Hello and welcome to episode 230 of Turkey Book Talk.I'm William Armstrong here in Istanbul.
In this episode we hear from Orçun Selçuk, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Luther College in Iowa and the author of The Authoritarian Divide, Populism, Propaganda and Polarization, published by the University of Notre Dame Press.
The book compares three cases of what he dubs effective leader polarization in Turkey under Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Venezuela under Hugo Chavez and Ecuador under Rafael Correa.As the book shows, these examples, as well as many others in Latin America,
are often more enlightening when reflecting on the Turkish experience over the last couple of decades than more common, even traditional comparisons of Turkey with cases of right-wing populism in Europe or Islamism in the Middle East.
We talk about why that is the case in our conversation, as well as much else, including the successful and unsuccessful strategies used by embattled opposition forces when it comes to challenging populist leaders entrenched in power in these countries.
But before we get started, I'm going to appeal once again here for your support. which we do need to keep Turkey Book Talk going.
Since 2015, we've given a platform to researchers, academics, and authors working on Turkish history, politics, society, literature, and the arts.Turkey Book Talk is completely independent with no sponsorships.
It relies 100% on the goodwill of listeners like you.So if you are able to support, please consider becoming a Turkey Book Talk member either on Patreon or Substack.
Supporting as a member gets you extras, including access to transcripts of every interview, which I post over at turkeybooktalk.substack.com.
I also add links to a couple of articles related to the subject of the episode at the end of those transcripts, which is ideal if you want to delve a bit deeper.
Members also get a generous 35% discount on all books published in IB Taurus and Bloomsbury's Great Turkey and Ottoman History series.
you get access to a special code to use at the IB Taurus Bloomsbury online checkout where you can purchase hundreds of titles in that series.
So if you value Turkey Book Talk and you want to help keep the lights on, do go to Turkey Book Talk's Patreon page and pledge $3, €3 or £2.50 per episode.
Alternatively, you can sign up on Substack now for £6 per month or the equivalent in your own currency.But now on to our conversation with Orçun Selçuk.
As I said before the book looks at the similarities and differences of politics in Turkey under Erdogan, in Venezuela under Chavez and in Ecuador under Correa.So I started by asking him why did he focus on these particular examples.
The project started during my PhD.This was in 2013.It was right after the Gezi Park protest and Turkey was experiencing democratic backsliding.There was more conversation around, is Turkey moving towards a more authoritarian direction?
And I would say more pronounced discussion about Erdogan as a populist leader.
And then when I was researching the Turkish case, writing papers during my PhD on Turkey, what I realized is a significant amount of the literature on populism, especially populism in power, is Latin American case studies.
Because as you know, a lot of the time scholars who study Turkey, they study it as a single case study or they compare to maybe some cases in the Middle East or some cases in Europe.
But because of Turkey's peculiar history, it doesn't really fully fit into the Middle Eastern context or it doesn't fully fit into the European context.So
So, when I was researching this topic, in other words, I came to the realization that Turkey resembles many Latin American countries, because similar to Venezuela, similar to Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, and many other South American countries especially, Turkey is a country where populism came to power and stayed in power through multiple re-elections.
So, in terms of my case selection, in all three countries, the populists ruled at least for a decade.
And that's very different than case studies of populism in Europe, particularly Western Europe, where populists are primarily opposition and they never have the chance to govern.
So the fact that Erdogan and AKP, they have been in power since 2002, more than 20 years now, resembled, and I think does resemble, Venezuela under Chavez, again since 1998, right?Chavez and his successor Maduro have been in power.
So I would say the duration of populism staying in power, but in the first place, populist coming to power is a good departure point for me.
And also historically, when you look at Latin American and Turkish history, there are similarities also in terms of histories of military regimes, transition to neoliberalism.So in that sense, even in the 90s,
There are a couple of studies in Turkey that compare, for example, Özal with Fujimori in Peru.
So in other words, I'm not the first person coming up with the Turkey-Latin America comparison, but I strongly believe that it is an important comparison to understand Turkey's dynamics, especially after Turkey became a presidential system.
Because as you know, European cases are primarily parliamentary democracies.Turkey in 2017 transitioned into presidentialism, but it's not any form of presidentialism, it's what we call hyper-presidentialism.
So in that sense, there are several similarities despite the differences, despite the geographic differences, cultural differences, colonial legacy, religion.There are these differences, but what's common is populism in power, polarization,
again these populist leaders getting re-elected and staying in power.
Yeah you say there that there have been some studies of or comparisons of Turkey with Latin American politics in the past but there are only a few of those and on the whole this comparison is not widely made and you know both within Turkey and in outside scholarship on Turkey
The comparison between it and various Latin American countries is actually quite rarely made, even though there are many similar dynamics at play, particularly in this idea of leader-driven populist dynamics that you look at in the book.
Do you have any ideas?Why really is this comparison between Turkey and Latin America not more widely made, and why is it a useful comparison to make?
Yeah, I think people who study more broadly in the literature on populism, democratic backsliding, autocratization, these topics that are studied in the Western academia, in the US, Canada, Europe,
A lot of the people, regardless of the case study they focus on, whatever conference I go, whatever presentation or book article I read, even though they don't study Turkey, let's say, they do mention Turkey because it's one of the prototypical cases of democratic backsliding, right?
And they do mention Chavez, they do mention Evo Morales or Rafael Correa,
So in that sense, people when they make the case that their research is applicable to countries beyond their single case study or beyond their region, they do often use Turkey, Venezuela, Ecuador in the same sentence.
But I think there could be maybe at least one reason why people are not doing this.One is, I think, the logistical, right?In the Turkish case, Latin America from Turkey is geographically far.
We don't have strongly established institutions in Turkish academia that has specialization on Latin American politics.I would say that the image of Latin America or the topics that
people in Turkey are interested about Latin America are primarily about the Cold War.So they're interested in the Cuban Revolution or they're interested in the military coup in 1973 against Salvador Allende in Chile.
But I find it fascinating, and that was one of the reasons why I delved into the study of Latin American politics,
is that there was actually surprisingly little scholarship on Turkey-Latin America comparison despite the personalization of politics, despite the rise of presidential systems, constitutional changes, and all these similarities that I talk about.
in the book.And I think the second is the language, right?That people who are from Turkey, we don't have a lot of people who speak or can research in Spanish and also write for an English-speaking audience and vice versa.
So a lot of the people I know, a lot of my colleagues who specialize on Latin American politics, they find the Turkish case inaccessible to researchers.
because they need to speak Turkish, they need to understand Turkish to fully grasp the context why Erdogan came to power.So I think some of it is logistical because of the inability to the geographical distance, inability to travel.
But I think other is also linguistic training, the lack of institutional resources.But thankfully, I would say, I witness when I talk to people both in the US
in turkey i think there is a growing interest in this cross regional comparison and that's not just because to be experts on turkey to be experts on latin america because these are really important case studies for people who are broadly concerned about the global decline of democracy
So in that sense, yes, the book is about Turkey, the book is about Venezuela and Ecuador.
But my goal is not just appeal to those special audiences that specialize on Turkey, Venezuela and Ecuador, but to make a broader case that could be applicable to, let's say, a country like Hungary under Orban, or that could be applicable to potentially Israel under Netanyahu.
In that sense, what I do in the book, I use these three examples of populism and power and polarization to make a broader contribution to the literature.
And I think it is easier to make these broader contributions when you move beyond the single case study, because then people question, oh, to what extent is this applicable beyond Turkey, or to what extent is this applicable beyond Latin America?
And even in the Turkish case, when scholars write, they, for example, talk about competitive authoritarianism, they talk about delegative democracy, but who invented these terms?
For example, competitive authoritarianism is a term invented by Steve Levitsky, who is an expert on Peru. Peruvian politics or delegative democracy as a concept is invented by Guillermo O'Donnell, who is an Argentine political scientist.
So I would say there is already some implicit comparison between Turkey and Latin America because we're basically as political scientists who study these topics are applying concepts that are developed in the Latin American setting instead of concepts that are developed in the European setting.
So I think that's another reason why this comparison is really, really important.
In the book, you probe what you call effective leader polarization.
And you look at these three examples, Sawad in Turkey, Chavez in Venezuela, and Correa in Ecuador, as cases to study and to see the extent to which these leaders cultivate what you call effective leader polarization.
So could you just describe exactly what you mean by effective leader polarization?
Yeah, of course.When I first started working on this subject, I knew that Turkey was polarized.And I knew that some of the Latin American cases that I'm interested in, particularly Venezuela and Ecuador, they are polarized countries.
But I don't think it's enough just to say it's polarized.We need to understand the nature and extent of polarization to fully grasp the complex dynamics of this phenomenon.So in the Turkish case, in the book,
I talk about, for example, how in the 1970s, late 1970s, there was ideological polarization in Turkey, right?And I think in this podcast, we have some previous episodes that talk about the causes of the 1980 military coup.
And it's basically about the rise of the extreme left. on the one hand, and the rise of the extreme right on the other hand.
And these groups are radicalizing, and they use political violence, and then that leads to democratic breakdown in the form of a military coup.
So what I argue in the book is that this traditional left-right ideological polarization primarily explains democratic breakdown, the rise of authoritarian regimes in the Cold War era.
What I argue is in the post-Cold War era, we're talking less about ideology, but more about these polarizing identities.Again, in the Turkish case, as you know, in the 90s and early 2000s, to some extent, it was about religion.
It was basically polarization between the Islamists and the seculars.It was polarization between the Turkish and the Kurdish, and then to some extent, Alevi versus Sunni.So that is still important.
But what I argue, what I call in the book, Affective Leader Polarization, is basically looking at the development of pro and anti-leader identities that are linked to populism.
So in other words, in the Turkish case, when I say affective leader polarization, I am interested in explaining and studying polarization between Erdoğanists and anti-Erdoğanists.So in the Turkish it will be Erdoğancılar ve Erdoğan kaşıkları.
So the idea that Erdogan, the populist leader, is so dominant as a person, as a president, as a charismatic figure, he's so dominant that he becomes a political cleavage himself, right?
So the Turkish politics, from my perspective, from the perspective of my book, The Authoritarian Divide, it could be read, it could be interpreted from the perspective of, on the one hand, you have the Erdoganists, and on the other hand, you have the anti-Erdoganists.
The reason why it's affective is because it's about emotion.It's less about left and right, but it's more about how you feel towards Erdogan, how you feel for Erdogan, how you feel against Erdogan.
So in this case, again, in the Turkish case, there is a large group of people who really admire Erdogan, who really adore Erdogan, who love him, who highly dislike him.
But on the other hand, we have another group who highly dislike Erdogan and who highly feel distant from Erdogan.And again, what I do in the book is I utilize and I build on this existing literature called affective polarization.
which is really a literature that started in the U.S.context.This is the basic looks at polarization between Democrats and Republicans in the U.S., but it's less about ideologies, less about issues, but it's more about feelings.
So, for instance, Democrats and Republicans, they don't want to be friends with one another.They don't want to be neighbors with one another.
So what I argue in the book, and that would apply to the US case as well, yes, that is important, but we also need to look at pro-Trump versus anti-Trump polarization, and how people feel towards Trump, who is the incumbent or the populist who ruled the US for four years, but I would argue is still a very dominant figure.
So in other words, affective leader polarization is a type of polarization where people position themselves affectively but for and against the populist leader at the very extreme.So in Turkey it's Erdoganists versus anti-Erdoganists.
In the Venezuelan case it's Chavistas versus anti-Chavistas.In the Ecuadorian case it is the Correistas versus anti-Correistas. but also in other Latin American cases, historically, Peron in Argentina, for example, Peronistas versus Anti-Peronistas.
So in that sense, I'm building on this literature on Latin American politics that already talks about this polarization, but doesn't conceptualize it the same way that I'm conceptualizing it, and doesn't also talk about it in a comparative and global context.
So I argue that because Turkey is presidential, because Turkey is so dependent on Erdoğan's personality, what I call in some of my other work, the Erdoğanization of Turkish politics, because Turkish politics is so Erdoğanized, it's all about Erdoğan, then it basically becomes a pro and anti cleavage that we can observe in other countries as well.
So that's, I would say, a short summary of my contribution, which is different than left-right ideological polarization, but it is also different than partisan identity.
So I'm not really talking about AKP versus CHP polarization, I'm not really talking about secular versus Islamist, but I'm really talking about how the seculars, Kurds, nationalists,
can be anti-Erdoganists, such as how we saw it in the past elections, the reason why CHPE party and HDP, the pro-Kurdish party, they could unite because what united them essentially is they were all anti-Erdoganists.
And that does, I think, have implications for opposition politics, which I do have a chapter on that in the book as well.
Yes.And you talk about how, you know, this form of polarization is leaders are a kind of lightning rod for it, but very much it's identity based and personalized.
So various groups come to see their interests either represented or repudiated by particular individual leaders in these three different countries and various in-group and out-group identities are very closely linked.
to these domineering leaders in all these countries.And very often we see these days, particularly in the media, people associating this tendency with new communication methods and particularly the impact of social media.
But if you look at Latin America, you see that these dynamics around personalistic leaders representing these rigidly defined social groups actually goes back decades.And That perhaps gives us a pause.
Perhaps there are deeper structural factors at play related to how society is organised, how the economy functions.
It kind of gave me pause to think it's perhaps not just about new communication methods and not just about social media simplifying things and making identities more important.Actually, these things go back a long way.
The examples that you study in the book go back to the era before social media really took root.
again, it just seems to somewhat repudiate that slightly simplistic narrative that sometimes we see about how social media in particular has fuelled this leader-driven personalisation of politics in the last few years.
Yes, in the book I do talk about the role of social media, particularly Twitter, as a tool that amplified this affective leader polarisation.In terms of the data that I'm looking at to analyse this polarisation, I analysed the the TV shows.
So both in Venezuela and in Ecuador, these leaders had weekly TV shows where it basically personalized politics because they were on TV for three hours talking about the developments that happened in the country in the past week.
And in the Turkish case, I looked at Erdogan's Muhtar meetings, the meetings that he had with the Muhtars as a personalizing performance to some extent.
So definitely, I think the role of television before social media plays some role, because social media, despite gaining more popularity, it's still not widely used across the population.It's still, I think, growing.
It is contributing to some extent.And I do talk about that in the book.Television, and I would say radio too.One of the historical cases of active leader polarization I talk about in the book is actually Adnan Menderes in the 50s.
So I would argue, for example, based on my framework, that one of the causes of the 1960 military coup in Turkey was effective leader polarization between the supporters and opponents of Menderes.
Because Menderes, similar to Erdogan, was also a polarizing figure. and also generated these sort of religious cult-like attachments among his followers, and then also this distaste and dislike among his opponents.
So in that case, yes, I agree with you that it is not a recent thing, it existed in the past, which is partially related to some of the development of these new communication tools.It could be radio, television, social media,
But also, I think there's a deeper, deeper reason maybe related to political culture in these countries.So if you look at political culture in Turkey, political leaders, whether they are party leaders or the founder of the country, Atatürk, right?
There is, I think, a strong personal list tendencies, personalist currents in Turkish politics that is, I think, very easy to identify.
A lot of the times when we talk about political parties in Turkey, they are the political parties that are strongly attached to individual personalities.So again, the Democrat Party in the 1950s was attached to Adnan Menderes.
On the other hand, you had Ismet İnönü, who was the charismatic leader of the CHP, right?Or you had the rivalry between Suleyman Demirel and Bülent Ecevit.
Or you had Özal, you had these again important personalistic figures who had political parties because Turkey was a parliamentary democracy, so you need political parties.
But I would argue this personalist culture under Erdoğan took an even more intense form in a sense that the political parties, including the AKP, have become less relevant.
So if you look at, for example, mid-2000s, AKP as a political party was more institutionalized.There were more politicians that were gaining some spotlight.
But now, I would argue AKP in the last 10 years, especially, have become Erdogan's almost personalist vehicle.And we almost see this in local elections too, right, that when Erdogan himself is not on the ballot, the AKP underperforms.
And when Erdogan is on the ballot, then there is this affectionate emotional relationship between his followers that all of a sudden mobilizes an important segment of the electorate.
But on the other hand, I would argue Turkey is such a fascinating case that if you look at the results of 2017 referendum, 2018 presidential elections, 2023 presidential elections.They're more or less the same result, right?That 52 to 48, 51 to 49.
So and that's the anti-Erdoganist segment, right?So yes, Erdogan manages to mobilize an important group of his followers through his appeals, what I call his inclusionary appeals to his followers, to the members of the in-group.
But on the other hand, in the Turkish case, and in the other cases to some extent, the opposition, the opponents of Erdogan also remain resilient. So, in that case, polarization works both ways, right?
It does mobilize the supporters of Erdogan, but it also keeps the opponents of Erdogan pretty mobilized.
And over and over again, despite losing the referendum, despite losing two presidential elections, and they could make a comeback in a local election. So yes, this polarization is not just a modern 21st century invention.It did exist.
But I think the political culture aspect is really important to highlight.And that's one of the commonalities that I saw with Latin American countries.
In Latin America, similar to Turkey, there is this going back to, I would say, the early years, what we call in Latin American politics the caudillo culture, this man on a horseback that will save the country, redeem the country.And it almost
And I think Erdogan's relationship with his followers, for example, after the 2016 coup attempt or after some important elections and doing referendums, also resembles this, Erdogan is going to come and he will save us, and he is the person we delegate our authority, our representation to type of mindset.
I find that very common in Turkey as well.
Yeah, thinking about that political heritage, we actually published an episode about a year ago, I think it was with Tezcan Gümüş, who published a book on this very subject about how Turkish politics has been so leader-driven going back decades.
Some of the names that you mentioned, and this really is the organizing principle behind how Turkish parties operate.
In chapter six of the book, you talk about how opposition forces in all three of these countries have responded to the dynamics that you're describing in the book, this effective leader polarisation.
Because, of course, opposition forces are basically in a trap.However they respond, it can reinforce some of the identity-based effective association that voters have with particular leaders.
And you talk about how that was indeed the case in these three countries.You talk about how their initial response of opposition parties was actually quite counterproductive, basically reinforcing this populist dynamic, very much playing on the turf.
that the leaders in all three countries actually wanted.
Obviously, we saw this in Turkey, where the opposition during the 2000s became very, very hardline and basically played into the hands of Erdogan in many ways, reinforcing his supporters behind him.
So you actually, could you just talk about this, you know, how your book goes beyond just studying the populist leaders, but also kind of examines how the responses of the opposition can often reinforce instead of mitigate this effective leader polarization.
Yes, so my main theoretical purpose in the book is to bring together three sets of literature.One is the populism literature, the other is the polarization literature, and then the third is the opposition literatures.
So in that sense, you're right that I'm studying populism in power, which I give primary responsibility and agency and intentionality to the populist leader as the cause of polarization.
So I argue that Erdogan is polarizing because he purposefully, intentionally create this affective in-group identity through his inclusionary appeals at the symbolic, political, and material levels.And on the other hand, he is exclusionary to his
opponents and creates this out-group identity through symbolic, political, and material exclusion.
Having said that, I do acknowledge in the book, Chapter 6, that although it is primarily the responsibility, the strategy of the incumbent populist leader to polarize, the opponents of Erdogan, the opponents of Chavez, and opponents of Correa often felt
into the trap of polarization by reinforcing the populist narratives that eventually did end up benefiting Erdoğan, Chávez, and Correa.
So in the Turkish case, as you mentioned earlier, in the 2000s, there was this belief that if you're voting for Erdoğan, then You must be ignorant or you must be uneducated.
You must be gullible, manipulated person who has religious sensitivities and cannot think in rational terms.
So what I argue in the book, this type of attitude, what I will call anti-populist attitude, actually reinforces the logic of effective leader polarization.
Because when you do dismiss your followers of Erdogan, when you dismiss the followers of Chavez, Korea, Trump, Modi, Orban, all these leaders, populist leaders, you are delegitimizing them and you're in fact consolidating their in-group identity.
Because what often happens is when you act in an elitist way and dismiss those followers as ignorant, uneducated, etc.And in the Turkish case, right?Oh, Erdogan supporters, you know, they scratch their belly, they don't read newspapers.
So what I argue that this actually reinforces polarization instead of mitigating polarization.
And in that sense, the opposition, if we're looking for the causes of polarization, why we have this polarization, opposition also has some role in this outcome.
But I also talk about some more recent, especially going back to 2019, local elections, the Turkish opposition's strategy of mitigation, which was at that time called the radical love.
So basically, don't insult the Erdogan supporters, love everyone, including Erdogan, respect them.Instead of, again, insulting Erdogan and insulting his followers, using a more inclusionary
towards them is really important if our goal is to depolarize or mitigate polarization.
So in that sense, Ekrem Imamoglu's 2019 election campaign in Istanbul mayoral elections is a really good example of that, talking to AKP supporters, having respective dialogue with followers of Erdogan, right?
So I argue that that actually mitigates polarization. But one interesting thing to mention, I guess, is opposition can also benefit from polarization, right?So opposition has a choice either to reinforce or mitigate polarization.
And in some ways, especially the hardcore opposition supporters, they will only want reinforcement, right?So if you are someone who is hardcore anti-Erdogan, you don't really want the CHP leader or CHP candidate to be in good terms with Erdogan.
And I think we're seeing this in the last year since the local election, the so-called normalization process between Özgür Özel and Erdogan, right? Özgür Özel visited Erdoğan, Erdoğan visited him back.
If you are a strong, staunch anti-Erdoğanist, you clearly don't like that because you don't like Özgür Özel, the CHP leader, trying to depolarize because you want him to go tough on Erdoğan.
So it's a sort of a dilemma that if you are too soft, too inclusionary towards Erdoğan and his followers, then you also run the risk of losing your hard core.
supporters, who you need to come and vote at the ballot box, to support you in the party congress.
So in that sense, what I argue, the opposition also has incentives to polarize, because as long as there is polarization, in the Turkish case, for example, CHP also benefits from this.
So in that sense, polarization reinforces this bipolar order between Erdoğanists and anti-Erdoğanists. It benefits Erdogan, but it doesn't always have to benefit Erdogan.It could also benefit the opposition.
But if we have a normative goal of reducing polarization for the sake of having a more peaceful Turkish society, then depolarization should be our goal.If our goal is to come to power, no matter what, maybe polarization is a good outcome.
For example, right now, Erdogan's approval ratings are down, and maybe there are more anti-Erdoganists than Erdoganists in Turkey at this very moment.So maybe in that context, polarization might be the strategy for the opposition.
But what I argue, in other words, both the incumbent and the opposition, they have agency and they strategically pick or choose to polarize or not polarize.
And then again, incumbent picks a strategy and then the opposition responds in a way to either reinforce or mitigate polarization.
Yeah, and just to conclude, I wonder if you could just talk in a bit more detail about the current political landscape in Turkey.
You know, you talk about the opposition's strategy and how, particularly after the local elections earlier this year, there was a fair degree of optimism on the opposition side that they'd cracked the code of how to handle this political polarisation that they've been kind of trapped by for a couple of decades.
just seems like over the last month or two, that optimism has somewhat dissipated.There's been quite a bit of infighting in the opposition and just seems to be a lack of strategic roadmap forward, really.
They don't really know who to nominate as a presidential candidate.They don't really know how to go about building a coalition.And the kind of scenario could be that a few years down the line, if the economy picks up eventually with
whatever pain awaits in the coming period, the golden opportunity that they once had to really take on Erdogan might have passed.
As far as you can see it, how do you think the opposition is, you know, what challenges are they going to be facing as this populist polarisation strategy continues in different forms from Erdogan, despite the kind of softening, relative softening in domestic politics that we've seen over the last few months?
How do you see them sort of negotiating having made the progress that they've made, but still being so far away from, one, an election, but two, actually building up a strategy of how to start thinking about that election even.
It seems like a very, very tall task at this stage for the opposition to mount a serious challenge.How are you viewing these recent wobbles on the opposition front?
Correct.I think you're right in terms of the opposition parties or the anti-Erdogan opposition in Turkey struggling quite a bit despite winning several important municipalities.And I'm primarily referring to the CHP.
I think the E-Party has some more serious issues after the departure of Meral Akşener.What we see is I think the fragmentation of the anti-Erdogan opposition, that CHP I think Polls right now still polls number one, polls above, or very close to AKP.
But again, what we're seeing is the rise of some other political parties.And I think it's really interesting to see where, for example, the New Welfare Party, the Eneden Refah Partisi, will in the future situate themselves.
In the 2023 elections, they situated themselves in the Erdoganist camp. I'm not quite sure what it will look like in the future.
Since, again, my book is a comparative book on Turkey and Latin America, I do want to maybe offer one observation that I think will be really critical for polarization, but also for opposition politics and Turkey's regime trajectory.
I find it a gift to the Turkish opposition that Turkey is a presidential system and currently Erdogan, based on the existing constitution, is ineligible to run in the next elections.And I think eventually
it will really boil down into, is the opposition going to allow an early election?If so, then Erdogan could become a candidate one more time.Is the opposition going to reform or amend the constitution which could allow Erdogan to run?
Or is the opposition going to wait it out and then we will have a really important moment in 2028 where Erdogan might or might not want to become a candidate?
So if he does want to become a candidate, if he tries to become a candidate, that is a constitutional crisis and that could result in many, many things.It could be a very unpredictable scenario.
Then there is, I think, a chance that if Erdogan wants to be presidential candidate in 2028, despite the constitutional rule, it could mean the end of Turkish democracy if the electoral board approves it.
then if Erdogan tries to be, and then cannot run, then his request or petition or candidacy gets denied, then it can actually open up another question of succession.So I think as much as opposition is in crisis,
because Erdogan is unable to run for another term with the current rules, and because the opposition has enough seats in the parliament to block a constitutional amendment, to block a constitutional referendum.
In my view, based on the Latin American case studies that I look at, it really boils down into this next election and Erdogan's candidacy. Because in Ecuador, for example, in 2017, Rafael Correa, he was term limited and he couldn't run.
And he picked a successor.And after the successor came to power, Ecuador's regime trajectory completely changed. So in that sense, we really don't know what's going to happen in the next months, next few years.
But I would say if the opposition plays a long game, constitutional game, and blocks Erdogan's another presidential bid, I think that will be a really interesting moment, not only for Turkish politics, but also for a lot of people who are following these topics of populism, polarization and opposition politics.
because Turkey is a case that people around the world do follow.And Erdogan, again, not only very popular in Turkey, but popular in Latin America, popular in Europe.So I think it does.
It's, again, hard to speculate, but I don't think we should forget the fact that Erdogan is ineligible.
and that is from a presidential system perspective, actually could help the opposition, as opposed to if Turkey were a parliamentary system, which I don't think is a good idea, at least in the short term, then Erdogan can perpetuate himself in power as the prime minister, whereas presidentialism, because of this very rule of two terms, may not be able to run for office.
Maybe you can call me an optimist, but I think it is a potentially important and crucial moment in Turkish politics in the next few years, if not 2028.
That was Orçun Selçuk, many thanks to him for joining for episode 230.
Remember, once again we need support from you, loyal listeners, to keep Turkey Book Talk going, and you can give that support by joining as a Turkey Book Talk member on Patreon or Substack.
Membership gets you a 35% discount on all Turkey Ottoman history books published by IB Taurus & Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the entire archive of interviews,
and links to articles and other content related to the subject of each episode.Just go to Turkey Book Talk's Patreon account and pledge $3, €3 or £2.50 per episode or sign up via Substack for £6 or the equivalent per month.
Do also rate the podcast or write a positive review wherever you listen, spread the word, give us a shout out on your social media platforms, follow via our website turkeybooktalk.com, follow on Twitter or X, Facebook or Instagram or all of them,
Recommend Turkey Book Talk to a friend or foe and I always enjoy hearing from listeners so do send any feedback or abuse to WilliamJohnArmstrong at gmail.com.
But until our next episode of Turkey Book Talk in a couple of weeks, thank you very much for listening.
Sign in
