A tale of two deep states?
As illiberal democracy is becoming more the norm than the exception in the world, Turkey’s referendum is another missed historical opportunity.
In post-referendum Turkey, it is not just Erdoğan and his supporters but the opposition as well who refuse to recognize their adversaries as legitimate – an explosive formula.
This inherent ability to cancel itself out is democracy’s paradox: to “sow the seeds of its own destruction”, succumbing to the electoral will of the majority.
Instead of articulating a brand-new direction for the country, the referendum simply served to legitimize and solidify the powers that President Erdogan has held since July 2016.
The Turkish political system will have to reach a new level of democratic maturity, to challenge Erdoğan’s monopoly of office in a way that would bring forward positive change.
Ece Temelkuran’s Turkey: the Insane and the Melancholy (2016) chronicles Erdoğan's paranoid style of politics and his lurch into authoritarian populism.
Even when it is obvious that a given regime is a dictatorship or a particular election an utter sham, one has to act as if it is not in order to reproduce the democratic system.
In Turkey's story, the western gaze is searching for new victims. Yes, I fled Turkey with my three year old daughter, but am I that victim?
It is sometimes said that theories are fishing nets in which to catch the truth. Let us apply Gramsci’s net to some daily debates taking place in Turkey.
How did Turkish military culture transform under the rule of AKP? And what will be the impact of the failed coup attempt on the results of the upcoming referendum in Turkey?
As we mark the first anniversary of the EU-Turkey deal, the EU’s migration policies are more contradictory than ever, ignoring evidence and by-passing democratic procedures.
