Turkey’s withdrawal from Istanbul Convention: International human rights regime vis-à-vis authoritarian survival

Abstract

This article traces the raison d’être for Turkey’s withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention. It draws upon two bodies of literature: international human rights regimes (IHRR) and authoritarian survival strategies. The Turkish government faced an electoral defeat in local elections 2019, which represented a serious challenge to the ruling party. To compensate for its loss of power and to consolidate its voter base, the government took some steps for its political survival. This article argues that the dynamics of the withdrawal from the Convention lay primarily behind the authoritarian survival strategies of centralization, legitimation, and repression, and secondarily behind the issue area of the Convention as an international human rights regime.