A sultan in autumn

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Watch the recording of the seminar here 
 

During Erdogan’s first decade in power, he maintained his popularity by delivering unprecedented economic growth and dramatically increasing access to healthcare, education, and other essential services. In recent years, he and his party have faced setbacks, including humiliating mayoral election losses in Istanbul, Ankara, and other major cities in 2019. At home, the once robust Turkish economy has sputtered, while abroad Erdogan must balance a perilous alliance with Russia’s Vladimir Putin against the need to maintain amicable relations with Washington. A potential refugee crisis from Syria looms as another threat. And on the political front, Erdogan can no longer count on majority support from Turkish voters, a trend driven by disillusionment among millennials, his own stale anti-elitist messaging, and establishment fatigue, among other factors.

While suggesting the adaptive president Erdogan may still survive politically—with undoubted costs for Turkey’s citizens, institutions, and allies—Cagaptay also offers a more hopeful subtext, intimating that the country’s resilient democracy can outlast any one leader.

Join us for this seminar with Soner Cagaptay and Flemming Splidsboel Hansen discussing the mounting challenges to Erdogan’s rule, at home and abroad. Will Erdogan survive politically during the next elections? Can he maintain the balance between on the one side Putin’s Russia and on the other USA and Turkey’s membership of NATO? Is Turkey in fact striving for a more prominent role in the region and internationally? And how will that then play out?

Speakers
Soner Cagaptay, the Beyer Family Fellow & Director, the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute
Flemming Splidsboel Hansen, Senior Researcher, DIIS
Cecilie Felicia Stokholm Banke, Senior Researcher & Head of Unit, DIIS

Programme
10.00-10.05    Presentation, Cecilie Felicia Stokholm Banke

10.05-10.35    Presentation of “A Sultan in Autumn: Erdogan Faces the Uncontainable Forces of Turkey” Soner Cagaptay

10.35-11.00    Discussion on outcomes and challenges to President Erdogan’s rule, Flemming Splidsboel Hansen

11.00-11.30    Q&A, Moderator: Cecilie Felicia Stokholm Banke
 

The seminar was recorded Thursday 14 October 2021, 10.00-11.30 at DIIS