What is the West for the AKP?
By Burak Bilgehan Özpek (vol. 7, no. 2 of the Turkey Analyst)
The pro-Western discourse of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) has vanished as domestic opposition has mounted. The AKP has in a sense turned the clock back to the 1990s when the Turkish Islamists depicted the West as the enemy of Turkey. But the Turkish Islamists’ discourse toward the West is dictated by the policies and rhetoric of their opponents more than by any principled enmity or for that matter amicability. What the West is for the AKP – an enemy or a friend – is ultimately determined by what the West is for the opponents of the Islamists.
Falling Facades: The Gülen Movement and Turkey's Escalating Power Struggle
By Gareth H. Jenkins (vol. 07, no. 01 of the Turkey Analyst)
The escalating power struggle between Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the followers of the exiled Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen, collectively known as the Gülen Movement, has stripped away the last traces of the facades that each had spent years trying to construct.
Turkey's Regime Crisis: Are Erdogan's Days Numbered?
By Svante E. Cornell (vol. 07, no. 01 of the Turkey Analyst)
Turkey’s already tense political environment has taken a turn for the worse since a December 17, 2013 raid exposed what appears to be a culture of runaway corruption in the AKP government. Events since then have put the spotlight on the two main trends in Turkey’s politics in the past year: on the one hand, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s growing unaccountability and authoritarianism; and on the other, the implosion of the Islamic conservative power coalition, and specifically the struggle between Erdoğan and the Gülen movement. Going forward, the question is for how long Erdoğan, whose ambitions of a presidential system have most certainly been thwarted, will be able to remain in power at all
Trade can be an Ice-Breaker in Turkish-Israeli Relations
By John Daly (vol. 6, no. 23 of the Turkey Analyst)
While the Islamist ideology of Turkey’s ruling party makes it unlikely that the relations between Turkey and Israel can be restored in a way that fulfills the expectations of the United States, there are also some signs that suggest that something of a working relation between Jerusalem and Ankara, based on mutual economic interests, can still be established. Trade can potentially serve as an ice-breaker between the two nations.
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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 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