Regime Change in Contemporary Turkey

Abstract

This book explores the transformation of Turkey’s political regime from 2002 under the AKP rule. Turkey has been through a series of major political shifts historically, roughly from the mid-19th century. The book details the most recent change, locating it in its broader historical setting. Beginning with the AKP rule from late 2002, supported by a wide informal coalition that included liberals, it describes how the ‘former’ Islamists gradually acquired full power between 2007 and 2011. It then chronicles the subsequent phase, looking at politics and rights under the amorphous new order. This highly accessible assessment of the change in question places it in the larger context of political modernisation in the country over the past 150 or so years, covering all of the main issues in contemporary Turkish politics: the religious and secular divide, the Kurds, the military, foreign policy orientation, the state of human rights, the effective concentration of powers in the government and a rule by policy, rather than law, initiated by Erdogan’s increasingly authoritarian populism. The discussion at once situates Turkey in the broader milieu of the Arab Spring, especially in terms of Islamist politics and Muslim piety in the public sphere, with some emphasis on ‘Islamo-nationalism’ (Millî Görüş) as a local Islamist variety. Effortlessly blending history, politics, law, social theory and philosophy in making sense of the change, the book uses the concept of mimesis to show that continuity is a key element in Turkish politics, despite the series of radical breaks that have occurred.