Turkey: Presidential Elections, 2014

Indrani Talukdar

Contemporary Review of the Middle East, 2015, vol. 2, issue 4, 339-365

Abstract: The first direct presidential election in Turkey is remarkable because of the thin margin with which Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan was elected against the expectations of a massive support. It marks beginning of a new era in Turkish politics indicating widespread discontentment and fear regarding the policies of the Justice and Development Party (AKP). On the other hand, the ruling party has retained its support among conservatives, business, and middle classes, especially in Anatolia region. However, the rise of new political forces in the 2015 general elections that failed to give a clear majority to any group should force the AKP to rethink over its policies, particularly the rising concern of authoritarian behavior and appropriation of power. Further, concerns over crackdown of media and dissent and growing instances of violation of human rights may lead to a backlash from the electorate. The AKP government has also come in from criticism for its handling of the Syrian crisis and its action against Syrian Kurds may turn the fragile peace achieved with its own Kurdish population.

Keywords: Turkey; ErdoÄŸan; presidential elections; AKP; democratization; Islamism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2347798915610979 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:crmide:v:2:y:2015:i:4:p:339-365

DOI: 10.1177/2347798915610979

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Contemporary Review of the Middle East
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().