IFJ-INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF JOURNALİST BRUSSEL-BELGIUM

IFJ-INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF JOURNALIST BRUSSEL -BELGIUM THE CONVERSATTON JOURNALIST FLAIR ACADEMY The arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu on March 19 has shed light on the state of democracy in Türkiye. It signals a possible turning point in the gradual disintegration of the country’s secular and democratic foundations. When it was founded in 1923, the Republic of Turkey was established as a secular state under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Secularism was seen as essential to modern development because it separated state power structures from religious authorities. However, recent studies suggest that this distinction has weakened since the Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in 2002. Turkish political researcher Jenny White notes that under the AKP, Islam has moved from occupying a niche to becoming a tool of political legitimacy. In his 2014 book, Muslim Nationalism and the New Turks , he explores how the AKP has promoted a national-religious identity as an alternative to traditional republican secularism. This transformation of secularism in Türkiye has been accompanied by an overhaul of national identity. According to a study by the Brookings Institution, Erdoğan’s government has promoted a religious and conservative vision of what it means to be Turkish. This has weakened the republican pillars on which the country was founded more than a century ago. Rather than occupying a private or spiritual space, Islam has been increasingly integrated into the official state narrative as a means of political cohesion and moral legitimacy. This redefinition has had clear consequences: less space for dissent, restricted individual freedoms, and the spread of a cultural, religious identity that excludes important segments of society. Join 1,746 readers who donate monthly to fund investigative journalism I will contribute too Competitive authoritarianism Writers such as Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way have coined the term “competitive authoritarianism” to describe a regime in which democratic institutions formally exist but are hollowed out by hegemonic government control. In Türkiye, a variety of practices that contribute to unfair electoral competition have been documented. These include taking over the judiciary, controlling the media, and disqualifying opposition candidates. İmamoğlu’s arrest on charges of corruption and alleged links to terrorism fits this pattern. He had emerged as a viable challenger to AKP hegemony after winning the 2019 and 2024 mayoral elections in Istanbul, a city of high symbolic and political value. International analysts interpret his arrest as a move to exclude him from national elections. Weaponizing the justice system In recent years, Türkiye has seen the repeated use of judicial processes to exclude political opposition. According to Freedom House’s 2024 report, Turkey is classified as “not free,” with scores falling on judicial independence and civil liberties. The detention of more than 1,000 people, including journalists and protesters, following İmamoğlu’s arrest has been condemned by organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Reporters Without Borders. In this context, the application of law is transformed into an instrument of control. Guillermo O’Donnell has called this “bureaucratic authoritarianism”: the selective use of legality to preserve institutional forms while eliminating their democratic functions. Turkish-born economist and Nobel laureate Daron Acemoglu has argued extensively that democratic decline is directly linked to weak institutions and a lack of checks on executive power. In his 2013 book Why Nations Fail , he argues that inclusive institutions are key to development and stability, while those taken over by extractive elites tend to result in authoritarian or inefficient regimes. The current situation in Türkiye, where control over the judiciary, media and electoral system is increasingly centralized by the executive, illustrates the consequences of this institutional capture. International implications Turkey is a case study for understanding the transformation of democratic regimes in the 21st century. In their 2019 book How Democracies Die , Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt warn that contemporary democracies do not usually collapse through coups. Instead, they collapse through the gradual erosion of institutional checks and balances from within the system. Events in Türkiye show how leaders can undermine secularism, concentrate power and criminalize dissent within a political model that still maintains a democratic facade. This “normalization” of a slide toward autocracy should be a warning to other vulnerable democracies. Ekrem İmamoğlu’s arrest is a key chapter in a structural process of transformation of the Turkish political system. Theories of competitive authoritarianism, democratic regression and political secularism mediate