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Veröffentlicht am 29. Mai 2026

DE TE FABULA NARRATUR: THE FRAGILITY OF DEMOCRATIC FUTURES IN TURKEY AND BEYOND

Reflection by: Elif Sandal-Önal, Meral Gezici-Yalçın, Aydın Bayad

On 21 May 2026, Turkey crossed another significant threshold in its ongoing process of democratic erosion. A court in Ankara annulled the 2023 leadership election of the Republican People's Party (CHP) — Turkey's main opposition party and the oldest in the country — removing its current leader, Özgür Özel, and ordering his predecessor, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, to take over as interim chair. The ruling followed allegations of vote-buying at the party's November 2023 congress, charges the party has consistently denied, denouncing the decision as a judicially executed 'political coup'.

For many observers — and for many of us from Turkey — the ruling came as little surprise, but that did not make it any less alarming. Under its current leader, Özgür Özel, the party had delivered a landmark victory in the 2024 local elections and emerged as the principal organisational force behind the largest wave of street protests Turkey had seen in a decade, triggered by the arrest of Istanbul mayor and presidential candidate Ekrem İmamoğlu in March 2025. What yesterday’s ruling effectively does is neutralize a genuinely challenging opposition force and replace it with a version of leadership that poses far less of a political threat to Erdoğan’s regime. In other words, another barrier has fallen in the consolidation of an increasingly unaccountable political system. For some, the ruling represents another symbolic step toward the effective disappearance of the competitive element in what scholars of comparative politics have long classified as Turkey’s competitive authoritarian regime.

The same day brought a second development, marking a grim new phase — this time in the erosion of academic freedom5: the closure of Istanbul Bilgi University by presidential decree6. Bilgi was long regarded as one of Turkey's most liberal and academically independent private universities — known especially for its socially engaged, critical research tradition. Students and academics arrived for class to find locked doors, hostile security personnel, and no clarity about what comes next7. Following this, police had begun attacking students protesting the closure of their universities and refusing to leave their campus. The university had already been transferred years ago, under political pressure, to an unqualified businessman with close government ties. Legal interventions followed, trustees were appointed across affiliated institutions, and what happened was, in a sense, only the final act of a process long in motion. As these lines were being written — on the third day of the protests — reports began to emerge that Erdoğan was backing down from this decision.

We are writing here not only to inform, but to reflect on what these events mean for those of us who study the dynamics of conflict, violence, and anti-democratization. Turkey's trajectory underscores an unsettling truth: authoritarian regimes rarely emerge overnight. Instead, they weaponize courts, normalize repression, and gradually narrow democratic possibilities.

Germany’s history offers one of the clearest warnings. Following the Reichstag fire in February 1933, emergency decrees suspended fundamental civil liberties and enabled the persecution of political opponents, particularly the Communist Party members. Only a few days later, on 5 March 1933, new elections were held. The Nazi Party received 43.9% of the vote — not an absolute majority, but enough, under conditions of violence and intimidation, to move decisively toward the destruction of parliamentary democracy. Within weeks, the Enabling Act transferred legislative power to Hitler’s government and marked a decisive step from democracy to dictatorship.

Why remember this now?

Not because history repeats itself in a simple or mechanical way. Germany in 1933 and Turkey today are not the same. Their institutions, political cultures, social structures, and historical trajectories differ profoundly. But comparison can help us recognize patterns. Democracies do not only collapse via tanks on the streets. They can also be hollowed out through legal decisions, administrative pressure, the criminalization of opposition, and the transformation of elections into unequal contests. This does not mean that Turkey’s future is already decided. On the contrary, the meaning of such moments depends on what follows. Historical thresholds are dangerous precisely because they are open. They can lead to deeper authoritarian consolidation, but they can also provoke democratic resistance, solidarity, and renewal. Whether a country moves further toward authoritarianism or reclaims democratic possibilities depends on the struggle between democratic and anti-democratic forces.

The same is true for Germany today. Remembering 1933 is not only about looking back, but an understanding of how fragile democratic institutions can become when anti-democratic actors weaponize democratic procedures against democracy itself. The growing normalization of the AfD within parts of the political and public sphere has therefore raised concerns among many scholars and observers who see in it a warning about how democratic erosion can gradually unfold from within democratic systems themselves. The future of democratic Germany, like the future of democratic Turkey, depends not on historical inevitability but on political struggle, civic courage, and the defense of institutions before it is too late.

History does not provide ready-made lessons, but it does warn us that authoritarianism advances gradually, legally, and incrementally. Anti-democratization operates through the accumulation of precedents, the normalization of what once seemed unthinkable, the weakening of institutional checks and balances, and the concentration of power. At IKG, we spend a great deal of time examining precisely these processes: how democratic systems erode, how right-wing extremism becomes normalized, and how institutional pluralism and independent knowledge production come under pressure. What we witnessed on 21 May was not an isolated aberration, but part of a broader and recognizable pattern. Similar dynamics recur across many authoritarian and far-right projects globally, including in Europe. Identifying, comparing, and critically analyzing such recurring patterns must therefore remain an indispensable task of democracy research to better understand how anti-democratic actors adapt their strategies, legitimize power concentration, and gradually reshape democratic institutions from within.

If these events carry any lesson — and history offers no shortage of analogies — it is this: legal systems and state institutions are not straightforward expressions of the popular will or the demos. In practice, they are manipulable apparatuses, vulnerable to capture by those with the means and motive to do so. This is precisely why international solidarity matters. Anti- democratic tendencies increasingly operate through globally recognizable logics and strategies, transcending national borders and learning from one another. When the powerless lose their voice and representation, the only voice that remains is power itself. In a world increasingly shaped by the naked exercise of power, we should not forget to listen to the voices of the powerless — not as passive victims but as political subjects


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