Democratization Theories and Turkey

This chapter investigates whether the major approaches in democratization literature offer satisfactory explanations for Turkey’s recent transition to unstable authoritarianism. It argues that modernization theory has a limited explanation for the rise of authoritarianism in recent years. The causation between democratization and development flows from the former to the latter in the Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi era. Business and major unions have been, mostly if not all the time, state-dependent/state-led actors, and their impact on democratization does not have a strong independent effect. While (medium) leverage and (high) linkage with Europe and the West were crucial in the startling pro-democratic reforms (2000–2005), later on they did not save Turkey from being an authoritarian country. Studies on Turkish political culture suggest that support for democracy among elite and public opinion is highly contextual. Among subfields of democratization literature, Turkish studies have notably contributed to the debate on secularism. Future studies could focus on a kind of political Islam enmeshed within nationalism, especially in the form of Turkish-Islam ideology, as well as differences in religious communities and their alliance with political actors. Overall, Turkish studies offers a fertile ground to contribute to the democratization literature that investigates the uneasy relationship between nationalism, national identity, and democracy.