Hansen aims to capture in Karagümrük, an Istanbul neighborhood, and on one particular avenue within it, how ordinary people experience authoritarianism in the twenty-first century.
Having lived in Istanbul for 16 years after 2007, Hansen learned Turkish. Her understanding of Erdoğan’s rule develops through conversations with Ismail, the neighborhood’s muhtar (headman); his wife Ebru, a real estate agent; Hüseyin, the owner of a grocer’s shop; Murat, a barber; and Majed, a Syrian refugee who opened a patisserie.
She finds that the restoration of Muslim identity and national pride explained Erdoğan’s initial popularity. Then came the frenzy of construction and urban renewal, with skyscrapers, malls, bridges, tunnels, and palatial mosques. Neglect of the country’s agricultural production, however, led to a financial crisis in which people had difficulty making ends meet. This generated widespread resentment, much of it directed at Syrian refugees. Turks themselves also felt reduced to something like refugees—a stateless, desperate people.
To make matters worse, the new elite became corrupt, with more than 150 amendments to the public procurement law benefiting contractors tied to the AKP. As Ismail remarked, “The children work and struggle. They [italics in original] live in luxury.” Ebru warned, “People will be quiet, and then there will be an explosion.”
Hansen argues that the foundation for that explosion already exists. She terms the nationwide 2013 protests against the demolition of Gezi Park in Istanbul to make way for a shopping mall “a counterrevolution.” The 2025 arrest of Turkey’s popular mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem İmamoğlu, led to the biggest protests since Gezi Park. Another sign of trouble: The term “terrorist” now applies to anyone critical of Erdoğan’s regime, including Turkey’s secular opposition, the Republican People’s Party (CHP).
From Life Itself is impressive in both its depth and perspective. It offers an insightful account of how Erdoğan’s “democracy for a day” was dismantled. Erdoğan’s initial liberal period was short-lived, and his turn led to the rise of authoritarianism.
Robert Ellis, a Turkey analyst, serves as an advisor to the Research Institute for European and American Studies in Athens, Greece.
