Description
In line with the neo-liberal development policies juxtaposed with the growth-oriented agenda of the AKP governments, Turkey had a drastic increase in the exploitation of minerals, construction of energy infrastructure, and expansion of mine sites, especially coal. In recent years, Turkey hit a record high with the production of local coal. Having a massive impact on the environment, nature, and livelihoods, the coal mining activities and power plant projects were met by environmental protests in different parts of Turkey even in a number of towns and villages where the AKP is more appealing to conservative rural poor. The environmental protests widely supported by NGOs and ecology advocates received broad national and international media coverage. Yet, despite the local resistance and legal efforts, the AKP government, to a great extent, managed to execute its coal-based energy projects leading to unprecedently high levels of environmental degradation and related injustices while keeping its regime from any major backlash. Existing literature already highlighted the structural factors that enable the government to pursue its neo-developmentalist agenda such as privatization and patronage rent allocation to cronies, weakened courts, and captured media. Yet we do not know much about the discursive strategies of the AKP government that enable them to run environmentally exploitative policies that harm to rural poor yet profit the pro-government business elites Through a detailed analysis of the news on Akbelen resistance (2002-2023) in pro-AKP media outlets, this paper reveals how the AKP government uses populist discursive tactics to show itself as the true environmentalist working not for the elitist interests but for the people’s interests while blaming activists and resisters as marginals and terrorists acting against the interests of the people or provocateurs brought from outside.
