26 μ¢¤³£ ¬μμ¬KAYA GENC is the author of Under the Shadow:
Rage and Revolution in Modern Turkey.AUTOCRACY NOW
Erdogan has converted his popular
mandate into power and used that power
to remake Turkey’s relations with the rest
o the world. He has expanded Turkish
inÇuence in Syria and northern Iraq and
tilted Turkey—a £¬¡¢ member—toward
China, Iran, and Russia. His use o power
has also generated dissent among femi-
nists, leftists, and the secular middle class.
Under Erdogan’s watch, Turkey has
become the world’s largest prison for
journalists. Filmmakers, novelists, pho-
tographers, and scholars are also among
the imprisoned. Turkey has banned gay
and transgender pride marches since 2015;
Wikipedia has been blocked since 2017.
In the wake o a ¿nancial crisis
earlier this year, candidates who were
aligned with Erdogan lost support in
local elections. But even as his party’s
allure diminishes, Erdogan may win a
third presidential term in 2023. I that
happens, and Erdogan leaves oce in
2028, he will go down in history as
Turkey’s second-longest-serving presi-
dent, a year shy o Kemal Ataturk’s rule.
Ataturk, “father o the Turks,” was an
Ottoman general who abolished the
caliphate in 1924 and modernized Turkey
by force over the 1930s. Under his single-
party regime, Ataturk forged a modern
nation-state from the ashes o a collapsed
empire, built a modern bureaucracy,
supported the creation o a Turkish
bourgeoisie, and convinced a Muslim
nation to allow Western modernity into
their lives. Erdogan initially criticized
Ataturk’s centralized remaking o Turkey,
blaming him for his highhanded style
o rule. But since 2008, when Erdogan
started having to balance various factions
o the bureaucracy, and even more so
after 2013, when Turks took to the public
squares to protest his policies, ErdoganErdogan’s Way
The Rise and Rule of Turkey’s
Islamist ShapeshifterKaya Genc
R
ecep Tayyip Erdogan is the most
baÍing politician to emerge in
the 96-year history o Turkey.
He is polarizing and popular, autocratic
and fatherly, calculating and listless. Erdo-
gan’s ideology shifts every few years, and
he appears to make up his road map as he
goes along. He is short-tempered: he
grabs cigarette packs from citizens to try
to force them into quitting, scolds report-
ers who ask tough questions, and once
walked o the stage after an angry
exchange with the Israeli president at the
World Economic Forum in Davos. But he
can also be extremely patient. It has
taken him 16 years to forge what he calls
“the new Turkey,” an economically
self-reliant country with a marginalized
opposition and a subservient press.
This mix o anger and calm has made
Erdogan increasingly successful at the
ballot box. He became prime minister in
2003 after his party won 34 percent o
the vote, and by 2011, its share had risen
to just shy o 50 percent. In 2014, when
he ran for president in order to central-
ize his authority, more than hal o Turks
who cast a ballot voted for him. They
did so again in 2018, by which time
they had also voted to do away with the
post o prime minister altogether.Return to Table of Contents