How Do Democracies Collapse? The Case of Turkey

Following the pro-Islamic Justice and Development Party (AKP)'s rise to power in 2002, the country underwent two simultaneous transitions: military tutelage declined and a competitive authoritarian regime has risen in its stead. Notably, the AKP managed to consolidate this inherently unstable regime despite rising income and education levels, strong linkages to the West, and lack of natural resources. The aim of this paper is to provide an explanation for how the AKP built this authoritarian regime. In particular, the paper unpacks the mechanisms by which the AKP consolidated power against its opponents and eroded the democratic system to build a competitive authoritarian regime. This paper argues that resource allocation, party organizational capacity, and polarization form the primary mechanisms of how Turkey has become authoritarian over the last decade. More specifically, the AKP has built an elaborate and tightly knit cross-class coalition based on resource allocation and capital accumulation reinforcing government’s control over the economic elites and the urban poor simultaneously. As such, the ruling party established a triangular dependency with the business class and voters that perpetuates its control over its core constituencies as well as the state apparatus. This new structure, underpinning AKP’s political dominance and ridden with favoritism and clientelism, provided the party with unprecedented access to state and private resources—hence skewed the political playing field in its favor. This relationship of dependency together with the AKP’s strong organization capacity not only consolidated the party base but also reduced government accountability and intensified ongoing polarization in society.