Varieties of Turkish Democracy: A Progress in Reverse

This chapter argues that Turkish democracy has swung from democratic improvement to retreat over the past two decades under the populist and autocratic rule of consecutive Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi—AKP) governments. It offers a holistic perspective that encompasses deteriorating political indicators versus a popular determination to keep the country on the democratic track, while also considering changes in foreign policy. To this end, the chapter first unpacks the structural vectors of democratic retreat in terms of domestic change in authority structures, namely the removal of military tutelage, the rise of populism and authoritarian capitalism; and second, it identifies Turkish public support for democracy through a hierarchical analysis of World Values Survey (Waves 3–7) data at individual level and V-Dem data (1994–2019) at the aggregate level.