On 14 May 2023, Turkey will go to the polls for what many believe could be
one of the most critical elections in its history.
Over the past two decades, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has dominated Turkish politics.
In doing so, he's completely transformed the country and its place in the world.
But he's also become increasingly authoritarian,
taking Turkey in a troubling direction - internally and externally.
But could his reign finally be coming to an end? And what could this mean?
Hello and welcome. If you're new to the channel, my name is James Ker-Lindsay and
here I take an informed look at international relations, conflict, security, and statehood.
In most countries, leaders will occasionally emerge who have a genuinely transformative effect.
For better or for worse, these figures radically change society.
Sometimes, they may be revolutionaries who overthrow an established order.
At other times, they may direct a secessionist or anti-colonial
struggle that leads a country to independence.
But they may also emerge within an established democratic state.
One of the most interesting examples is Turkey.
For many decades, the founder of the Republic,
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, loomed large over the country.
However, another figure has since emerged: Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
For the past two, decades he's come to completely
control Turkish politics and in doing so has utterly transformed the country.
The Republic of Turkey - now officially, though awkwardly known as Türkiye - lies
in the Eastern Mediterranean, at the meeting point of Europe and Asia.
At a little under 785 000 square kilometers,
or around 300 000 square miles, it's the 36th largest country in the world.
Its population stands at around 85 million.
While the majority are ethnic Turks, the country has many other groups.
The largest are the Kurds, who comprise around 10 to 20 percent of the population.
While Turkey is predominantly Muslim, mainly adhering to the Sunni branch of the faith,
it also has small non-muslim communities, including Greeks, Jews, and Armenians.
Its per capita GDP stands at around US$9,700.
This makes it a middle-income country.
The history of modern Turkey can be traced back to the Ottoman Empire.
Having emerged in the 12th century, by the 18th century the Ottoman
Turks dominated Southeast Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East.
However, by the start of the 20th century, the Empire was in steep decline.
This came to a head following the end of the First World War.
Having sided with Germany, what remained of the Ottoman Empire
was destined to be further carved up by the victorious European powers.
But at this point, Turkish nationalist forces fought back under the leadership of a young
Ottoman General, Mustafa Kemal.
In 1923, the Republic of Turkey was established and Kemal,
now better known as Atatürk, became its first president.
Over the next decade and a half, Ataturk instituted many economic political and
social reforms as he tried to modernize Turkey and move it closer to Europe.
These included introducing surnames, replacing the old
Ottoman Arab script with the Roman alphabet, and, most controversially, rolling back the
place of Islam in Turkish society by ensuring a strict separation of religion and state.
By the time he died in 1938, Ataturk had completely transformed Turkey.
Over the following decades, Turkey continued to push towards the West.
In 1952, it joined NATO.
As the only non-arctic route into the Soviet Union,
it became a strategically vital alliance member.
However, internally, problems were emerging.
Although a democracy, the army was becoming increasingly significant.
This came to a head in 1960 when a military coup overthrew and then executed the prime minister,
who was accused of having undermined the Constitution.
While power soon passed back to civilian control, instability continued to grow throughout the 1970s
as political violence erupted between various groups on the left and right.
As a result, in 1980 the military stepped in again taking control for three more years.
Even though the country returned to civilian democracy,
by the 1990s Turkey was again marred in problems.
Aside from profound differences between the mainstream left and right political parties,
several new challenges now emerged.
In the Southeast, Kurdish separatism sparked a major insurgency.
Meanwhile, Islam began to enter mainstream politics - despite opposition from the military.
And it was into this environment that Recep Tayyip Erdogan emerged.
Born on the 26 February 1954 in Istanbul, he spent most of his
youth on the Black Sea coast before returning to the city as a teenager.
There he attended an Islamic school before becoming engaged in politics
as a student when he joined a religious party.
Over the next few decades, he climbed up the rungs of power;
eventually becoming the mayor of Istanbul, in 1994.
However, his religious beliefs eventually landed him in trouble.
In 1998, he was jailed for four months for reciting a poem at a
rally that critics argued was a call to religious violence.
Despite this, after his release he continued his political career, becoming the head of
the new political movement, the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, in 2001.
All this came together in November 2002.
Following an economic and constitutional crisis,
a general election saw an overwhelming win for the new AKP.
Despite the party's victory, Erdogan had been
unable to stand for Parliament due to his previous conviction.
However, the new government quickly overturned the ban.
Early the following year, he was elected as an MP, becoming prime minister on 14 March 2003.
From the start, many questioned his motives; suspicious that he'd soon
reveal an overtly religious agenda and begin to cut Turkey off from the West.
But instead, he appeared to confound the sceptics
by insisting that his priority was in fact European Union membership.
To this end, he now prioritized improving relations with Greece and resolving the
long-standing division of Cyprus - both of which stood in the way of Turkish accession.
All this came to fruition in 2005 when Turkey formally opened talks to join the European Union.
Over the next few years, EU accession drove many significant changes.
Steps were taken to start liberalising society.
And while this did include easing restrictions on religion in public life,
such as allowing women to wear headscarves in government offices,
it also included significant new minority rights, including Kurdish language education.
Crucially, he also reined in the military.
But beneath this, there were now growing concerns about Erdogan.
Having seemingly defeated all internal opposition when the AKP won another overwhelming victory in
2007, the elections in 2011 were tainted by allegations of electoral fraud.
However, the real turning point came in May 2013, when police moved in to
disband a group of protesters trying to block the development of a small park in central Istanbul.
Over the following weeks, what began as a tiny protest, rapidly escalated to violent
clashes as hundreds of thousands took to the street in mass nationwide demonstrations.
While the government managed to put down the unrest, things now changed.
Rather than adopt a conciliatory approach,
Erdogan clamped down on opposition to his rule, becoming ever more autocratic.
This was highlighted in 2014.
No longer content to be prime minister, he ran for and won the presidency.
While this this was usually a figurehead role,
he now appointed a compliant prime minister willing to do his bidding.
By this point, Erdogan's control over Turkey seemed complete.
However, beneath the surface, discontent was growing.
This came to international attention on 15
July 2016 when elements within the military attempted to stage a coup.
But it quickly collapsed.
As a result, the government launched a massive new crackdown.
Pinning the blame on a dissident religious leader, thousands were jailed.
Meanwhile, anyone suspected of opposing the AKP was purged from jobs in the civil service,
the military, the Judiciary and higher education.
It also saw Erdogan consolidate his power even further.
In 2017 he introduced a series of constitutional changes,
later approved by a nationwide referendum, that abolished the
post of prime minister and created an executive presidency, like the United States.
Since then, concerns have continued to grow - inside and out.
Domestically, Turkey is again a profoundly illiberal state.
The media is heavily controlled.
Human rights abuses are rife.
There are serious worries about the democratic system.
The economy is in a mess.
And there have been persistent allegations of high-level corruption.
To add to all this, Erdogan's increasingly autocratic rule
has been underpinned by a growing megalomania.
This was highlighted by his decision to build a massive
presidential palace in the capital, Ankara;
legislation to make insulting the president a criminal offence;
and his odd decision to rename the country.
But concerns don't just focus on internal developments.
On foreign policy, Erdogan has also moved further and further away from the West.
His growing authoritarianism has effectively killed off any hopes for Turkish EU membership.
While it officially remains a candidate, talks have been halted for the past decade.
At the same time, there are also concerns about the country's reliability as a NATO ally.
Quite apart from trying to make Turkey an international actor by building ties across
the Balkans, Africa and Central Asia, Erdogan has formed a strange relationship with Vladimir Putin.
As well as purchasing a Russian-made anti-aircraft missile system, much to
the annoyance of the United States, Turkey has taken an ambivalent stance over Ukraine.
While its NATO partners have imposed sanctions, it has continued trading with Russia.
Overall, the picture we now have is of a Turkey led by an authoritarian leader
who's increasingly cut off from Turkish society and from the country's traditional partners.
And it's against this backdrop that Turkey will go to the polls on 14
May for presidential and parliamentary elections.
After 20 years, many see this as the best hope to unseat Erdogan and finally reverse
the constitutional reforms to centralise power.
But while the president has undoubtedly suffered a slump in his poll ratings - not least of all
following the devastating earthquake in the Southeast early in 2023, which saw
tens of thousands killed amid claims of government failure - the election still appears to be tight.
Although six opposition parties have teamed up to unseat Erdogan, the coalition appears divided.
Moreover, several other candidates have refused to join the group,
thus potentially splitting the vote enough to keep Erdogan in place.
So, how should we judge the Erdogan era?
For a start, it's easy to forget the political chaos that engulfed Turkey before he took over.
Indeed, few in the country under the age of 30 will remember it.
But turkey was a rather a liberal democracy engulfed in political
infighting with heavy restrictions on human and minority rights.
For all his subsequent failings, Erdogan did move Turkey in a broadly
positive direction for the first decade or so that he was in power.
He tried to solve Cyprus.
He introduced significant domestic political and social reforms.
And he opened talks with the European Union.
But, against this, we simply can't overlook the course he's
taken the country over his second decade in power.
This has seen Turkey move in a genuinely worrying direction, both internally and externally.
Indeed, there have even been calls for it to be thrown out of NATO and
few in the West still regarded as a reliable and trustworthy ally.
In this sense, his legacy is a little more complex than it seems from the current vantage point.
But notwithstanding the problems of the pre-Erdogan past, or the uncertainty of
a post-Erdogan future, one thing is for sure: initially for the better,
and more recently for the worse, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has utterly transformed Turkey.
I hope you found that useful.
Before I go, you might be interested in my new book,
which looks at independence movements around the world and explains how new countries are created.
I have put a link here and in the description below.
In the meantime, if you want something else from me,
here's another video that you might find helpful.
Thanks so much for watching and see you in the next video.