It is widely recognised that academic freedom and university autonomy in Turkey are currently under pressure. Many scholars have produced articles discussing the Turkish predicament, linking it to the recent authoritarian and populist turn of the country. This paper offers a different interpretation, arguing how academic freedom and institutional autonomy have been approached and practised in Turkey from the past to the present, by focusing mainly on the evolution of the relations between higher education institutions and political power. Understanding how this relationship has been constructed and maintained may help us to grasp the context-specific university practices restricting academic freedom and university autonomy.