Özet:

Istanbul Bar Association is among the oldest professional organizations in Turkey and with almost 40,000 registered lawyers it is also one of the largest bar associations in the world. With this invested authority, it is also one of the most influential actors in determining the relationship between the state and the profession which has historically been a contested one due to the extent of the Bar’s political engagement. Controversies around the extent and the form of this engagement have led to various divisions within the Bar since mid-1970s. In this paper, we look at 2018 Bar elections and examine campaigns of different groups competing for power in order to reveal different approaches to the Bar “doing politics”. We argue that the boundaries between politics at large and politics of the profession are situationally determined and hence contingent upon differing actors, circumstances and priorities.

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