The ‘competitive authoritarian’ turn in Turkey: bandwagoning versus reality

Abstract

Turkey’s fast-paced democratic backsliding has attracted unprecedented scholarly interest from observers both inside and outside the country. Among various labels proposed to define Turkey’s new regime type, ‘competitive authoritarianism’ (CA) has by far outdistanced its rivals. As plenty of time has passed since its coinage, it is timely to commence a scholarly discussion on the appropriateness of the term. Our analysis reveals that the CA argument comes with three major shortcomings when applied to the case of Turkey. First, although its proponents discuss the concept adequately and seem to find abundant evidence to convince most of their audience, they undertake little, if any, theoretical discussion to show why CA is more plausible than its alternatives. Second, although the party system is generally regarded as the main indicator of a certain regime type, the link between the two remains un(der)-explored. Third, the mechanism leading to the transition to CA is not fully identified. We conclude that experts have jumped on the CA bandwagon, dubbing Turkey’s authoritarian regime competitive authoritarian without sufficient conceptual sophistication; this has proved deleterious rather than beneficial to the relevant literature.