How has Turkey changed after İmamoğlu’s arrest?

Aslı Aydıntaşbaş:
A month into İmamoğlu’s detention, it seems to me that the government’s political gambit has paid off—that İmamoğlu’s arrest, despite the public disapproval, is unlikely to be reversed in the short run. There has been very little international reaction to the arrest of Istanbul’s mayor, and the protests are slowly losing steam. I don’t get the sense that Erdoğan is under much domestic or international pressure—especially since the government seems to control all the instruments of coercion. The reckoning with the opposition will have to wait until the next elections.

Several things are happening here. On the international scene, the traditional enforcers of norms and the rule of law inside the transatlantic alliance, the European Union (EU) and the United States, are abdicating this responsibility for the sake of better relations with Turkey in an age of geopolitical emergency. The second significant dynamic has been Erdoğan’s interest in exploring a new opening with Turkey’s Kurds, which promises a thaw and reconciliation inside Turkey and in Syria—effectively peeling off Kurds from the opposition block where they had been for the past decade.

All of these have created a situation in which İmamoğlu’s arrest and prolonged detention can be politically sustainable for the government—and may be gradually normalized. This, of course, is coming at a huge price to Turkey and its citizens. The country is losing its dynamism and hope. When I was your age, Turkey was a country with great potential and bad politics. I am now middle-aged, and we’ve come full circle. It is just heartbreaking.

Aslı Aydıntaşbaş:
It’s hard for me to tell exactly because I am not there. But in many ways, Gezi was a large coalition of the left, the environmentalists, urban professionals, etc. It was secular in nature and very organized. The recent protests seem more organic and driven by a younger demographic, especially students. I am also hearing that, unlike Gezi, there is a fair number of retirees. In Gezi, nationalism was not a dominant ideology. In the recent protests, I see an overall nationalist leaning—and it makes me realize how far to the right the country has moved, even on the opposition’s side.

There is another big difference. Gezi was leaderless, which was a blessing in terms of the protest’s political purity but also a curse because no political movement or party came out of it. The recent protests are specifically about the arrest of the main opposition party’s presidential candidate, Ekrem İmamoğlu. So, gradually, they have transitioned from impromptu outrage about a deeply unfair move to something that came to be associated with the main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party.

Aslı Aydıntaşbaş:
This is a dilemma for Europeans. On the one hand, they need Turkey as a bulwark against a revisionist Russia and to provide peacekeepers in the event of a ceasefire in Ukraine. Turkish industrial capacity will be important as Europe tries to revamp its own defense production. On the other hand, Turkey is clearly a country that has experienced the most dramatic democratic backsliding in Europe—and did so even as it kept its status as a candidate for EU membership. İmamoğlu’s arrest was probably the last move in a decade-long slip toward authoritarianism.

This puts Europeans in a bind. They are tired of having rows and diplomatic spats with Ankara. They want a stable and pragmatic relationship with Turkey and its mercurial president, Erdoğan. But they are also finding it very difficult to partner with Turkey or to allow it into the European club with all its democratic flaws and backsliding. Ironically, what makes the situation more difficult is the fact that Turkey is still, technically speaking, a candidate for membership. The accession process is a straitjacket that Turkey and Europe have put themselves in. It’s not some far-off country whose human rights violations Europeans can ignore for the sake of a transactional relationship. There are Turkish diaspora communities or political groups inside Europe that pay attention to the situation in Turkey. Ankara keeps asking for movement on the EU accession front as a reward for greater contributions to European security—something that Europeans feel they cannot move on unless Turkey improves its rule of law and democracy. So, they muddle through. What you get is a policy that is neither here nor there.

Aslı Aydıntaşbaş:
This is a very good question. Several people have written that this represents the end of democracy or a new level of authoritarianism in Turkey. I am not sure how to measure these things. Democratic backsliding has been a reality for the past decade. But it is true that the government is finding a more permissive global environment right now. But has Turkey become Russia, as a lot of people seem to ask, or transitioned from a competitive authoritarian system to a permanent autocracy? I guess it is a question of whether you see the glass as half-full or half-empty.

When I look at Turkey, what I see is all these people—students, lawyers, journalists, academics, and just ordinary citizens—who are pushing back against repressive policies. Election after election, we know that they are at least half the voting public. This is not a homogeneous group, but as we have seen in the last few elections, they are able to form alliances. So, in conclusion, I will say this: Yes, Turkey is authoritarian, but it also has a robust, organized, and energized opposition. That’s neither the case in Russia nor Iran. To me, on a scale of illiberalism, it’s worse than Hungary and better than Russia.

Aslı Aydıntaşbaş:
You probably can answer this question better than I can because you are closer to that age group. But yes, Erdoğan has been in power for over 20 years and, while still popular, especially among his conservative base, he is unable to connect with the younger voters. Young people have experienced no one but Erdoğan since they were teenagers, and they are tired of seeing him. Also, life is not very kind to young Turkish citizens unless they come from an economically privileged part of society. Unemployment is massive and upward mobility is now limited. Two decades ago, disadvantaged sections of Turkish society felt empowered by AKP rule—today, they feel constrained by it. On top of this, there is an entire socioeconomic group of poor, young, urbanized, and angry nationalists—who are no longer represented by the establishment parties. They hate the government, the immigrants, the East, and the West. I worry about this group as it will likely be a key determinant in Turkey’s future political trajectory. And they can take the nation anywhere.