By Kemal Kaya (vol. 7 no. 18 of the Turkey Analyst) 

The Turkish political system is parliamentarian. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan may have succeeded in neutering of the role of the constitutionally designated executive, the government, but that is only temporary. Sooner or later, the dynamics of the political system are going to assert themselves. The prime minister, even Ahmet Davutoğlu, if he retains the post after the 2015 general election, is set to eventually reclaim power from the president.

By Halil Karaveli (vol. 7, no. 15 of the Turkey Analyst)

The appointment of Ahmet Davutoglu to head the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) represents a doubling down on the party’s Sunni Islamic ideology. But ideology alone will not be sufficient to keep the AKP in power. The self-confident ideological rhetoric that proclaims the advent of a “New Turkey” masks what is in fact a fragile economic reality. Such rhetoric is not indefinitely going to be a substitute for the kind of material progress absent which the prospects for the “New Turkey” and its power-holders look bleak.

By Gareth Jenkins (vol. 7, no. 14 of the Turkey Analyst) 

Despite his convincing victory in the presidential elections on August 10, 2014, there appears little prospect of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan being able to replace Turkey’s parliamentary system with a presidential one and ruling the country singlehandedly for two successive five-year terms.

By Micha’el Tanchum (vol. 7, no. 14 of the Turkey Analyst)

President-elect Recep Tayyip Erdoğan secured his margin of victory with a last minute appeal to Turkish nationalist voters, having failed to expand his support among Kurds despite significant overtures on Kurdish issues.  President-elect Erdoğan faces an ineluctable choice between expanding his “Kurdish Opening,” moving Turkey closer to becoming a binational state, and assuaging right-wing Turkish nationalism. Neither choice bodes well for a Justice and Development Party (AKP) majority in Turkey’s 2015 parliamentary elections. The AKP will be hard put to manage rising expectations among Turkey's Kurds while retaining Turkish nationalist support. 

By Gareth H. Jenkins (vol. 5, no. 23 of the Turkey Analyst)

In recent months, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has made a string of highly controversial public statements which appear indicative of an authoritarian mindset. For some, they are a sign that Erdoğan is discarding the patina of democratic pluralism of the last ten years and reverting to the dogmatic intolerance of his early political career. Others claim that Erdoğan’s provocative statements are merely a tactical maneuver, a ploy to distract public attention from government failures and embarrassments, and that he has no intention of acting upon them.