Strategizing post-protest activism in abeyance: retaining activist capital under political constraint

ABSTRACT The initial optimism on the revival of civic activism in Turkey following the Gezi protests in 2013 was short-lived. The deteriorating legal and political environment has considerably narrowed the civic space for civil society activity. However, the mass mobilizations in 2017 and 2019 showed not only the ongoing willingness but also the activist groups’ ongoing capacity to collectively defy, resist and contend. This article focuses on this capacity which I term as the activist capital. More specifically, this article analyses post-Gezi activists’ ability to adapt to deteriorating conditions and to retain the activist capital during abeyance. This article argues that activist capital is necessary to understand how activist groups sustain their movement in the post-Gezi environment in Turkey. By combining it with the concept of activist capital as a variable, this article enhances the abeyance theory and helps us better interpret movement continuity in repressive political environments. This article also shows how the activist groups act strategically to retain their activist capital.


Introduction
The initial optimism on the revival of civic activism in Turkey following the Gezi protests in 2013 was short-lived. The legal and political environment has rapidly worsened for civil society in particular after the failed coup attempt in 2016. As a result, street activism waned, activist groups gradually shrank and some even disappeared from the scene. This has changed in 2017 with the constitutional referendum. Large numbers of people have swiftly mobilized to organize 'No' campaigns. The 'Yes' vote and also the Supreme Electoral Council's controversial decision to count around 1.5 million unstamped ballots as valid brought thousands to the streets. In late 2019, over a hundred formal and informal civil society organizations mobilized within weeks under the Canal Istanbul Coordination to coordinate campaigns against the government's plans to open a new canal to merge the Black Sea with the Marmara Sea.
The successive mass mobilizations in 2017 and 2019 showed not only the ongoing willingness but also the capacity to collectively defy, resist and contend. This article focuses on this capacity which I term as the activist capital. More specifically, this article analyses post-Gezi activists' ability to adapt to deteriorating conditions and to retain the activist capital in Turkey. It shows that post-Gezi activist groups act strategically to retain the activist capital in the face of closing civic space.
Movement continuity has gained growing scholarly attention following Taylor's (1989) work on abeyance structures and processes. Abeyance theory explains how movements sustain themselves during periods of demobilization through creating 'organizational and ideological bridges' from one mass mobilization to another (Taylor, 1989, p. 761). Abeyance theory has been applied to numerous social movements and the literature has focused on the structure (Marullo & Meyer, 2004), identity (Polletta, 1999) and narrative (Geha, 2019) of organizations in abeyance. An important caveat in abeyance theory is its inherent assumption of a relatively open civic space where activists can organize freely despite in reduced numbers and with limited or no impact. As such, abeyance theory is limited in its explanation of movement continuity in the face of closing civic space where the government attempts to foreclose movements. This article addresses just that and contributes to this literature by exploring movement continuity in restricted civic space by focusing on the Turkish context. This article argues that activist capital is necessary to understand how activist groups sustain their movement in the post-Gezi environment in Turkey. By combining it with activist capital, this article enhances abeyance theory and helps us better interpret movement continuity in repressive political environments. This article also shows that the activist groups act strategically to retain their activist capital.
This article also contributes to the extensive literature developed on the Gezi protests since 2013. Different studies focused on its causes, actors, and forms of protests (see, for instance, Budak & Watts, 2015;Derman, 2017;Kaya, 2017;Ramazanoğulları, 2021;Tuğal, 2013). Studies exploring activism during the post-Gezi period have been more limited, mainly focusing on the emerging civic activism and its new actors. These studies explored new activisms' relation to active citizenship (Bee & Kaya, 2017), young conservative women's activism (Uyan-Semerci & Cin, 2018) and civic alliances formed (Zihnioğlu, 2019). This article takes a different angle and unpacks the activists' strategies to retain the flame of contention and capacity to mobilize during the post-Gezi period.
Finally, this article builds on and extends the literature on the broader challenge of closing civic space across the world. While the Turkish government has been restricting the space for civil society in particular after the Gezi protests (Zihnioğlu, 2020, pp. 93-102), closing civic space is a far-reaching challenge that has become a global trend (Carothers, 2015;Carothers & Brechenmacher, 2014;CIVICUS, 2016). In over 100 countries, governments adopt measures to restrict the activities of civic organizations (Youngs & Echagüe, 2017). Given that closing civic space is part of a general pattern of democratic recession and that international response is limited , civic actors need to learn to cope, survive and thrive in this environment. As such, exploring the strategies that may lead to resilient civil society is highly relevant. This article contributes to our understanding of how civic actors can adapt to an increasingly restrictive legal and political environment and build a resilient civil society.
This article is divided into seven sections. Following this Introduction, section two presents the theory of abeyance and the main concepts framing this article. Section three gives an overview of the post-Gezi period in Turkey. The following section provides a brief account of the methodology and the case selection of this study. Section five investigates the strategies adopted by activist groups and section six analyses why activist capital matters in abeyance. The concluding section discusses the implications of this study on the abeyance theory.

Abeyance and activist capital
Over the past few decades, there has been growing analytical attention to movement continuity between moments of insurgency and how social movement organizations maintain a movement in abeyance. Taylor (1989) theorizes abeyance as a process by which movements sustain themselves when confronted with a nonreceptive political and social environment. In an abeyance phase, movements are less visible but not inactive. Central to abeyance are structures that retain and sustain activists (Bagguley, 2002, p. 171). Abeyance structures provide a holding ground for a small number of committed activists to maintain cause until there is a favorable political climate for mass mobilization. In a way, these structures provide 'organizational and ideological bridges' from one mass mobilization to another (Taylor, 1989, p. 761). Abeyance structures provide crucial resources such as commitment, expertise, and networks. This, in return, connects to and shapes the movement that follows abeyance (Rupp & Taylor, 1987). Taylor's theory of abeyance has been applied to explain the abeyance and revitalization of the feminist movement (Bagguley, 2002;Crossley, 2017;Grey & Sawer, 2008), grassroots organizations (Holland & Cable, 2002) and Islamist networks (Gade, 2019). In this article, I operationalize abeyance as the lack of mass mobilization and mass-based challenge.
Despite its use in different settings, abeyance theory is limited in its explanation of movement continuity in repressive political settings where the government restricts civic space, particularly for activist groups. According to abeyance theory, movements enter into abeyance due to different reasons such as organizational success, internal conflict or nonreceptive political and social environment (Taylor, 1989, p. 763). The nonreceptive environment, however, still assumes a relatively open civic space. Even though activists may lack access to and support from the established political system due to changing opportunity structure, they are still able to organize freely and pursue their ideology.
This article addresses this limitation by introducing the concept of activist capital defined in this article as the capacity to collectively defy, resist and contend. Activism, as a process by which groups exert pressure to change policies, practices or conditions (M. F. Smith, 2005, p. 5) relies on activist capital. Activist capital is crucial to movement continuity as it is a key resource that activist groups would resort to when the abeyance phase ends and the moment comes for the next mass mobilization. This makes activist capital central to abeyance structures. Efforts to retain activist capital are particularly important in inhospitable political environments given that activists in such environments have to counteract closing civic space to sustain their movement. Therefore, central to the abeyance phase in an inhospitable environment is efforts to maintain activist capital and activist groups act strategically to maintain this capacity.
Following R. D. Smith (2002), I define strategy as a plan of action in which activist groups engage to achieve their objectives and it includes tactical and standardized action repertoires. Therefore, a strategy will not only shape their mobilization behaviour but also be key to their survival during abeyance. Following Melucci (1989), I acknowledge that protests are only the visible aspect of collective action and in latency periods, hidden networks work beyond visible protests. These networks nourish the collective action and make mobilization possible (Melucci, 1989, pp. 70-2). The collective action at times of mass mobilization no doubt draws on the capacity of these hidden networks to be able to collectively defy, resist and contend. Therefore, the strategies activist groups employ to retain these networks would be decisive in collective action when the next moment comes for mass mobilization.
Strategies are particularly important in adverse political environments. In such environments, activist groups are in search for effective ways not to only mobilize but also to counteract closing civic space. There is a growing scholarly interest in these strategies given that the clampdown on civil society groups has become a global 'trend' over the past decade . Many nondemocratic regimes and even some democratic ones in over 100 countries employ different tactics to limit the activities of civic organizations (Youngs & Echagüe, 2017;Youngs, 2019, p. 129).
Civic groups respond to this new wave of restrictions with a series of strategies. Many activists choose to lie low until a better time comes for a new mass-based challenge and move into less sensitive areas such as organizing community events. Other groups, however, embrace more confrontational tactics. About 100 significant anti-government protests have erupted worldwide since 2017 (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2021). Art-based activism or in short artivism, such as the Occupy Museums and Living Aleppo project, has grown as another global trend among activists. Others mobilize at the local level, which facilitates the diffusion of information at the grassroots level and broadens their support base while escaping the state's radar. Most interestingly, government restrictions led many groups to 'deinstitutionalize' and search for more fluid and agile forms to organize. They see this as a way to circumvent the government's attempts to control their activities (Youngs, 2019, pp. 135-6).
This article also draws on political opportunity theory, which emphasizes the interaction of activist efforts with the structure of political opportunities. The key point of this theory is its assumption that the activists do not choose their strategies and tactics in a vacuum, independent of the political context. Proponents of this theory, therefore, argue that the activists' choices can be understood by looking at the broader context of political opportunities (Meyer, 2004;Tilly, 1978). This is useful in analyzing how political constraints influence activist groups' strategies in Turkey. When activist groups in abeyance are faced with government repression and the closure of civic space, they do not only pursue movement continuity but also strategize to retain activist capital. While a small group of activists can maintain movement continuity with abeyance structures, the urge to retain activist capital channels activists into different and even conflicting forms of activism. For instance, some groups manage the fear by community organizing, while others propel the movement through small-scale protests.
Looking at the political opportunities alone, however, does not give the full picture of the dynamics of collective action. To understand collective action, we need to move beyond single movements and look at how a multitude of actors interact during a protest cycle (Koopmans, 2004, p. 21). In a protest cycle, contenders interact and cooperate with other contenders and potential allies. At a phase of heightened conflict, this interaction triggers a variety of processes that diffuse collective action from more mobilized early risers to groups that are normally less active and mobilized. The political opportunities, when employed strategically, can create new opportunities for others, which in turn will widen the protest cycle (Tarrow, 2011).
Turkey exhibits an acute example of the restrictive trend against civil society. While the downturn of political reforms had arguably started in the early 2010s, civic restrictions have gained pace following the Gezi protests in 2013. Soon afterwards, mass mobilizations and mass-based challenges have waned, resulting in abeyance for post-Gezi groups. This article examines the strategies adopted by activist groups to retain their activist capital during this period. More specifically, this article assesses how activist groups in Turkey have been sustaining themselves under a repressive environment and how they respond when political opportunities emerge. To that end, I will first overview Turkey's closing civic space and then I will look at the trajectories of activist groups and the various strategies they have adopted since 2013.

Post-Gezi activism and changing landscape
The government's openings to civil society during the 2000s were short-lived and by 2013, its conciliatory approach mostly had disappeared. In 2013, the government reintroduced bans on the Workers' Day gathering in the iconic Taksim Square -a 32-year ban it had lifted only in 2010. At about the same time, protests against the replacement of Istanbul's historic Emek Theatre with a shopping mall met with excessive police force. The turning point, however, was the ensuing Gezi protests. While the protests initially started as a sit-in protest in Istanbul's Gezi Park, it quickly transformed into a nationwide revolt for two months with 2.5 million people participating. The government responded with a wave of arrests during and after the protests. Over 5,500 people were on trial in the first year facing charges for resisting a public officer, damaging public property as well as terrorism (Amnesty International, 2014).
While the government's hardening attitude towards the protests may have instigated fear in some, demonstrations continued to attract crowds during the following two years. For instance, thousands took to the streets after the Soma coal mine disaster (Amnesty International, 2014) and expropriation of an olive grove in an Aegean village Yirca (2015). The local resistance against the government's mining plans in the first-grade forest land in Cerattepe spilled to major provinces with on and off demonstrations through 2015 until early 2016. There were many other smaller protests and demonstrations taking place during this period, especially in Istanbul. For instance, national and local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) along with local citizens organized a series of campaigns protesting the plans to replace the existing psychiatric hospital in Istanbul. In 2015, Istanbul City Defence protested in Beyoğlu district against Municipality's unlicensed construction in its historical building and the police violence against street vendors and small shopkeepers.
In the meantime, the legal environment deteriorated for freedom of expression, association, and assembly as the government introduced new restrictive laws. As early as late 2014, the government passed a package law 1 that changed the grounds for allowing the police to conduct searches and seize assets of those accused from 'strong suspicion based on concrete evidence' to 'reasonable doubt'. The government's decision not to intervene in the Islamic State's siege of the Syrian border town of Kobane prompted large-scale protests in the autumn of 2014. The government deployed troops and imposed curfews in several south-eastern towns. More importantly, the government drafted a new law that enhanced police powers and tightened restrictions on meetings and demonstrations. Commonly referred to as the Domestic Security Package, the new law passed in March 2015 despite the objections from opposition parties and widespread public criticisms. Together with this, the parliament passed another package law that extended government control over the Internet. The law gave Prime Minister and relevant Ministers the power to immediately request the removal of online content and/or website blocking decisions if delayed court decisions might threaten public order, national security, public health or people's lives. Other examples such as the denial of permission for the thirteenth annual LBGT march in Istanbul in June 2015 showed the diminishing scope for civil society (Zihnioğlu, 2020, pp. 98-101).
The measures adopted following the failed coup attempt of July 2016 further narrowed the civic space. The government, with enhanced powers under a state of emergency, launched a massive purge to bring those involved in the coup attempt to justice. The ensuing crackdown soon extended to opposition groups. Many interpreted purges as a tool to silence any criticism of the government. Besides, the government used its authority to issue regulations to suspend or restrict freedom of peaceful assembly. With massive arrests, closure of civic organizations, restrictions on public gatherings the political environment became non-receptive for civil society activity. Equally important, these measures brought about a growing sense of fear that civic engagement may entail different risks. In particular, the prosecutor's office's request for life imprisonment for the leading names of the Gezi protest spread fear among many activists previously taking to the streets (Founding member of Istanbul City Defence, personal interview, 22 February 2019).
The perception of what is politically permissible in terms of civil society activities has changed. As a result, uncertainty and fear have become the defining characteristics of Turkish civil society (Center for American Progress, Istanbul Policy Center and Istituto Affari Internazionali, 2017, p. 15). In return, this led many people to shy away from demonstrations and activist groups lapsed into abeyance. This article identifies the strategies that the activist groups adopted to retain activist capital in the face of this changing landscape and analyzes how this activist capital matters in abeyance.

Methodology and the case selection
It is beyond the scope of one article to focus on all post-Gezi civic groups and organizations. This article focuses on the major groups mobilized around three issues that have come to the forefront during the period following the Gezi protests. These issues are the ecological struggle, the right-to-the city, and election (ballot) safety. Accordingly, I look at Northern Forests Defence (ecological struggle), Istanbul City Defences (right-to-thecity) and Vote and Beyond (election safety). There are two reasons why I chose these groups. Firstly, it is easier to follow the pathways they choose and the strategies they adopt. While many groups sprouted soon after the Gezi protests, they are mostly organized as loose networks or online groups, which makes it very difficult to identify and trace their activities. Second, there is a high degree of transitivity between different groups working in one area. For instance, members of a local environmental group are likely to be members of Northern Forests Defence or participate in its activities. Therefore, focusing on the larger groups in each area makes the study more representative.
In addition, I also looked into the Gezi Party and United June Movement because one common post-protest strategy among activists in various countries has been to move into mainstream politics. This has not happened in Turkey although both the Gezi Party and United June Movement had broader political ambitions at the time of their establishment. The United June Movement, while itself not a political party, is an alliance among left-leaning political groups, parties, civil society organizations as well as members of parliament, academics, artists and other individuals (Sezer, 2018). I look at these two groups to better explore whether and why these two organizations were unsuccessful as abeyance structures. On the other hand, this study does not include park forums. Park forums are popular assemblies that initially met at Gezi Park to discuss how to proceed. These forums continued to convene in neighbourhood parks across Istanbul to discuss various local problems. While Park forums are considered as a prime example of groups acting based on the right to the city, they quickly lost momentum, shrank in size and mostly dispersed in a year.
I gathered data in three ways. First, I scanned news portals to get a preliminary understanding of the selected groups' activities. However, this provided only limited information as only major protests are covered in the media. When they do, there is often a single story that is copy-pasted in different news outlets. To supplement this information, I interviewed members of the Northern Forest Defence, Istanbul City Defences, United June Movement and the Gezi Party and where possible, I attended their regular meetings. The interviewees were fully informed and given assurances of confidentiality. I did not record the interviews because in some cases recording may interfere with the interview process, as interviewees may be less forthcoming and less comfortable with the interview. I made extensive notes during the interviews and I have checked the direct quotations with the interviewees to ensure accuracy. I used no information that could reveal the identity of the activists.

Retaining activist capital and post-Gezi strategies
In the face of a deteriorating legal environment, activist groups have gone into abeyance, while some adopted and in practice combined different strategies to retain their activist capital. Firstly, a large number of activists decided to lie low and wait for new opportunities to open up for mass mobilization. A good example of this is the City Defences. City Defences are local networks organized at the district level all around Istanbul in 2014 and all affiliated to Istanbul City Defence. They focus on local residents' rights to the city and during their early years, they actively campaigned against various projects in their local district. Since 2015 and more so after 2016, however, most district-level City Defences waned (Founding member of Istanbul City Defence, personal interview, 22 February 2019). While they become much less visible physically, this is not to suggest that they were completely dispersed. The groups continue to exist as a 'hidden network' (Melucci, 1989), active mainly in social media and through messaging platforms. Although their protests soon lost momentum, the City Defences continued to share information and contribute to online campaigns.
Secondly, despite the growing civic restrictions, some groups keep the spirit of original protests. One example of this is the Northern Forests Defence, which was mobilized in the immediate aftermath of the Gezi protests. Since its establishment, the Northern Forests Defence maintained its contentious discourse, organized several environmental demonstrations and protests. These protests have gradually scaled back. Northern Forests Defence remains active although they are much less visible. During the past couple of years, they led anti-hydroelectric power plant resistance in the Thrace (Northern Forests Defence, 2019) and Western Anatolian town Izmir (Akdemir, 2017). They have also protested in front of Germany's Istanbul Consulate against the plans for an open-pit coal mine and the destruction of the Hambach forest (Tarcan, 2018). These often very small-scale protests have provided a holding ground for a small number of committed activists and retain commitment which is a key resource. In turn, this provides a structure that sustains their capacity to defy, resist and contend and momentum for activism until when the abeyance phase ends.
In parallel with this, a third strategy to sustain activist capital in abeyance is increasing cooperation among different civic groups. Turkish civil society is inherently characterized by deep fragmentation, while cooperation among civil society organizations has been an exception rather than a rule (Zihnioğlu, 2013, p. 70). However, the shrinking number of people willing to play an active role induced civic groups to work with one another. Since 2013, post-Gezi groups have organized various campaigns in alliance with other civic groups, chambers, local people, and political parties. For instance, a local City Defence branch organized a series of campaign against the replacement of the existing psychiatric hospital in Istanbul with a new one. During the campaigns, City Defences cooperated with the Turkish Archaeologists Association, Istanbul Medical Chamber, the Chamber of City Planners, the Chamber of Architects, three political parties and the locals. Similar multi-stakeholder civic alliances were formed for other campaigns including an anti-mining campaign in Cerattepe, an anti-power plant campaign in Yırca, and the campaign against the bill that granted extra time to install flue gas filters for coal-fired power plants. Such collaborative efforts are particularly important for activist groups in abeyance as such efforts lead to the crucial resource of network and also a collective capacity to defy, resist and contend that these groups may lack individually. While these efforts may not lead to mass mobilization, retaining collective activist capital in return, provides movement continuity.
As a final strategy, some post-Gezi groups moved into community organizing. A good example of this is the trekking tours and camping trips organized by the Northern Forests Defence together with other environmental groups such as Don Quixote Bicycle Collective. These tours and trips are organized around some of the few forests around Istanbul. These events became popular and attract not only their usual supporters but also a wider community. Northern Forests Defence also holds movie screenings and organizes gatherings with other groups, each once a week. These events also provide an opportunity to share information and discuss the matters in hand (personal interview, 22 February 2019). With the community events, Northern Forest Defence expanded into a structure that recruits, and retains activists in abeyance.
Another important civic initiative that sprouted from the Gezi protests is the Vote and Beyond that train election observers and organize election monitoring. The Vote and Beyond did not adapt contentious discourse as other groups mentioned in this article.
However, the nature of their work and the assumption it is based on (that there might be election fraud) put them at odds with the governing party. Indeed, some pro-government media outlets discredited its work and suggested shady links to smear the initiative (Eroğlu & Önder, 2015;Sabah, 2015). Despite these attacks and the unfavourable working environment, Vote and Beyond has not changed course or adopted a new strategy as it continues to retain its activist capital. Vote and Beyond mobilized an increasing number of volunteers for each election since the Gezi protests and now enjoys the support of around 50 thousand volunteers. Given the frequency of elections in Turkey since 2014, 2 Vote and Beyond has been mobilizing and training initially thousands and later tens of thousands of people each year.
Lastly, there were two political movements that aimed to move into mainstream politics soon after the end of the Gezi protests. One of these was the Gezi Party founded in 2014. Despite the initial momentum, the party could not sustain the popular support and also failed to complete its organization to be able to participate in the elections. The party eventually dissolved itself in 2017 (Founding member of the Gezi Party, personal interview, 30 April 2019). The other group, the United June Movement was also launched in 2014 as a blanket alliance among left-leaning political groups and parties, civil society organizations as well as individual members of parliament, academics, artists other individuals (Sezer, 2018). The Movement quickly organized people's assemblies in several provinces across the country with the aim of concerted political opposition. The Movement initially mobilized around the upcoming general election in 2015. In addition, they also campaigned for secular education in early 2015. They organized protest marches and held boycotts at schools. The constituents of the United June Movement soon faced a divisive internal conflict on whether the Movement should support the pro-Kurdish-People's Democratic Party in the upcoming general elections. The political differences dominated the debates. The Movement quickly waned as its constituent political groups left one after the other.

Why activist capital matters in abeyance
Having examined whether and how post-Gezi groups retained their activist capital, we will now discuss why activist capital matters in understanding how activist groups sustain themselves in abeyance in Turkey's inhospitable environment. The deteriorating domestic political context described in section three had a far-reaching impact across Turkish civil society. In a way, both the formal and perceived boundaries of what is politically acceptable for civic engagement has changed. Many people who actively had joined protests, chose to hold back from taking to the streets because 'whenever the street opposition picked up, the police operations extinguished this' (Founding member of Istanbul City Defence, personal interview, 22 February 2019). The protests began to attract fewer people due to growing fear among activists as 'there is not guarantee that [they] will not be under arrest tomorrow' (Founding member of Istanbul City Defence, personal interview, 22 February 2019). As the protests considerably downsized their impact also waned. Some activists retreated to social media. Others dispersed altogether due to concurrently shrinking virtual space and widespread fear. Therefore, the challenge that the activist groups faced was not only about lapsing into abeyance. More importantly and in the face of a repressive political environment, they were also faced with a challenge to retain their existing capacity to defy, resist, and contend for a future mobilization. In response, activist groups adopted different strategies. Some sought new activities to bring people together. An important strategy in this regard was shifting a part of their attention to community organizing and social gatherings.
There are two reasons why building activist capital through community organizing and social gatherings during abeyance matter in the post-Gezi environment. Firstly, community events are a good way to sustain the links with active participants as well as loose supporters and in doing so retain the group. A founding member of Istanbul City Defence underlined the widespread fear among people and their growing hesitancy to attend a rally or protests. 'They don't go out to protests, take to the streets because they are afraid' (personal interview, 22 February 2019). That said, she also emphasized people's urge to come together for issues they are concerned about. 'People need to come together. Nobody comes when you call them to protests only. But trekking, camps attract people.' Some community events such as theme-based movie screenings, discussion forums, and even social gatherings provide an environment to fulfil this urge. Even in trekking tours, not only do people explore the forest and other areas the activists defend, but they also talk about resistance and solidarity. In doing so, activist groups remind their supporters of their cause and this reinforces their existing activist capital. Besides, such gatherings prolong people's engagement with the group and remain in contact who might otherwise break away. In doing so, these gatherings have an indirect effect on their capacity to resist as bringing people with similar concerns serve as a source of motivation for the activists. They see that they are not alone in their fight at a time when their activities are not visible (Founding member of Northern Forests Defence, personal interview, 5 October 2017).
Secondly, activist groups can broaden their base through some of these activities. Trekking tours and camping trips are particularly useful activities for environmentalists to introduce their cause to a wider group of people and attract new supporters. For instance, trekking tours and camps organized by the Northern Forests Defence are not only open to its existing supporters but also to others who are interested. This is important for activist groups because under a repressive political environment, activist groups have to counteract closing civic space. One way to retain activist capital here is to expand their network through indirect links. During these activities, activists get the opportunity to show first-hand what is environmentally at stake and also overcome disinformation.
The logic behind this strategy explains how Vote and Beyond continues to expand its volunteer base. In recent years, ballot safety has become a growing concern among dissidents. Election monitoring, much like community events, allows people to mobilize without taking to the streets and the risk of clashing with security forces. It allows people to come together for an issue they are concerned about in a non-confrontational way. This also explains the sprouting of similar initiatives (e.g., Turkey's Votes, We Are at the Ballot Box Platform, Fair Election and Ballot Box Power Platform) in the post-Gezi period. As in communal and social events, election monitoring allows Vote and Beyond to have a sustainable relationship with large masses, remind them of and link them to their cause. This, in turn, helps them to retain their activist capital. As a result, they were able to successfully mobilize increasing number of volunteers in successive elections. Not all organizations followed the same strategy to retain their activist capital. For instance, while City Defences initially mobilized small groups on issues that touch people's everyday lives, they have decided to lie low. This is also because the City Defences organize at the district level and their agenda is dominated by the district-level concerns and problems. This fragments and crowds the overall agenda of the Istanbul City Defence (Founding member of Istanbul City Defence, personal interview, 22 February 2019). However, they remained active in social media and through messaging platforms. This ultimately helped the City Defences to stay connected with members and supporters who otherwise remain reluctant to take to the streets due to the repressive political environment. In doing so, the City Defences could retain their collective capacity to defy, resist and contend and could swiftly mobilize this hidden network for the No Assemblies and the Canal Istanbul Coordination.
On the other hand, Northern Forests Defence keeps up protests. These are rather sporadic targeted campaigns. Despite the shrinking number of protestors and lack of media interest, Northern Forests Defence is still able to bring people together because its agenda is more homogenous. In parallel with this, it became easier for Northern Forests Defence to attract other environmental organizations and groups to support their campaigns. Northern Forests Defence chose to continue staging protests because they think that this helps to keep the momentum for activism (Founding member of Northern Forests Defence, personal interview, 5 October 2017). These activists see protests not only as a form of reaction but also as a way to retain hope and belief in civic activism, especially among a wider network of supporters. In doing that, they also sustain their commitment as a resource, which in return reinforces their capacity to defy, resist and contend. The activists acknowledge the risks involved. However, they calculate the benefit of retaining activist capital until the next mass movement to be more than the potential cost of the risks.
Some protesters looked for ways to enter into mainstream politics to retain the spirit of Gezi protests but these attempts have failed. There are two main reasons behind this. Firstly, as the Gezi protests expanded and spread across the country, it transformed into a reaction to existing political institutions and a demand for a broader political change. Political engagement through existing political parties would have contradicted with this demand (Founding member of the Gezi Party, personal interview, 30 April 2019). This discouraged post-Gezi groups to support or politically aspiring protesters to join the ranks of existing political parties. This explains why the United June Movement could not reach out to a broader audience. For instance, while the United June Movement had quickly organized across the country but they did so through relying on the existing organizations of their constituents (e.g., political parties and movements) and not through building on an activist capital. In addition, they were seen as an affiliated organization of these parties and movements. As the ideological divisions within the Movement became more apparent they also lost the initial activist capital they mobilized.
Secondly, since its inception, the Gezi Party was torn between remaining as a political movement and contesting in the elections. The Party could not contest in the elections as it failed to meet the eligibility requirement for political parties to enter into elections. The law requires political parties to organize in several provinces and districts. 3 This entails above all huge financial resources that the party could not raise. On the other hand, because it was not organized only as a movement, people who first participated or supported Gezi protests and later the Gezi Party demanded solutions for many problems raised during and after the Gezi protests. The Gezi Party, in trying to sustain a shared sense of community, was slow to respond to these demands. As a result, it quickly lost the momentum and human resources that it initially gathered in the immediate aftermath of the Gezi protests. And this led the remaining activist capital to wane. Not being able to overcome these challenges, the party decided to dissolve itself in 2017 (Founding member of the Gezi Party, personal interview, 30 April 2019).

Conclusion
With the Gezi protests, ecological struggle and right-to-the city have come into prominence in Turkish civil society and induced several new activist groups that focused on these issues. In addition, ballot safety also gained importance leading to new civic groups that train election observers and organize election monitoring. This burgeoning civic activism prompted a new activist capital in Turkey. During the initial years after the Gezi protests, post-Gezi groups provided important venues for active civic engagement. These groups pursued different strategies to make use of this capital. Some organized successive protests and demonstrations, while others aimed at creating a pathway from civic engagement to political engagement. However, the deteriorating legal environment has considerably narrowed the civic space for civil society activity. In response, post-Gezi groups lapsed into a state of abeyance and some groups adopted tactical changes in their activities to retain their activist capital. For instance, Istanbul City Defence and most of its district-level network decided to lie low, while Northern Forest Defence continued protests with a small number of committed activists. Some other groups also started community organizing and social gatherings. At the same time, collaborative efforts of activist groups helped them exercise the activist capital collectively and in turn sustain the momentum for activism until when the abeyance ends. Finally, the Gezi Party and the United June Movement exhibited organized efforts to move into mainstream politics.
The importance of these new strategies and their tactical implementation became apparent soon afterward with the resurgence of post-Gezi groups in a mass-based mobilization ahead of the 2017 constitutional referendum. Many people previously organized under the post-Gezi groups took part in what is known as the No Assemblies and joined other initiatives that organized no campaigns at the local level. The protests reignited following the Supreme Electoral Council's controversial decision to validate some 1.5 unstamped ballots -which could potentially overturn the results. Thousands of people rallied in several cities for the next few days to protest against the results and also the Council's decision. While the protests faded amid the rounding up of 38 opposition activists, the No Assemblies organized a march in Istanbul under the slogan 'You Are Not Legitimate' (Kuray, 2017). Likewise, Northern Forests Defence made a call in December 2019 to protest and organize campaigns against the government's plans to merge the Black Sea with the Marmara Sea with a new canal. Within weeks over a hundred formal and informal civil society organizations became part of this new platform called Canal Istanbul Coordination. The Coordination quickly organized at the district-level across Istanbul and established working groups on media, science and technology, external relations, finance, operation/activities, and legal affairs.
The mass mobilization of large crowds in a short period in 2017 and 2019 shows that some post-Gezi activist groups had been successful in keeping a flame of contention alive while in abeyance. No doubt, activist groups play an important role by providing ideological and organizational linkages as abeyance structures. However, abeyance structures alone do not explain the successive and swift mass mobilizations in 2017 and 2019. Legal changes since 2014 had been narrowing civic space through enhanced police power during demonstrations, recurrent bans, and restrictions on public gatherings as well as mass purges. The environment for civic activism deteriorated with thenongoing state of emergency, which discouraged people to engage in contentious politics. Given this repressive political environment, it would not have been possible for abeyance structures to mobilize large masses neither against the constitutional referendum nor to challenge its result without additional efforts while in abeyance. The organizers of the No Assemblies and the Canal Istanbul Coordination would have required an existing capacity for contention including the commitment and the network of larger groups of supporters at the launch of these two campaigns. In other words, without an existing activist capital, the mass mobilizations in 2017 and 2019 would not have been possible.
As such, abeyance theory is in need of modification to include activist capital as a relevant variable with respect to abeyance process in repressive political settings. Abeyance theory takes it for granted that the abeyance structures only need to sustain the commitment and expertise of key activists and an internal network. However, in repressive political settings, these structures also have to work to retain the capacity defy, resist and contend for mass mobilization in the next opportunity.
The urge to maintain activist capital also explains why different activist groups strategize differently and at times in contradiction to the tenents of the abeyance theory. For instance, in times of political constraint, widespread fear may discourage people from direct political confrontation with the government because the cost of the direct challenge becomes much higher. The costs include not only clashing with the security forces during the protest but also official investigation and litigation which may come long after. However, the fear of costs is neither a sign of political apathy nor a willingness to move towards a civic disengagement. Activist groups can create channels through which a wider group of supporters can continue to engage in a non-contentious way. Community events are a prime example of this which bring together people with similar concerns, provide them a platform to express and share them in non-contentious ways. In return, this helps prolong their engagement and therefore a continuity of the activist capital. On the other hand, the Northern Forests Defence continues to take to the streets while in abeyance because the proetsts also provide a holding ground for a small group of committed activists and retain commitment as a key resource. In addition, through protests they believe they can sustain the spirit of original protests and retain hope and belief in civic activism among a wider network of supporters. This, in return, reinforces activist capital. Northern Forests Defence can continue protests because they have been on the frontline for many years and they calculate that the cost of direct political challenge is much less for them. Whether or not they take a break at a certain point may not increase or decrease the cost. Therefore, they choose to keep up their contentious discourse and activities.
Turkish civil society displays that there is no single recipe for retaining the activist capital and creating a resilient civil society. More research is needed to explore why some activist groups choose certain strategies and which strategies work better for which groups. It is also difficult to know neither for how long the activists can retain the activist capital nor how resilient Turkish civil society is. That said, post-Gezi activism shows us that many activist groups have learned to strategize and to retain civic space even under political constraint.  (2017). 2018 general elections also included the presidential election. 3. Law on Political Parties stipulates that 'In order for a political party to run in the elections, it must have set up its organization in at least half of the provinces at least six months prior to election day and must have held its grand congress or must have a group in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. In order for a political party to be deemed to have an organization in a province, it must have set up its organization in at least one third of the districts of that province including the central district'. (Article 36)