Democracy support & authoritarian durability

It is possible to communicate strategic interests with transparency, while still remaining anchored in global values.

Existing explanations for the opposition's success in Hungary are after the fact and secondary. Without Magyar's legal immunity and financial mobilization, this victory would have been impossible.

With Julia Leininger

Democracy promotion as we know it is likely finished. The global wave of autocratisation has fundamentally altered the landscape, rendering traditional approaches to democracy promotion largely ineffective and unsustainable. The logic of democracy promotion has reversed: during the Third Wave of Democratisation, the aim was to work with the tide of democratisation; today it works "against the tide" of autocratisation. That is why democracy aid should aim for protection instead of promotion. Despite evidence suggesting that democracy aid has worked against autocratisation, significant empirical gaps remain regarding which specific approaches are most effective. This effectiveness depends in part on how these strategies are publicly communicated. With the international institutional infrastructure for democracy aid crumbling, alternative conditionality mechanisms are required.

European naming-and-shaming and other forms of democracy support have been largely ineffective, or worse, counterproductive in Turkey. My research shows that the regime frames such efforts as foreign meddling, weaponizing them to fuel nationalist sentiments. Against the backdrop of heavy propaganda and deep partisan polarization, international solidarity with the opposition has had unintended consequences: consolidating the government's electoral base, eroding trust in Western institutions, and feeding conspiratorial narratives. Scattered and one-off messages of support carry little weight in the Turkish context; they come across as empty words and are, at best, ineffective. European democracy support can only be effective through clear, coordinated, and consistent messaging. European institutions should collectively mobilize to express solidarity with the pro-democracy opposition to rebuild public trust, especially among the younger generations, while ensuring these messages are carefully calibrated not to alienate or antagonize the regime's conservative support base. Still, messaging alone is not enough. The European response must include concrete actions that go beyond rhetoric.

In False Dawn: Protest, Democracy, and Violence in the New Middle East, Steven A. Cook examines the trajectory of events in four countries (Turkey, Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt) to elucidate why the Middle Eastern uprisings failed and why they should not be construed as "revolutions." Cook argues that despite appearances, there were no true revolutions in the Middle East, since none of the affected societies underwent social revolutions and the old structures of power were never eliminated. He refers to identity crises and sticky institutions as the main reasons for the lack of structural change. The author also analyzes the role of US foreign policy and asserts that American influence is quite limited in the region. He therefore suggests that Washington can utilize development-based programs rather than governance programs to play the long game.

With Sahib Jafarov & Adrian del Río

Why do elites not defect from autocratic regimes during crises? Elite defection is less frequent than commonly assumed; even during fiscal downturns or periods of political instability, elites often choose not to actively defy the dictator. Emerging scholarship shows that not all elite groups defect during crises, and regimes tend to be more durable than expected. We argue that political polarization makes defection socially costly: elites avoid joining the opposition out of fear of intimidation and the loss of social connections. Using a country-year dataset of 25 electoral autocracies from 1993 to 2023, we show that political polarization decreases the likelihood of elite defection. Drawing on extensive elite interviews conducted in Turkey with politicians, we then probe the causal mechanisms underlying this relationship. The findings have significant implications for understanding elite defection under autocracies.

With economic and political crises, loyalty is prioritized over competence; the result is low bureaucratic performance.

The extant scholarship on regime transition suggests that the threat perception of the ruling elite coalition matters for successful and peaceful transitions. As cronies tied to the incumbent regime fear losing their entitlements, they mobilize around the regime to avoid such an outcome at any cost. The ruling elite coalition must therefore be convinced that they would be better off after a democratic transition, and they can only be convinced by people from similar conservative backgrounds. The current ruling coalition in Turkey is not as unified, consolidated, or bulletproof as it looks. That is just a mirage. There are disgruntled members within AKP cadres, together with growing dissent among AKP supporters. However, they are scattered and unable to resolve their collective action problems for fear of retaliation by the incumbent regime. A new conservative party is needed in Turkey, spearheaded by a pragmatic-centrist conservative leadership, to reclaim the center-right.

Movements capable of bringing about change simply by showing their resistance to unjust governments have emerged, and young people are directing them. In Turkey, youth participation in politics can be divided into four eras.