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11265
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Creator
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Goker, Zeynep Gulru,
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Contributor
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Joan C. Tronto
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Date
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2011
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Political science | Philosophy | Gender studies | agonistic democracy | deliberative democracy | democratic theory | gender | silence | Turkey
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Abstract
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The dissertation discusses contemporary theories of democracy in the light of the concept of silence. It questions the dichotomous thinking of speech and silence in political theory and challenges the conventional view of silence as the loss of communication. Looking at silence as consent, as refusal or protest, and as disengagement, all of which intersect at various contexts, the dissertation engages in a dialogue with deliberative and agonistic democrats on the meaning and complexity of political action and democratic practice. It analyzes the ways in which silence is framed politically, particularly in women's silent protests of state-inflicted violence in Turkey and around the world. The construction of gendered responses to the militarization of everyday life reveals subaltern women's significant contribution to building a more just society through unconventional acts of democratic engagement.;In Western political thought, democratic self-expression has predominantly been associated with the speaking subject. An uncritical association between speech, freedom and democratization risks ignoring the regulative and exclusionary functions of speech and relegates silence to the outside of communication. Two politically relevant and theoretically significant lines of inquiry are developed from this argument. First, it is shown that silence is neither an antithesis of nor an alternative to speech but a useful concept showing the multifaceted workings of power in any political action or democratic opening. Secondly, women's presence in public spaces overturns the traditional association of the feminine with compliance and passivity. The dissertation involves the coupling of this theoretical engagement with an empirical analysis of the Saturday Vigils -- silent vigils held by the parents of the disappeared-under-arrest in Turkey since 1995 -- and concludes that the vigils open up a serious democratic space in contentious practice and contributes to Turkey's political liberalization. Moreover they set an example to collective action framed in silence that has wider implications for feminist democratic theory and political theory in general.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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2009_2013.csv
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Political Science
