The New Sultan: Erdogan and the Crisis of Modern Turkey

by Soner Cagaptay

Overview

The aborted coup in Turkey has fired up interest in a country which will play a critical geopolitical role in the wars of the Middle East. The spotlight will inevitably be on Erdogan – the powerful leader of the country - whose increasingly bizarre and authoritarian regime has increased tensions enormously both within and outside the country. His crackdown has been brutal and consistent – thousands of journalists arrested, academics officially banned from leaving the country, university deans fired and three quarters of highest ranking army officers arrested.In some senses, this coup has given Erdogan the license to make good on his repeated promise to bring order and stability under a ‘strongman’. Here, leading Turkish expert Soner Cagaptay will look at where Erdogan comes from in Turkish history, what he believes in, how he has cemented his rule will assess the threats he faces – from the liberal youth to the Gulen movement, the army plotters and the Kurdish question.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781786722362
Publisher:	I.B.Tauris
Publication date:	04/30/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Soner Cagaptay is the Beyer Family fellow and director of theTurkish Research Programat The Washington Institute. He has written extensively on U.S.-Turkish relations, Turkish domestic politics and Turkish nationalism, publishing in scholarly journals and major international print media,including theWall Street Journal,Washington Post,New York Times,Foreign Affairs,Atlantic,New Republic, andNewsweek Türkiye. He has been a regular columnist forHürriyet Daily News, Turkey's oldest and most influential English-language paper, and a contributor to CNN'sGlobal Public Squareblog. He appears regularly on Fox News, CNN, NPR, Voice of America, BBC, and CNN-Turk

Editorial Reviews

05/29/2017
Cagaptay, a political scientist who directs the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, argues for a liberal path to securing the country’s future in this well-researched treatise. He also shows how Turkey’s powerful president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan , is taking the country in the opposite direction. Cagaptay narrates Erdogan’s rise to power on the same wave of conservative nationalist politics currently washing over many other countries. The author is fair-minded in crediting Erdogan with reviving Turkey’s economy and bringing much of the nation out of poverty and into the middle class. However, Cagaptay also shows that Erdogan has gained power by demonizing his opponents and his onetime supporters, the Gulenists, badly dividing the country, with the possible consequence of civil war. The failed military coup in the summer of 2016 allowed Erdogan to consolidate and extend his authority in the name of stability. Erdogan ’s foreign policy forays have been failures, leaving him with little support from Middle Eastern countries while alienating the E.U., U.S., and Russia. Cagaptay offers appealing fixes such as a liberal constitution, a democratic, open society, and a tech-oriented economy, but little reason to believe that any of this can happen in the face of Erdogan ’s formidable opposition. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

"...the book sketches Erdogan's upbringing in the tough Istanbul district of Kasimpasa. [...] Cagaptay describes how Erdogan started out among nationalist Islamists in student politics. [...] ...it gives a sensitive background context to his life and political upbringing."

William Armstrong

This is a brave and balanced narrative of Turkey’s mercurial President Erdogan. Soner Cagaptay explains how ‘the new sultan’ built a modern and prosperous Turkey, but how his ‘autocratic, illiberal side’ undermined these achievements and throttled democracy. Turkey is now at a crossroads, and Cagaptay provides a clear roadmap. Nobody tells Erdogan’s story better or more honestly.

David Ignatius