Redefining state and society in Turkey: Erdogan’s illiberal turkey

Abstract

This piece of writing incorporates how Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (The founder and saviour of modern-day Turkey) inculcated the staunch liberal ideas in the Turkish Society after becoming the first President of modern Turkey. He modified the constitution of Turkey on the extreme anti-Ottoman-cum-Islamic lines. He declared Turkey a secular state and extended his ideology, termed as “Kemalism”. In 1994, Recep Tayyip Erdogan was elected as the mayor of Istanbul, he achieved fame in a very short time because of his outstanding social and economic policies. He won the trust and hearts of the people and resultantly established his political party under the name of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in August 2001. He served as the Prime Minister of Turkey from 2003 to 2014, and then he assumed the office of the President. The weirdest and interesting part of his political career started after 2016, when he introduced illiberal ideas, contrary to Kemalism, in the State. He altered the introverted behavior of the state and played an active role the regional politics. In a nutshell, this research will tell us that how Erdogan is redefining the state and society within Turkey.