Global Dispatches -- Conversations On Foreign Policy And World Affairs

When Reccep Tayyep Erdogan party, the AKP, won a landslide victory in Turkey's 2002 general elections he became a very different kind of Turkish leader from his predecessors. The AKP is a religious party in what was an avowedly secular political tradition.  For a time, Erdogan presided over a booming economy and was hailed for being a modernizing muslim leader in a troubled region. His relations with Europe and the United States were strong, and he sought to play a stabilizing role in the middle east.  But all the while, Erdogan was consolidating his power. It started slowly at first and in recent years the degradation of Turkey;s independent institutions has accelerated. This includes clampdown on media and the corruption of the courts and a massive political purge following what Erdogan alleged was an attempted coup in 2016.  Erdogan was become the quintessential example of a new kind of leader around the world--the illiberal authoritarian democrat. That is, someone who is democratically elected, but then s