Change and continuity in Turkey’s authoritarianism. On politics, identity, Islamism and the EU-Turkey affair

The European integration and the preservation of the values and principles advocated by the European Union go through the EU-Turkey talks. Despite the lack of both willingness and decisiveness to address authoritarianism within the Union as in the cases of Poland and Ukraine, the EU also displays dubious behavior when it comes to addressing Turkish practices in migration and its general assertiveness in the Eastern Mediterranean that are in direct conflict with both the UN Charter and the European law. This study examines authoritarianism in Turkish politics by putting in the spotlight the question whether authoritarianism defines Turkey since its establishment as a modern state till today’s authoritarian regime of Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Thus, it scrutinises the nature of the current regime in comparison with past policies that go back to the establishment of the Turkish Republic. Through the analysis of Kemalism, the philosophy of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk that established a mainly nationalist and secularist regime as well as the exploration of the emergence of Erdoganism, this study aspires to address the critical question if authoritarianism is a constant or a parenthesis in Turkish politics. By identifying change and continuity in authoritarianism in Turkish politics this study will prove two things: first, by addressing the EU's Turkish predicament it will showcase the EU’s alarming posture towards authoritarian regimes and how the EU’s inertia to act through multilateral institutions challenges its liberal values. Second, this study goes a step further from the prevalent view of an EU’s “Erdogan problem” and demonstrates that both the EU's predicament and the source of Turkish authoritarianism is the “Turkey problem” and not just the “Erdogan problem”.