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In December of 2013, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan reshuffled his cabinet, dismissing four ministers linked to a nationwide corruption scandal. Some of the ministers ousted from their positions were involved in the Halkbank scandal, a financial institution involved in the processing of payments for Iranian natural gas supplied to Turkey, and which the US has long accused of violating the terms of international sanctions on Tehran. Erdogan has accused exiled Turkish cleric Fathallah Gulen, a former ally of the AKP leader, of orchestrating these scandals within a wider “international conspiracy” aimed at bringing the AKP government down in retaliation for its regional and international policies. This paper shall examine how the present conflict between Erdogan and his erstwhile ally Gulen will influence Turkish politics, noting that Gulen’s acolytes pose a much greater risk to the AKP than all of the secular Turkish opposition parties combined. ​

Although the Justice and Development Party (AKP) victory in the 2015 Turkish municipal elections was generally expected, the percentage of votes surprised many, including the leaders of the party. This paper suggests that, despite the best efforts of opposition parties to manipulate a series of crises for the AKP, the voters were able to see past the political maneuvering and took action at the ballot box. By first examining the many factors that had been expected to impact the results, not least of which was its political timing, and the general sense that Turkey’s ruling party was set for victory, this paper explores the political situation in Turkey at the time of the elections, and probes the events leading up to the vote. It begins with events of the year prior, which had witnessed a series of crises for the AKP including: events in Gezi Park and Taksim Square, a series of leaked voice recordings that put leaders in compromising positions, allegations of corruption against some AKP ministers, and most importantly, an ongoing conflict between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his former ally and leader of the Gulen (Service) movement Fethullah Gülen. Each of these was expected to affect the AKP’s chances of maintaining a strong political position, and was used by the ruling party to bolster its own stance; a tactic that ultimately failed.

It is difficult to imagine an influential presence for Salafism in Turkey despite the talk of the "spread" of Salafism there. This must be accompanied by methodological questions that articulate the challenges related to the intellectual environment of the Turkish society. It also relates to the historical context and political competition amongst the Sunni community. One question is "How could Salafism have such a powerful presence in a Sufi society, whose empire had adopted the 'opinion approach' of Abu Hanifa and Maturidi and whose modern republic had adopted the philosophy of the West and secularism?" Both are contrary to the Salafi approach based on tradition and the literal commitment to the texts of the Quran, Hadith and the sayings of 'al-Salaf a-Saleh'. Another question is "How can Salafism overcome the historical and psychological barrier in Turkey that formed as a result of Ottoman-Saudi disputes at the beginning of the nineteenth century and whose intellectual effects have continued until a recent time?"

Book Title: Abdullah Gul and the Making of the New Turkey [English] Author: Gerald MacLean Year of publication: 2014 Publisher: One World - London Pages: 368 (large format)

The failure of the 15th of July 2016 military coup attempt in Turkey will remain an exceptional landmark in Turkey’s modern history, as well as in the political legacy of the Turkish Justice and Development Party. Declaring the state of emergency, arresting thousands of individuals, temporarily dismissing tens of thousands of governmental employees for investigation, shutting down a number of universities and Islamic endowments under the pretext of fighting the “parallel state”, besides calling for the reconstruction of the military establishment, necessitates analyzing the possible repercussions of this coup attempt on Turkish political life. The paper will address this coup’s consequences by discussing the following: battling the “parallel state”, reconstructing the military establishment, writing a new constitution, and predicting possible turns in Turkish foreign policy.

This study attempts to understand the concept of the "deep state" given its increasing use in political literature and analysis. This happens especially in comparative studies and, specifically, when multiple political systems are addressed. Through an analysis of the literature in which the term is used, it is clear that the concept of the "deep state" is ambiguously understood and applied. This study is based on a critical view of the concept. It assumes that the vagueness of its definition is tinged with secrecy. Its fragmented usage in a variety of political systems (democratic, semi-democratic and authoritarian), render it an analytical tool that is not useful nor capable to expand knowledge of comparative political science. In lieu of this hypothesis, the study reveals discrepancies in the usage of the concept of "deep state", in an attempt to refine the concept.

This study attempts to understand the concepts of democratic consolidation and of dictatorship, and explains which is closer to coming about in the Turkish state after the experience of the past sixty years. Despite the reforms undertaken by the AKP since it came to power in 2002 that aimed to curtail the constitutional and legal pretexts allowing the military to intervene in political life, there have been notable changes in the Turkish scene, especially in 2013 and 2014. It has been implied that Turkey is on course to consolidate dictatorship, and this makes the third and final phase of democratization in Turkey subject to very different assessments. On this basis, the study attempts to answer a key question: where is Turkey heading, towards democratic consolidation or towards dictatorship?

This paper shall explore the historic shift in relations which has brought Russia and Turkey closer together, with a focus on the domains in which these two powers now cooperate. It shall examine in particular the impact of this new level of cooperation on their policies in the Arab region. The specific set of economic and political circumstances prevailing at the beginning of the twenty-first century have driven Russia and Turkey to revisit the nature of their centuries-long relations, which have previously been dominated by conflict and competition for influence. As two neighboring, great powers both of which are looking to adopt a new strategy to reclaim their imperial pasts on the world stage, Russia and Turkey are now compelled to cooperate, particularly in the economic domain. Yet even as the shared interests of these two countries expand, it has not brought an end to their contradictory sets of regional alliances in the Middle East which have placed them in a zero-sum game.

This paper analyses the extent to which a “New Era” of the Turkish Republic is possible following the election of former Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the presidency on August 10. Erdogan is the twelfth individual to hold the office of President since the foundation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923. Having won the presidency following a prolonged period as prime minister, Erdogan has become the single most influential individual in Turkish politics since Mustafa Kemal. Given Erdogan’s current ambitions to bring about major constitutional change in Turkey, his election to the presidency can be seen as ushering in a new era for the Turkish Republic.