Turkey’s agenda is changing at an incredible speed. This change makes itself felt in every area of society. Social, legal and political changes happen in many fields; from economy to culture and internal politics, from environmental issues to external politics. This social transformation process seems to be sharpening the already existing polarization within society. It seems that the AKP government employs more and more populist and authoritative methods instead of following a democratic path in this transformation process. In such critical periods of sharpened polarization, the role of the governments is to provide an opportunity for social transformation to materialize in a peaceful and democratic environment. Therefore, the role of the political actors and civil society is also of great importance.

The quarterly periodica l"Perspectives" strives to be a source of reference for civil society, decision makers, opinion leaders in- and outside of Turkey. Each magazine will present feature articles, articles on ecology, democratization, culture, international politics and news from the Heinrich Böll Foundation. Each issue also contains a short biography in an attempt to present the impact of the developments in Turkey from a human perspective.

The feature articles of this first issue deal with the historical background and recent developments concerning the “deep state” of Turkey. We regard the “deep state” as one of the important impediments in the democratization of this country. With the different reforms that led to a change in the civil-military relationship, with the law suits such as the Ergenekon trial, and with the trial against responsible personality of the coup d’état in 1980, it became a much discussed topic; if the AKP government attempts to destroy the deep state; if it is accommodating to it or just changing the actors of the “deep state”.

In our first issue, we try to give answer to these questions. In addition to the feature articles, topical articles on issues such as the reform of the educational system, censorship in the arts as well as the renewable energy law and the reform of the health system are addressed.

Online version: http://www.tr.boell.org/web/51-1385.html