Dual Presidentialization and Autocratization: Turkey at a Critical Crossroads

Abstract:Turkey has suffered through a process of autocratization in the second decade of the twenty-first century. The political turn from a defective democracy toward a competitive authoritarian state is part of the concentration and personalization of political power in the person of Recep Tayyip Erdogan and illustrates the influence of political institutions. This situation has given rise to a "dual presidentialization," meaning a situation that has arisen from institutional changes and certain informal factors. The hypothesis is that this dual presidentialization has accelerated Turkey's movement toward autocracy via several dimensions: a greater control over the judicial branch and over public freedoms, in general, and freedom of the press, in particular.