On Sunday, April 16, Turkey voted to grant President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sweeping executive powers, fundamentally altering the foundations of the Turkish state. Ahead of the vote, POMED published a new report by Nonresident Senior Fellow Howard Eissenstat, “Erdoğan As Autocrat: A Very Turkish Tragedy.”
Eissenstat warned, “One of the core arguments that President Erdoğan has offered for expanding his power through constitutional reforms is that further centralization of authority will increase stability. Yet the experience of the past ten years has demonstrated that the opposite is true. Without reestablishing rule of law and the independence of state institutions, without creating opportunities for those out of power to participate in their own political futures, the instability that has rocked the country over the past five years likely will intensify. The tragedy of Turkey’s failure is immense.”