Erdoğan’s presidential regime and strategic legalism: Turkish democracy in the twilight zone

Abstract

President Erdoğan and the AKP government initiated a comprehensive restoration process immediately after the failed coup in mid-July 2016. In fact, the country has been experiencing a very comprehensive and violent regime transformation since this time. I assert that recent political developments paved the way for institutionalization of a 'plebiscitary presidential regime' that depends on a particular combination of supreme power of the leader, an extremely weak parliament, and elections of a plebiscitary character. In this context, the paper aims to shed light on the role of the new strategic legalism which allows rule of law to be replaced by a rule by law approach, the executive prerogative principle to be dominant, and the law to be used for demobilization, all playing a highly critical role in the suppression of democratic opposition.

Turkey’s COVID-19 strategy: “the West is jealous of us”

“…Another feature of the Turkish system is that the president is also the party leader. In this situation, cabinet ministers are appointed from outside of the parliament and decrees issued by the president govern the country; thus, the president uses the authority of the parliament to legitimize his decrees [ 14 , 15 ].…”

“…Because the president is no longer just a politician, but the embodiment of the nation, any person who complains about the president’s actions is legally punished for criticizing the nation. Among his other powers, Turkey’s president can directly dismiss any public official, confiscate the property of any businessman without a court order, curtail freedoms for any reason, open forest lands for housing, fill positions with unqualified persons, spend public funds without being accountable, abrogate international agreements without asking the parliament, establish and close universities, appoint and dismiss rectors, prohibit those dismissed from public office from seeking their rights in courts, and combine or split up ministries [ 14 , 15 ]. The president carries out all these acts by decree.…”

“…Together, these two parties have a majority (56.17%) in parliament. Clearly, the ability of the opposition parties to resist the majority is very limited [ 15 ]. Consider the example of one leading opposition party, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) which won 11.7% of the national vote in the 2018 general election.…”

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“…Numerous emergency decrees were passed in the aftermath of the coup attempt in 2016. The legality of the emergency decrees within that period is highly controversial for two basic reasons: they regulated matters that were not related to the reasons of declaration of the state of emergency and they remained in power even after the termination of the state of emergency (Akça et al, 2018;Yılmaz, 2020). This 'rule by decree' continued with presidential decrees once the presidential system was established.…”

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“…While he emerged at the helm of a cult of personality, the personalization of Turkish politics was formalized and institutionalized with the 2018 elections, which sealed Turkey's transition into a presidential system. The new system established a hyper-empowered presidency with no solid checks and balances, largely eradicating the separation of powers, turning the parliament to a rubber-stamp institution, and allowing Erdoğan to rule the country by decree (Yılmaz, 2020). Reaffirming the personalization of the regime, Erdoğan correlated the nation's survival to his remaining in power and stated that if he were to leave his post, the state would also collapse (Sözcü, 2016).…”