Fragments of Repression and Resistance

IntroductionAuthoritarian’s Game: Repression and Resistance in Turkey

Kumru F. Toktamış and Isabel David

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been playing the authoritarian’s game for some time now—at least since the Gezi Protests of 2013 (see David and Toktamış 2015; Yücesan-Özdemir 2016). His repressive regime established itself firmly since the end of the so-called Peace/Resolution process with the Kurds (see Toktamis 2018) and the coup attempt that was said to be organized by its former ally, the Gülenists/Cemaat in 2016.¹ His regime is banking on the rest of the world failing to notice, and, unlike other strong men of the early twenty-first century, he seems to be getting away with his wager unscathed so far. There is no doubt that Erdoğan by now has already established his place in history books, yet there is no denying, as we, the editors, previously indicated elsewhere, that the true impact of his legacy will be studied and resolved by those of us, “researchers, intellectuals, scholars, and activists—people who observe, record, and study his leadership” (Toktamis and David 2018b, 1). In this volume, we continue with our critical task of detailing, examining, and analyzing the backsliding of one of the democratically elected governments of the twenty-first century into a “domestically punitive and regionally aggressive authoritarian regime” (ibid.).

Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (A.K.P.) was launched at the start of the twenty-first century as an Islamist party with a staunch neoliberal economic agenda and conservative aspirations. Since 2002, the party has continuously won all parliamentary elections. During the two decades of A.K.P.’s rule, Turkey has been through a dynamic state-formation process, which has been consequential for the country’s de-democratization. Erdoğan’s party has changed Turkey while transforming itself significantly. Over the years, its leadership has gone through several changes, leaving Erdoğan as the sole and hardly questioned leader of the party. Erdoğan was the Prime Minister between 2003 and 2014, and once the presidential system was established in 2018 he became the first President under this new arrangement.² His leadership is marked by an unwavering popular appeal and the majoritarian support of his party (Toktamis and Celik 2014), similar to the other modern authoritarian regimes since the Age of Anxiety, that is, between the two world wars, 1918–1938, when Nazism and fascism emerged in Europe as global forces of repression and racism. However, unlike the twentieth-century authoritarian regimes that were openly hostile to democracies, the A.K.P.’s ascent to power was “an explicit challenge to the statist nationalism of the old guard embodied in the imposing ranks of the Turkish military” (Toktamis and David 2018a, 4).

Since its creation, in 1923, The Turkish Republic was anchored on laicist³ principles and the defense of these principles, with other raisons d’être of the state (such as the Kurdish question, the Armenian question and several border disputes with the Greek state), was guaranteed by the nationalist-military establishment. This Kemalist establishment refused to compromise with any claims or projects that presented a challenge to both “official state ideology and discourse about the state and nationhood in Turkey” (Toktamis and David 2018b, 2). The A.K.P., with its pious conservatism and neoliberal aspirations,⁴ was in an unambiguous conflict with such guardianship and seemed to resolutely oppose military tutelage as it overtly sought to reorganize state institutions. Initially, such political stances were seen as moves toward the expansion of the breadth and depth of democracy in the country and were interpreted by many left-liberal elements of the Turkish intelligentsia as a sign that they could lend tacit, yet critical, support to the party, which resulted in deep-seated conflicts among the left (Toktamis and David 2018b, 4; Ciddi 2011; Ersoy and Ustuner 2016). Another source of polarization among the opposition was the continuities and changes of Kurdish politics “under the shifting conditions of the A.K.P. regime,” which posed “critical questions about (de)democratization and the re-entrenchment of coercive policies” (Toktamis and David 2018a, 661). The presumed prospects for democratization and the so-called “peace/resolution process” with the Kurds in the new Turkey soon soured, as the A.K.P. abandoned the rule of law and started to wage authoritarian measures against all forms of opposition (see Musil 2022). These included attacks on freedom of expression and reverberated on the Kurds, through violent domestic and international repression.

The A.K.P. regime shifted and re-entrenched its positions and policies within the dynamic contingencies of its relationship within the polity that included its—now former—ally, the Gülen/Cemaat movement; a parliamentary opposition that represented segments of the old guard; the extra- parliamentary opposition, such as the non-governmental organizations within civil society and protests; and diverse Kurdish mobilizations, both within the parliament and outside the border of the Republic of Turkey, in Iraq and in Syria. Amid such political interactions, as the A.K.P. firmly established its domestic hegemony and rendered Turkey a regional power, the governing regime re-aligned, re-entrenched, and re-institutionalized its power positions (Toktamis 2021, 176).

As many researchers, including our contributors, indicate, democratic practices and institutions that gradually strengthened in Turkey after a military dictatorship in the early 1980s have continuously backslid under Erdoğan’s regime. This rampant de-democratization started in the early 2010s, as Erdoğan’s regime changed gears to gradually undermine formal institutions and delegitimize its opposition by targeting the media and civil society activists. In good authoritarian fashion, the ruling party and its unquestioned leader exploited existing social and political cleavages and deepened them through a politics of fear. Despite many well-documented violations of fundamental human rights at home and military aggression in the region, there are no prospects on the horizon that may compel this regime to change course from its ever-deepening autocracy. At every turn, Erdoğan has aptly manipulated the opportunities to silence his parliamentary opposition, suppress dissent, and strengthen his rule. A number of such pertinently deployed opportunities since the Gezi Protests reveal Erdoğan’s supple maneuvering that appeals to his base and the international observers at the same time.