Is Erdogan Losing His Grip on Turkey?

Date: 08-05-2019
Source: The Wall Street Journal By Medeni Sungur

Local elections in Istanbul and five other cities were the most serious losses for his party since 2002.

Turkey’s Supreme Electoral Council ordered a new election for mayor of Istanbul Monday, handing a victory to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development Party, known by the Turkish acronym AKP. Mr. Erdogan’s candidates were defeated in five of six major cities on March 31. Despite this week’s ruling in Istanbul—where the new vote is set for June 23—the results should serve as a lesson to Mr. Erdogan and populist politicians everywhere.

The opposition is now set to govern major Turkish cities for the first time in the 17 years since Mr. Erdogan became prime minister. It happened despite heavy propaganda, use of public resources to promote the AKP, and the demonization of opposition parties as terrorist collaborators. What happened? The answer lies in the faltering economy.

Die Rückkehr des kranken Mannes am Bosporus

Aug 28, 2018 Joschka Fischer, Project Syndicate

Joschka Fischer was German Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor from 1998-2005, a term marked by Germany’s strong support for NATO’s intervention in Kosovo in 1999, followed by its opposition to the war in Iraq. Fischer entered electoral politics after participating in the anti-establishment protests of the 1960s and 1970s, and played a key role in founding Germany’s Green Party, which he led for almost two decades.

BERLIN – Das europäische 19. Jahrhundert hindurch war die sogenannte „orientalische“ Frage, d. h. die rapide voranschreitende Auflösung des osmanischen Reiches, jenes damals so genannten „kranken Mannes am Bosporus“, und wer von den großen europäischen Mächten seine Erbfolge antreten würde, eine der großen geo- und machtpolitischen Fragen der Zeit. Es kam nicht von ungefähr, dass die Selbstentleibung Alteuropas im Ersten Weltkrieg vom Balkan ausging, jener geopolitischen Bruchzone dreier großer, allesamt dem historischen Untergang entgegen treibenden Imperien – dem osmanischen Reich, Österreich-Ungarn und dem Russischen Kaiserreich.

Nach der Niederlage im Ersten Weltkrieg verschwanden die Osmanen, gemeinsam mit den beiden anderen multinationalen Reichen. Die Türkei wurde zur Republik, unter General Mustafa Kemal zog sich die geschlagene türkische Armee auf Anatolien zurück, wehrte dort militärisch erfolgreich  eine griechisch Intervention und eine Akzeptanz der Pariser Vorortverträge (Vertrag von Sèvres) ab . Mustafa Kemals Ziel war es, die Türkei zu einem laizistischen, modernen, westlichen Staat zu machen, zu einem Teil Europas und nicht des Nahen und Mittleren Ostens. Um dieses historische Ziel zu erreichen, bediente er sich autoritärer Mittel, schuf einen hybriden Staat, eine Mischung aus faktischer Militärherrschaft und formaler Demokratie mit Parteien. In zyklisch wiederkehrenden großen Krisen der türkischen Demokratie wurde diese mehrfach durch temporäre Militärdiktaturen abgelöst.

The Economic Costs of Erdoğan

Aug 24, 2018 Timur Kuran ,  Dani Rodrik, Project Syndicate

Timur Kuran is Professor of Economics and Political Science at Duke University and the author of The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East.

Dani Rodrik is Professor of International Political Economy at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. He is the author of The Globalization Paradox: Democracy and the Future of the World Economy, Economics Rules: The Rights and Wrongs of the Dismal Science, and, most recently, Straight Talk on Trade: Ideas for a Sane World Economy.

For more than a decade, financial markets gave Recep Tayyip Erdoğan the benefit of the doubt and supplied the Turkish economy with easy credit. Such debt-fueled growth almost always ends badly, and now it has.

DURHAM/CAMBRIDGE – Turkey’s political model has long lost its luster, but a growing diplomatic crisis with the equally erratic administration of US President Donald Trump has now pushed the country’s economy into a full-fledged currency crisis. The Turkish lira has lost nearly half of its value over the last 12 months. And, because Turkish banks and firms have borrowed heavily in foreign currency, the lira’s freefall threatens to bring much of the private sector down with it.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, having won the first election since Turkey’s formal change from a parliamentary to a presidential system in June, now governs the country autocratically. He relies on government ministers selected more for their loyalty (and family ties to him) than for their competence.

Tough Times for the Tough Guys

Aug 23, 2018 Chris Patten, Project Syndicate

Chris Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong and a former EU commissioner for external affairs, is Chancellor of the University of Oxford.

Authoritarian leaders worldwide are confronting mounting crises of their own making. But while Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin face slower-brewing challenges, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and US President Donald Trump seem to be bringing matters in their respective countries to a head.

TARN, FRANCE – Shares in strongman leaders seem to be falling. The market has not yet turned bearish, but autocrats have little reason to feel bullish.

Consider China. The internal power games of the Communist Party of China (CPC) are notoriously opaque, and rarely does political infighting reach the level at which it cannot be covered up. And yet rumbles of disquiet can clearly be heard. This month, as President Xi Jinping and his senior advisers retreated to the seaside resort of Beidaihe, rumors were circulating about growing criticism of Xi’s personality cult among the CPC rank and file.

Erdoğan’s Authoritarian Quackery

Aug 15, 2018 Nina L. Khrushcheva, Project Syndicate

Nina L. Khrushcheva, the author of Imagining Nabokov: Russia Between Art and Politics and The Lost Khrushchev: A Journey into the Gulag of the Russian Mind, is Professor of International Affairs at The New School and a senior fellow at the World Policy Institute.

Turkey’s currency is plunging, yet the central bank has been all but prohibited from raising interest rates, because Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan believes that raising interest rates actually causes inflation. What is it about dictators that leads them so consistently down the rabbit hole of charlatanism and conspiracy theory?

TBILISI – Why do conspiracy theories and general charlatanism so often receive their strongest support from the world’s dictators? Sure, dictators are almost always oddballs themselves, but that cannot be all there is to it. In fact, it is worth asking whether quackery is a necessary feature of authoritarian rule.

The latest evidence that it is can be found at the heart of Turkey’s current economic crisis. Turkey is saddled with debt and its currency, the lira, is plunging, yet the central bank has been all but prohibited from defending the currency by raising interest rates, because Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan believes that raising interest rates actually causes inflation.

The economics profession would beg to differ. But Erdoğan, as with much else, is not inclined to listen. On the contrary, to force the central bank to pursue his bizarre monetary policy, Erdoğan has installed his utterly unqualified son-in-law, Berat Albayrak, as the country’s Minister of Finance and Treasury.

Turkish Lira Plunges Further; Erdogan Fails to Assuage Investors

Date: 13-08-2018
Source: The Wall Street Journal

Lira falls as much as 10%, shaking emerging markets world-wide

Turkey’s currency plunged again Monday, rattling other vulnerable emerging markets, as a defiant speech from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and policy moves from the nation’s central bank failed to assuage investors about the country’s perilous financial condition.

The lira fell as much as 10% in early Monday trading to as low as 7.131 against the U.S. dollar, according to FactSet. It later pared some of the losses but President Erdogan’s fiery tone hit the currency again, leaving it down 6.95% lower at 6.91 against the dollar.

The lira is down more than 40% this year, battered by concerns about the NATO member’s political and economic stability and a continuing trade spat with the U.S.

“We will not retreat from our position,” Mr. Erdogan told a conference in Ankara, adding Turkey wouldn’t allow the U.S. “to lay its hands on achievements we gained at the cost of blood.”

As part of a plan announced earlier Monday, Turkish authorities made efforts to boost liquidity in the market, lowering the amount of reserves local lenders must park with the central bank. The move should help inject about 10 billion liras, $6 billion and $3 billion equivalent of gold into the financial system, the central bank said.

But analysts said the measures won’t have any direct impact on the lira because it doesn’t ease a core concern—the hefty debt exposure of Turkish banks and corporations—and warned the central bank has limited reserves of its own to weather the storm.

Why Are Illiberal Democrats Popular?

Daniel Gros

Daniel Gros is Director of the Brussels-based Center for European Policy Studies. He has worked for the International Monetary Fund, and served as an economic adviser to the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the French prime minister and finance minister. He is the editor of Economie Internationale and International Finance.

AUG 2, 2017 Project Syndicate

BRUSSELS – The rise of “illiberal democracy” in Europe is one of the most baneful trends of our time. These regimes are typically centered on a leader who concentrates power by overriding – and in some cases eliminating – institutional checks and balances. Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán represent three of the most visible manifestations of this phenomenon. But what is really noteworthy – and dangerous – is how these regimes have been able to retain popular support.

Control over traditional media, like television, radio and newspapers, is of course one reason why these regimes maintain their electoral majorities. But manipulation, or even outright control, of the media cannot explain the enduring popularity, borne out by opinion polls, of illiberal leaders.

How Trump, Putin and Erdogan unsettle the EU

Date: 25-05-2017
Source: The Economist: Charlemagne

Liberal values and the rule of law meet capricious populism

THE mood is brighter in Europe these days. It has not, admittedly, taken much to lift the spirits: reckless extremists came second, not first, in elections in Austria, the Netherlands and France; economic growth has accelerated beyond a snail’s pace; and Brexit, though probably disastrous for Britain, may not be catastrophic for Europe. Still, even the return of normality is a relief for a continent that has spent the past few years battling crises.

But if Europeans have at last started to feel better about themselves, the world outside looks ever-more menacing. The cherished European values of liberalism and respect for human rights are being challenged by a cohort of unpredictable leaders who seem not to prize or understand them. This is unsettling for the European Union, a slow-moving club founded on reverence for the rule of law. For Europeans the shift is embodied in three presidents whose capricious impulses are shaping and constraining their foreign policy: Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Erdoğan’s Pyrrhic Victory?

Soli Özel

Soli Özel is a professor of International Relations at Kadir Has University in Istanbul and a columnist for the Turkish daily Habertürk.

APR 18, 2017, Project Syndicate

ISTANBUL – Turkish voters had a clear-cut choice when they cast ballots on Easter Sunday in a referendum on 18 constitutional amendments already approved by the National Assembly. A “Yes” vote would change their country’s political system and usher in a new era in Turkish history. More than a century of parliamentarianism would be replaced by an alla turca presidential system that is tailor-made for the current incumbent, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Given Turkey’s considerable experience in writing constitutions, most legal experts deem the amendments, which voters endorsed by a razor-thin margin, regressive at best. Those who drafted them seem to have ignored 150 years of Turkish history, not to mention the most fundamental lessons of liberal democracy.

Turkey’s Referendum Could Backfire on Erdogan

Date: 24-03-2017
Source: The Wall Street Journal

The stakes are high—and outcome uncertain—for vote on enhanced powers for the presidency

ISTANBUL—Appearances can deceive.

Only one campaign is in sight less than a month before the April 16 referendum that would give Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vast new powers.

Building-size billboards feature a giant likeness of Mr. Erdogan urging the nation to vote “Yes.” On TV networks, government officials brand those opposing this executive presidency plan as traitors or supporters of terrorism. Finding any evidence of the “No” campaign can be mission impossible.

And yet, despite such a charged environment, a referendum victory for Mr. Erdogan looks surprisingly uncertain.