Turkey: Becoming a Closed Autocracy?

Since multiparty democracy began in 1946, Turkish politics experienced several progresses toward democratization through the late 1990s, despite economic crises and military coups. When Erdogan became prime minister in 2003, democracy experienced some improvements in his first term, but it began backsliding since 2008. During the 2008-present period, Erdogan has transformed Turkey’s parliamentary democracy into a presidentialism, and converted its electoral democracy into a hegemonic electoral autocracy, currently heading toward a closed autocracy. The chapter discusses the political developments in Turkey during the Erdogan regime (2008-present) and explains how Turkish democracy has backslid following specific steps and how ideological narratives contributed to the backsliding process.