Democratic System In Turkey

Democracy and the challenges it is facing has been the main topic in the field of international politics since some Authoritarian regimes have raised again as a great power after a long time of absence. In this essay, we will look at some of the challenges facing the international democracy based on the work of Azar Gat “ The Return Of Authoritarian Great Powers”. The article is presenting the author view on the rise of authoritarian regimes as the main challenge of liberal democracy. The main part of my essay will be an illustration and reflection on a number of arguments that have been brought by the author. Additionally and before concluding my piece I will establish my own argument as a critical response to the article or more specifically to the Economic efficiency argument brought by Azar Gat.

Abraham Lincoln (2005) defined modern democracy in three-part as “government of the people”, “government by the people” and “government for the people”. Democracy started in Greek around 500 B.C. with the simple meaning of people with power, nowadays democracy could be separate into two forms the direct democracy and the representative democracy. In this essay, I will argue that democracy is in crisis from the following aspect, fail of the direct democracy, the decline of representative democracy and the eroded right.

During the 15th and 16th centuries, the Ottomans had the largest and most powerful empire in the world.? However, their power began to weaken in the 18th and 19th centuries as they lost land and dignity to the more modern European armies.? Several sultans tried to make reforms such as building a modern army and creating a Grand National Assembly to modernize the theocratic state.? The reforms were unable to help the ?Sick Man

Has Turkey adopted both Western and Islamic principles? Westernization is the social process of becoming familiar with or converting to the customs and practices of Western Civilization. It is the accepting of western ideas in the fields of science, technology, philosophy, and other social materialistic aspects of life. However, Islam is the submission to the will of God. Unlike westernization, Islam is a spiritual practice, therefore, has its own unique identity, culture, and principles of social life. Since the day of independence, Turkey has always aligned itself with the western world. Only until recently, under the Justice and development party led by Recep Erdogan Turkey is starting to practice and meddle in the affairs of the Middle East.

In the post -World War II era, the competition of global supremacy between the superpowers of the time, United States and the Soviet Union resulted in the Cold War. Many countries in the world were pulled into this rivalry including many of the states of the Middle East. Allies against the Soviet Union received substantial quantities of United States aid and were encouraged to purchase weapons of Western means. Those who were in opposition to the United States’ power received economic and military assistance from the Soviet Union. The United States were inclined to view the rivalry between them and the Soviet Union as a vie for global supremacy. The challenge of attaining democracy in the Middle East has been insufficient leadership specifically in those who shared a common border and were in proximity to the Soviet Union. The United States, in their determination to impede the threat of expansion of the borders of the Soviet Union as well as contain the spread of communion, provided economic and military assistance to keep Iran, Iraq and Turkey politically stable. Although this was the goal of the United States, they actually impeded the democracy and political stability of these countries through its persistent influence in government affairs, determining its future’s livelihood.

Between the 16th and 18th century a power shift began to occur between Christian Europe and the Turkish Empire. Turkey, being one of the most successful, thriving and longest lasting empires of the world, began to deteriorate in the shadow of the rising European powers. The late 18th century saw Europe ascending as a leading world power. This paper will argue two of the major reasons that contributed to the shift of power from the dominant Turkish Empire to Europe. Firstly, after the death of Sultan Suleiman in 1566, the Turks failed to advance militarily while the Christian empires, who had already advanced far ahead, underwent significant military advancement. Secondly, the policy of a Sultan being chosen for quality and character was replaced with a new policy of inheritance, which contributed to the rise of unskilled and incompetent Sultans running the empire, further contributing to the decline of the Turkish Empire.

The Middle East’s power nations have differed throughout time. New countries would rise and take over, while others fell. The Ottoman Empire was a very strong and powerful nation, that lasted for a long time, but ended up failing. This was due to great internal and external challenges the Ottoman had to face.

For the first time in known history, most people around the world are living under democratic ruling. Although to many this can be seen as a positive step forward from the gruelling nature of dictatorship and other forms of governance, one needs to understand the true nature of the worlds democratic state. This report will investigate and analyse the state of democracy around the various countries of the world and elaborate on the chosen countries democratic crisis and state of governance.

Having set the benchmark of a modern civilization due to economic and industrial superiority, Western European powers had contemptuous feelings toward the Ottomans’ primitive regimes and their internal strife. In fact, the 17th and 18th centuries in the Middle East were periods marked by severe financial crisis, increased decentralization, and stronger external control by western nations. It was clear that members of Ottoman and Persian military and bureaucratic organizations needed to prove themselves worthy in comparison to the European nations in order to shift the global balance of power back towards the East. As a result, drastic political, economic, and social reforms were implemented in the Middle East throughout the 19th century that aimed to both reverse the process of fragmentation within the empires and attempt to regain authority on a both local and global scale. Today, historians often describe this period of transformation as the beginning of the “modern” history of the Middle East as we are still living the consequences of the changes that took place during that period. Throughout this essay, I will demonstrate that on the one hand some of the social reforms that took place in the region helped modernize the educational and cultural affairs of Middle Eastern societies, while on the other hand, the failed establishment of new economic and political policies in the empires helped strengthen European control over the region and subsequently set the stage for the

If we look deeply at the government structure, we can see that historically, Turkey lacks government openness. With the birth of the Turkish republic in 1923, the Turkish government did not satisfy the demands of the Kurds who were seeking independence. And since it is more of an authoritarian and closed system, the public opinion did no have any impact on the government.

With the development of human society, civilization is incessantly progressive. One aspect of human civilization’s progress is political civilization. Democratic politics can be considered to be the representatives of political civilization. When people refer to the history of human progress, they find that human beings struggle to achieve this great goal and no one can stop the human desire for political freedom. In 2011, one more country took a step towards democracy. Egypt is in the ancient, sacred and conservative Middle East. Egyptians are cheering for their own political aspirations as they overthrew Mubarak’s dictatorship, and are gradually making efforts to establish a democratic and peaceful country.

In recent months we have seen political unrest in Tunisia, Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries. In each of these countries the political leadership had amassed immense power and was using these powers to restrain and limit their countrymen from development. The ruling class clearly had formed a political structure with a clear agenda to inhibit the growth of their fellow citizens. In the past few decades, people from these countries have endured structural violence due to political hegemony. Exposure to western media has made the people realize the advantage of distributed power. Hence these countries are witnessing a surge of protest, with people fighting against the system. Parsons emphasizes on the distribution of political power and its effects throughout his

Since the initiation of the Third Wave of Democracy, several countries have attempted to form a democratic system of governs. We take note that not all have succeeded. At the dawn of this era, democracy was being applied to countries with no prior history of a governing body that was place by the people for the people hence success of such a system could not be guaranteed because of the innumerous variables that existed in each country. People being the highlighted factor of variance, it may become easier to understand how countries such as Pakistan and Nigeria, both countries prior to the Wave had no local governing machinery. Pakistan further endured a partition from India which resulted in not only an instant religious and

Middle East considers one of the most studied areas in the world due to its rich history of politics, social, economic, and its culture and civilization. Its borders are still arguable geographically, generally in the west it starts from morocco until Iran in the east, however, many scholars don’t agree on including Turkey either as a Middle Eastern or as a European country (Milton-Edwards, 2006. P: 4). The origin of the name was invented by the colonies as a necessity to describe the place geographically, which was the era of bringing “Middle East” the language of academic writings and political scientists. Changes, innovations, and new ideologies create gaps between the transformations of any perspectives to a different

Over the last century, the Middle East has been the location of ethnic rivalry, political and economic instability, religious conflict, territorial dispute and war. Much of this tension in the Middle East comes from the various interpretations of Islam and how the religion should be applied to politics and society. Over the last ten years, the United States and their allies have pushed to promote democracy in the Middle East. However, they too have many obstacles they must overcome. They face problems such as the compatibility of Islamic law and democracy, the issue of women’s rights, and there is always the problem of how to go about implementing a democratic reform in these countries. Many initially would assume that it is only the