Legislating Autocracy? Recent Legal Developments In Turkey

Report (BPC) April 2014, 24 p.
The Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC)

Foreign Policy Project

Turkey’s government has undertaken a legislative campaign to vastly increase the state’s power and insulate it from accountability

The history of the Republic of Turkey’s relations with the United States is also that of the country’s modernization and democratization. U.S. military and economic assistance to Turkey under the Truman Doctrine and Turkey’s subsequent entry into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) coincided with the emergence of a multiparty political system in 1950. In the more than six decades since, Turkey has overcome several political crises and military coups to emerge as an imperfect but dynamic and evolving democracy. That progress—an important component of the strong U.S.-Turkish relationship—has been slowed in the last two years.

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