Turkey in Turmoil: towards electoral sultanism in the aftermath of the July 15 coup attempt?

On the night of July 15, 2016 Turkey experienced a coup attempt by a segment within the army and the country has been living under a state of emergency since then. The government quickly pointed to the Gülen movement as the coup plotters. Widespread purges of ministries, army and judiciary were followed by a crackdown on private schools and universities affiliated with the movement. President Erdoğan’s AKP and Gülen movement had long been allies in order to eliminate the secular establishment and consolidate power for a more Islamic government. But currently enormous executive power provided to the government with the declaration of the state of emergency is being used to hunt allegedly Gülenist people from the bureaucracy. Meanwhile on the streets, the masses are being mobilized for daily demonstrations every evening to support “their democracy”.

Just before the coup attempt a rapprochement was on its way with Russia after seven months of tense relations since Turkey shot down a Russian jet fighter on November 24, 2015. Similarly a few months before the coup attempt, an EU-Turkish refugee deal was signed regarding the Syrian migrants forcing the gates of Europe. The deal included revitalizing the membership process of Turkey to the EU, removal of the visa restrictions for Turkish citizens and 3 billion Euros to be used by Turkey for the three million Syrian migrants in the country.

What is the background of the coup attempt? What has been happening in Turkey since the coup? Where is the country headed? Electoral authoritarianism, a dictatorial government with a sultanistic president, a moderate Islamist semi-democracy or a backlash from the secularists? Can we expect stability in Turkish politics? While providing an overview of the coup attempt with its background and aftermath, this talk by Dr Murat Yurtbilir will also touch briefly on the international implications of the plot, particularly on Turkish-Russian and the EU-Turkish relations together with the Syrian Civil War.

Since 2015 Dr Murat Yurtbilir has been an associate lecturer at the Turkish Studies program at the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies, ANU. His research areas are Turkish politics and foreign policy, nationalism, and Turkish and Ottoman history. Dr Yurtbilir taught at the Department of International Relations, the American University, Kyrenia, Cyprus from 2012 to 2014. He was a visiting fellow at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, UNSW Canberra in 2014.

He has worked as a team member at various levels in research and development projects by UNICEF, EU, the Turkish Ministry of Education and METU since 2002. He served as a senior officer at the European Union Information Centre under the European Union Delegation to Turkey.

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