By Halil Karaveli

April 5, 2016

The outsize personality of President Erdoğan obscures the systemic dynamics that sustain his exercise of power. Erdoğan’s push for an executive presidency corresponds to the “logic” of Turkish state power. Erdoğan’s personal ambitions and raison d’état coincide to reinforce authoritarianism. Ultimately, democracy in Turkey is crippled because no major political force, representing the Turkish majority, challenges the dominant mentality that holds that the survival of the state requires the checking of ethnic and cultural diversity.

By Halil M. Karaveli (vol. 2, no. 10 of the Turkey Analyst)

Süleyman Demirel, the grand old man of Turkish politics, aspires to revive the defunct center right which used to rule Turkey, creating an alternative to the AKP. However, Demirel no longer appeals to the conservative majority that composed the constituency of the center right. Indeed, he is accused of having betrayed the historical mission of Turkish conservatism by allying himself with the nationalist-secularist military-bureaucratic establishment. Demirel’s evolution in fact personifies the radicalization of republican state ideology.

By the Editors (vol. 1, no. 9 of the Turkey Analyst)

In late May 2008, three researchers from the Joint Center’s Turkey Initiative met with Turkey’s 9th president, Süleyman Demirel. This is a summary of his comments, which focused on the background to the current Turkish political crisis. Mr. Demirel, a towering figure over Turkey’s conservative forces for half a century, defines the problem as a struggle between modernity and bigotry.