A discussion of the problems of completion of democratization in the case of Turkey

Official URL: http://risc01.sabanciuniv.edu/record=b1819772 (Table of Contents)

This thesis aims to study the problems of democratic completion in the case of Turkey. Discussions on backsliding into authoritarianism and erosion of democracies began to take more space in the democracy literature. The increasing number of criticism on populist-authoritarian tendencies of AKP government necessitates this study to detect the erosion of Turkish democracy and problems in democratic completion. This thesis attempts to problematize the concepts of democratic consolidation and backsliding and omissions of the literature. Results of Turkish case proposes that, despite the curbing of the tutelary power of Turkish military; the deterioration in the rule of law, absence of strong autonomous civil society organizations, political culture far-fetched from possessing democratic civic culture characteristics and increasing level of populist discourse and practices create fertile sociological ground for the backsliding of Turkish democracy by populist-authoritarian executive with strong electoral mandate. This study posits that the assumption of transition paradigm on the elimination of tutelary powers after transition would bring democratic completion, neglected the possibility of democratic backsliding in the absence of strong checks and balance system and democratic political cultural traits in the Turkish case.