Güven Sak, PhD
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After all it’s not that bad in Ankara
These days, I am increasingly hearing that Turkey is becoming less democratic and more authoritarian. People bemoan the decline of the rule-of-law, the symbol of that…
Why do investors pick Brazil over Turkey?
I was at a meeting in Beijing this week. The city had plenty of blue sky and light traffic. I was told that authorities arranged this to fix their image before the APEC…
How to deal with the Jihadist International?
The Jihadist International is a growing phenomenon. Like the Communist International of early 20 th Century, this movement feeds on domestic inequality, and contrary to…
Is Kobane a Trojan horse for Turks?
Turkey is ambivalent on the siege of Kobane. The city lies in the Ottoman Governorate of Syria and was built in 1912 around a train station along the Baghdad Railway.…
Is the G20 still policy relevant?
The World has changed. In the past, the most powerful 7 countries were enough to govern the rest of the world. However , now we need more , and policy cooperation is…
How fragile we are
I have had a song by Sting stuck in my head for the past two days. Remember the one that goes, “nothing comes from violence and nothing ever could/For all those born…
The tragedy of Turkish engineers
People talking about the prospects of the Turkish economy these days keep bringing up the country’s skills deficiency. “The average years of schooling in the country is…
ISIL is a threat to Turkey
I was just looking at the results of Metropoll’s survey on the ISIL threat. The result is clear: 4 out of 5 people in Turkey considers ISIL a threat. “Any kind of…
Why are Islamic banks still so small?
We do not call them Islamic banks in Turkey. Banks are banks, administrative apparatuses. In the past, they were termed “Special Finance Institutions” and only after the…
Growing discontent against Syrians in Turkey
I was reading the key findings of the Transatlantic Trends (TTs) 2014 survey the other day. One of them is Turks’ growing discontent with immigrants. People do not seem…
Of fake housing bubbles and Syrian refugees
I have often been asked about the housing prices in Turkey lately. My questioners often want to confirm their sense that the housing bubble is going to burst, that a…
Time for a new reform agenda for Turkey
Turkey is currently in a political transition process – a very orderly one so far. Let me tell you what we know as of this Friday. We have a new President, a new prime…