Turkey’s democratic impasse: Resurfacing Islamism or business as usual in the political centre?

ISPI Analysis (Istituto per gli Studi di Politica Internazionale)
N. 40, January 2010, 7 pages

Berna Yilmaz *

Any observer of Turkish politics today would easily admit that the democratic glamour of the AKP’s first term in power is long over. The downward trend in question roughly began with the shelving of the EU accession reforms in 2005, continued with a number of controversial amendments regarding the authority of the security forces and freedom of expression, and culminated in the stillborn initiatives of 2009 to improve the status of Kurdish and Alevi citizens. This analysis aims to both overview some of these problematic policy areas and to account for the government’s recent flirtations with a mild form of authoritarianism by placing it in the context of post-1980 coup d’état Turkey. In this respect, it claims that the particular way in which the AKP has come to occupy the political centre by combining economic liberalism with religiously-informed social conservatism is the key to understanding this picture.

* Berna Yilmaz is a PhD Candidate at the State University of Milan.

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