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Whither Turkey?

The accession narrative no longer frames Turkey’s relationship with the European Union, and the government’s far-reaching crackdown on opponents since July’s coup attempt has probably buried that diplomatic framework for good. What will take its place?

ISTANBUL – Two months after the failed coup in Turkey, the country continues to suffer from its consequences. Government authorities have already raised the prospect of extending the state of emergency, initially imposed for three months. Of equal concern has the been the scale of the effort to purge the followers of the US-based cleric Fethullah Gülen, whose followers in state institutions are accused of organizing the coup.

Former Swedish prime minister and foreign minister Carl Bildt believes that “no one should be surprised that Turkey is now trying to purge Gülenists from positions of power.” As he puts it, “[a]ny state faced with insurrection from within would do the same.” Yet the numbers seem wildly incommensurate with an effort to bring the mutineers and their backers to justice. “In addition to the discharge of nearly 4,000 officers, 85,000 public officials have been dismissed from their jobs since July 15 and 17,000 have been jailed,” points out Harvard’s Dani Rodrik, while “scores of journalists have been detained, including many with no links to the Gülen movement.” Even President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has had to signal his displeasure that the net has been cast so frighteningly wide. An initiative to target the Gülen network is in danger of morphing into a plan to stifle dissent, with overzealous public prosecutors acting arbitrarily.

For many Project Syndicate contributors, including me, the post-coup environment portends a turning point for Turkey’s domestic order and its relations with the West. When Erdoğan first came to power as Prime Minister in 2003 at the head of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), which he had helped establish just two years earlier, many observers believed that his government could be a model for reconciling modernity and democracy with Islam. Now they, and much of the world, are asking whether Erdoğan’s vision remains compatible with these aspirations.

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