Can “Constitutional Engineering” Once Again Succeed in Pacifying Turkey?
By Halil Karaveli
February 3, 2017
Historically in Turkey, there is a relationship between the rise of emancipation movements and “constitutional engineering”, between class- or ethnic-based challenges to the established order and the imposition of authoritarian constitutional arrangements in response. The authoritarian constitution of 1982 was the answer to the challenge of workers and peasants in the 1960s and 1970s. Today, a presidential system is supposed to neutralize the Kurdish challenge. However, it may be that Turkey’s ethnic fissure may prevent it from developing either democracy or stable authoritarian rule.
- Turkey
- Turkish 1982 constitution
- Democracy in Turkey
- Authoritarianism in Turkey
- Justice and Development Party AKP
- Kurdish Issue
- Nationalist Action Party MHP
- Kemalism
- Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
- Devlet Bahçeli
- Nationalist front
- Alparslan Türkeş
- Perry Anderson
- Cihan Tuğal
- Islamist Welfare Party
- Parliamenterism in Turkey
Myths and Mysteries: Six months on from Turkey’s Curious Coup
By Gareth H. Jenkins
January 26, 2017
Six months after the failed coup of July 15, 2016, many questions still remain unanswered. Disturbingly, most can no longer be asked. Amid the purges, imprisonments and oppression, Turkey has become a country that is devouring itself.
Turkey is Expecting a Restart with the U.S.
By Halil Karaveli
January 23, 2017
The Kurdish question has, once again, complicated Turkish-American relations. The rhetoric of anti-Americanism remains useful to whip up and mobilize nationalist opinion. Yet, Erdoğan’s Islamists are not any aspiring anti-imperialists. What they want – and what they expect that Turkey is now going to get – is simply a better “business deal” with the United States under Donald Trump.
- Turkey
- Turkey July 2016 coup attempt
- Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
- Turkey US relations
- Turkey NATO membership
- Anti Americanism
- Donald Trump
- Islamism
- Islamism in Turkey
- Barack Obama
- United States
- Democracy in Turkey
- PKK
- PYD
- Gezi Park Protests
- Syria
- CIA
- Muslim Brotherhood
- Syrian Kurds
- Mevlut Cavuşoğlu
- ISIS
- YPG
- Russia
- China
- Turkish pivot to the east
- NATO
- AKP
- AKP Gülenist alliance
- Turkish tilt towards Russia
- US Sixth Fleet
- Saudi Arabia
Turkey’s Proposed Constitutional Changes and Erdoğan’s Forever War
By Gareth H. Jenkins
December 14, 2016
The package of proposed amendments to the Turkish constitution that were announced on December 10 foresee the gradual concentration of even more power in the hands of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, leading to the introduction of a full presidential system in November 2019. Yet recent events have shown that the more power Erdoğan exercises, the worse the situation in Turkey becomes.
- Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
- Turkey July 2016 coup attempt
- Islamism
- Turkey
- Turkish constitution
- Turkey presidential system November 2019
- MHP
- Binali Yıldırım
- Devlet Bahçeli
- Turkish Constitutional Court
- Turkish Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors
- AKP
- Berat Albayrak
- Bilal Erdoğan
- political islam
- Gezi Park Protests
Visit also
Joint Center Publications
Analysis Halil Karaveli "The Myth of Erdogan's Power", Foreign Policy, August 29, 2018
Analysis Svante E. Cornell, A Road to Understanding in Syria? The U.S. and Turkey, The American Interest, June 2018
Op-ed Halil Karaveli "Erdogan Wins Reelection", Foreign Affairs, June 25, 2018
Article Halil Karaveli "Will the Kurdish Question Secure Erdogan's Re-election?", Turkey Analyst, June 18, 2018
Research Article Svante E. Cornell "Erbakan, Kisakürek, and the Mainstreaming of Extremism in Turkey", Current Trends in Islamist Ideology, June 2018
Analysis Svante E. Cornell "The U.S. and Turkey: Past the Point of No Return?", The American Interest, February 1, 2018
Op-ed Svante E. Cornell "Erdogan's Turkey: the Role of a Little Known Islamic Poet", Breaking Defense, January 2, 2018
Research Article Halil Karaveli "Turkey's Authoritarian Legacy", Cairo Review of Global Affairs, January 2, 2018