Koray Çalışkan argues that Turkey’s contemporary political regime is competitive authoritarianism. Tracing the evolution of Turkey’s political system from tutelary democracy to its current state, he describes the developments that resulted in the dissolution of the army’s prerogatives in politics and the rise of a new form of authoritarianism in the country. Associating this substantive change with the worldwide persistence of competitive authoritarianism, he argues that the Justice and Development Party (AKP) have institutionalized the new authoritarian regime of Turkey at an unprecedented pace.

Koray Çalışkan is associate professor of political science at Bogazici University, where he now works on political parties, marketization and authoritarianism. Previously, he had been visiting scholar at Edinburgh University and École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris. In 2017-2018, he will be a visiting professor at Columbia University. He received his Ph.D. with distinction from New York University, with which he earned the Malcolm Kerr Social Science Award from the Middle East Studies Association. Previously, Caliskan worked as a columnist on politics in Radikal and BirGün newspapers and as a program host for Haberturk and +1TV in Istanbul. His book Market Threads analyzes international trade and global markets, particularly in Turkey, Egypt, and the United States (Princeton University Press, 2011).