Department of International Relations
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Browsing Department of International Relations by Subject "AKP"
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Item Open Access Killing competitive authoritarianism softly: the 2019 local elections in Turkey(Routledge, 2019-11) Esen, Berk; Gümüşçü, Ş.On 31 March 2019 Turkish voters ended the Islamist local governance in the country’s largest cities after 25 years and handed the ruling AKP its most serious electoral defeat since its rise to power in 2002. The article explores the electoral strategies of major parties in the local election, offers a comparative analysis of the results, and discusses post-election developments, including the rerun in Istanbul. The election and its aftermath reaffirmed the competitive authoritarian nature of the regime, as the governing bloc enjoyed an uneven playing field, while the opposition had to meet a higher electoral bar than the incumbents to win. The economic crisis, growing discontent with the government’s policies, and effective coordination of opposition parties facilitated this outcome.Item Open Access The myth of ‘Europeanization’ of Turkish foreign policy: the Cyprus debacle as a litmus test(Routledge, 2014) Ulug-Eryilmaz, B.This article examines Turkish–EU relations and the Cyprus issue within the Europeanization framework. It seeks to underline how and to what extent EU conditionality was performed in Turkey’s Cyprus policy in the post-Helsinki period. The exploration of the relationship between domestic political pressures and the foreign policy choices of the AKP government on the Cyprus issue suggests that EU’s potential in transforming the foreign policy of candidates is both context dependent and questionable. Alongside EU-related factors such as the credible membership perspective, what accounts for change is predominantly determined by how domestic actors perceive it, and how much domestic power struggles are affected by it. © 2014 Taylor & Francis.Item Open Access The perils of "Turkish presidentialism"(Cambridge University Press, 2018) Esen, Berk; Gümüşçü, Ş.Turkey has switched to a presidential system via a referendum held in April 2017 that will take full effect after the 2019 presidential elections. Turkish presidentialism increases the prominence of the executive at the expense of the legislative branch and concentrates power in the office of the president. Executive aggrandizement will deepen ideological polarization and electoral mobilization by significantly raising the stakes of the game for both the incumbent and the opposition. As such, we posit that the new presidential system will institutionalize the de facto personalism and majoritarian rule that the AKP has hitherto established in recent years. This trend is likely to trigger a transition from a competitive authoritarian to hegemonic electoral authoritarianism in case of Tayyip Erdoǧan's election, thus placing Turkey on par with the strongest executive systems around the globe such as Russia and Venezuela.Item Open Access Rising competitive authoritarianism in Turkey(Routledge, 2016) Esen, B.; Gümüşçü, S.Since the Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in 2002 Turkey has undergone double regime transitions. First, tutelary democracy ended; second, a competitive authoritarian regime has risen in its stead. We substantiate this assertion with specific and detailed evidence from 2015 election cycles, as well as from broader trends in Turkish politics. This evidence indeed confirms that elections are no longer fair; civil liberties are being systematically violated; and the playing field is highly skewed in favour of the ruling AKP. The June 2015 election results and their aftermath further confirm that Turkey has evolved into a competitive authoritarian regime. © 2016 Southseries Inc., www.thirdworldquarterly.com.Item Open Access A small yes for presidentialism: the Turkish constitutional referendum of April 2017(Routledge, 2017) Esen, B.; Gümüşçü, Ş.Following four elections in three years, on 16 April 2017 Turkish voters once again went to the polls - this time under the emergency law established after the failed coup attempt of July 2016 - to vote on constitutional amendments aimed at replacing the existing parliamentary system with an executive presidency. This article reviews the content of the proposed constitutional amendments, analyses the campaign including the strategies employed by the main political actors in the ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ camps and the resource advantages enjoyed by the ruling party, assesses the electoral performance of both sides through a summary of results from provincial areas and geographical regions, and considers how Turkish politics are likely to take shape under the new system. © 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.Item Open Access Why did Turkish democracy collapse? A political economy account of AKP’s authoritarianism(SAGE Publications, 2021) Esen, Berk; Gümüşcü, Ş.After decades of multiparty politics, Turkey is no longer a democracy. A theory-upending case, the country has descended into a competitive authoritarian regime under the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi—AKP), despite rising income and education levels and strong links with the West. What accounts for democratic breakdown in such an unlikely case? Instead of ideological and institutional factors, we offer a political economy account. We contend that the coalitional ties that the AKP forged with businesses and the urban poor through the distribution of public resources has altered the cost of toleration for the party leadership and their dependent clients, while reducing the cost of suppression for incumbents. This new political calculus led to increasing authoritarianism of the AKP government through securitization of dissent, mounting repression, and systematic violation of civil liberties.