Democratization in Turkey

852 Words4 Pages
A stride toward democracy is an imperative topic in politics when it comes to the development of countries. Many different factors are involved in determining what exactly a democracy is. Freedom is highly regarded as being associated with democratization, as well as the holding of elections. Elections tend to have high expectations for what they can accomplish for democratization. However, many developing countries hold elections consistently and are neither free or considered actual democracies. In Turkey, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) has won three consecutives elections dating back to the 2002 elections. Since the beginning of their incumbency Turkey has steadily progressed towards democratization with the help of IMF and integration to the EU, which provided them a plan to achieve their goal of democratization. Before the 2002 elections, Turkey was under populist policies (Miksa 2008, 6). Turkey had made little, if any, progress towards democratization, until the EU stepped in along with demand from the population for good governance. As Gandhi and Przeworski discuss autocrats face two different types of threats, one that involves outsiders (not within the elites) within the society (Gandhi and Przeworski 2007, 1280). In the case of Turkey, the populations high demand for good governance and transparency led to a consistent benchmarking from the EU that locked the country into a cycle of transformation (Miksa 2008, 6). According to the 1982 Constitution, elections in Turkey are held under the basis of “free universal suffrage with direct, equal, and secret balloting” (Miksa 2008,11). Turkey runs under a parliamentary democracy, meaning that elections are held to choose who runs parliament and then the winning parliament party elects the president. Parliament is unicameral and has a proportional representation system where only ten percent of the
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