IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/anname/v681y2019i1p42-61.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Turkey: The Slippery Slope from Reformist to Revolutionary Polarization and Democratic Breakdown

Author

Listed:
  • Murat Somer

Abstract

Under the Justice and Development Party AKP and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey has become one of the most polarized countries in the world, and has undergone a significant democratic breakdown. This article explains how polarization and democratic breakdown happened, arguing that it was based on the built-in, perverse dynamics of an “authoritarian spiral of polarizing-cum-transformative politics.†Furthermore, I identify ten causal mechanisms that have produced pernicious polarization and democratic erosion. Turkey’s transformation since 2002 is an example of the broader phenomenon of democratic erosion under new elites and dominant groups. The causes and consequences of pernicious polarization are analyzed in terms of four subperiods: 2002–2006, 2007, 2008–2013, and 2014–present. In the end, what began as a potentially reformist politics of polarization-cum-transformation morphed into an autocratic-revolutionary one. During this process, polarization and AKP policies; the politicization of formative rifts that had been a divisive undercurrent since nation-state formation; structural transformations; and the opposition’s organizational, programmatic, and personal shortcomings fed and reinforced each other.

Suggested Citation

  • Murat Somer, 2019. "Turkey: The Slippery Slope from Reformist to Revolutionary Polarization and Democratic Breakdown," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 681(1), pages 42-61, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:anname:v:681:y:2019:i:1:p:42-61
    DOI: 10.1177/0002716218818056
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0002716218818056
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0002716218818056?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Berk Esen & Sebnem Gumuscu, 2016. "Rising competitive authoritarianism in Turkey," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(9), pages 1581-1606, September.
    2. Caroline Lancaster, 2014. "The iron law of Erdogan: the decay from intra-party democracy to personalistic rule," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(9), pages 1672-1690, October.
    3. Ergun Özbudun, 2014. "AKP at the Crossroads: Erdoğan's Majoritarian Drift," South European Society and Politics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(2), pages 155-167, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Morrison, Kelly & Savun, Burcu & Donno, Daniela & Davutoglu, Perisa, 2023. "Competing Verdicts: Multiple Election Monitors and Post-Election Contention," Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, Working Paper Series qt3kc4f57j, Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, University of California.
    2. Hazama,Yasushi, 2023. "Welfare, Corruption, and the Economic Vote of Punishment: The Turkish Case," IDE Discussion Papers 908, Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization(JETRO).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. H Bahadir Türk, 2018. "‘Populism as a medium of mass mobilization’: The case of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan," International Area Studies Review, Center for International Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, vol. 21(2), pages 150-168, June.
    2. Özgür Orhangazi & A. Erinç Yeldan, 2021. "The Re‐making of the Turkish Crisis," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 52(3), pages 460-503, May.
    3. Selin Çağatay, 2018. "Women’s Coalitions beyond the Laicism–Islamism Divide in Turkey: Towards an Inclusive Struggle for Gender Equality?," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 6(4), pages 48-58.
    4. Hazama,Yasushi, 2023. "Welfare, Corruption, and the Economic Vote of Punishment: The Turkish Case," IDE Discussion Papers 908, Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization(JETRO).
    5. Hürcan Asli Aksoy, 2018. "Gendered Strategies between Democratization and Democratic Reversal: The Curious Case of Turkey," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 6(3), pages 101-111.
    6. Hilmi Bahadır Akin & Mustafa Cuneyt Özsahin & Seyma Akin, 2023. "Market Liberals at a Crossroads in Post-Gezi Turkiye: Making Sense of a Framing Dispute," Journal of Economy Culture and Society, Istanbul University, Faculty of Economics, vol. 67(67), pages 73-95, June.
    7. Yagci, Alper & Oyvat, Cem, 2018. "Economic Voting and Media Influence in a Competitive Authoritarian Setting: Evidence from Turkey," Greenwich Papers in Political Economy 23687, University of Greenwich, Greenwich Political Economy Research Centre.
    8. Sebnem Cansun & Engin Arik, 2018. "Political science publications about Turkey," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 115(1), pages 169-188, April.
    9. Pagda, Zeki & Bayraktar, Secil & Jimenez, Alfredo, 2021. "Exploring culture and leadership after 23 years: A replication of GLOBE project in Turkey," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 27(1).
    10. Pinar Deniz & Burhan Can Karahasan & Mehmet Pinar, 2021. "Determinants of regional distribution of AKP votes: Analysis of post‐2002 parliamentary elections," Regional Science Policy & Practice, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(2), pages 323-352, April.
    11. Morrison, Kelly & Savun, Burcu & Donno, Daniela & Davutoglu, Perisa, 2023. "Competing Verdicts: Multiple Election Monitors and Post-Election Contention," Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, Working Paper Series qt3kc4f57j, Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, University of California.
    12. Appel, Benjamin J & Croco, Sarah E, 2024. "Democratic Backsliding and Foreign Policy," Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, Working Paper Series qt8s31h6c9, Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, University of California.
    13. Senem Aydın‐Düzgit & Gergana Noutcheva, 2022. "External Contestations of Europe: Russia and Turkey as Normative Challengers?," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(6), pages 1815-1831, November.
    14. Işık D. Özel & Aslı Unan, 2021. "Decoupling trends: Drivers of agency independence in telecommunications: An analysis of high and middle‐income countries," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 15(1), pages 32-62, January.
    15. Umut Aydin, 2021. "Rule‐takers, rule‐makers, or rule‐promoters? Turkey and Mexico's role as rising middle powers in global economic governance," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 15(3), pages 544-560, July.
    16. Peter Klimek & Raúl Jiménez & Manuel Hidalgo & Abraham Hinteregger & Stefan Thurner, 2018. "Forensic analysis of Turkish elections in 2017–2018," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(10), pages 1-14, October.
    17. İpek Çınar, 2021. "Riding the democracy train: incumbent-led paths to autocracy," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 32(3), pages 301-325, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:anname:v:681:y:2019:i:1:p:42-61. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.