Published in Articles

By Andrew Finkel (vol. 4, no. 12 of the Turkey Analyst)

At 12 June’s general election, Turkey’s governing Justice and Development party (AKP) pulled off a rare political hat trick, securing a third consecutive parliamentary majority and doing so with an ever-increasing share of the popular vote. The result is a clear endorsement of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, whose style and personality continues to dominate Turkish politics. It is also his answer to a growing chorus of critics at home but also abroad who accuse him of having abandoned his party’s EU-oriented reform agenda in favour of an increasingly centralised and autocratic style of rule.  The AKP is now the party of the new urban middle class. The party is literally building its own constituency, a process in which the opposition finds it hard to engage.

Published in Articles

By Gareth H. Jenkins (vol. 4, no. 11 of the Turkey Analyst)

On May 21, 2011, six members of the Turkish ultranationalist Nationalist Action Party (MHP) resigned from the party’s National Executive Committee after an internet website began broadcasting secretly-recorded videos of them engaging in extramarital sexual relations. Over the previous month, four other leading members of the MHP had been forced to resign after similar secretly-recorded videos were posted on the same internet website. The identity of those responsible for recording and broadcasting the videos currently remains unclear. However, opposition parties have accused supporters of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), whose campaign for the June 12 general election has been largely based on trying to prevent the MHP from gaining enough votes to cross the 10 percent threshold for representation in parliament.  

Published in Articles

By Richard Weitz (vol. 4, no. 11 of the Turkey Analyst)

Turkey’s recent decision to spend billions of dollars buying U.S.-made helicopters underscores the continuing significance of Turkish-American defense industrial ties. Sikorsky Aircraft beat out rival European firms to persuade the Defense Industry Executive Committee, Turkey's highest decision-making body on defense procurement, to select the U.S.-based company as its supplier of next-generation utility helicopters. Defense experts predict that Turkey might buy as many as 600 of the Turkish version of the S-70 Black Hawk International offered by Sikorsky at a cost of more than $20 billion. Turkish Aerospace Industries and other Turkish firms will co-produce the helicopter. 

Published in Articles

By Halil M. Karaveli (vol. 4, no. 10 of the Turkey Analyst)

There is a grim irony to the fact that while the AKP’s 2007 victory represented a defeat for the military, victory four years later requires that the ideology – Turkish nationalism – that upholds militarism not be challenged.  The AKP’s appeasement of Turkish nationalism lays bare the limits of how far Turkey’s democratization can be extended. Meanwhile, the army’s unprovoked offensive against Kurdish guerillas in the southeast of the country reveals how the manipulation of the Kurdish issue serves as a lever for perpetuating the power of the military.

Visit also

silkroad

afpc-logo

isdp

cacianalyst

Joint Center Publications

Op-ed Halil Karaveli "The Rise and Rise of the Turkish Right", The New York Times, April 8, 2019

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 TurkeyThe 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

 

The Turkey Analyst is a publication of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Joint Center, designed to bring authoritative analysis and news on the rapidly developing domestic and foreign policy issues in Turkey. It includes topical analysis, as well as a summary of the Turkish media debate.

Newsletter

Sign up for upcoming events, latest news and articles from the CACI Analyst

Newsletter