Our Professor Jean-Franc̜ois Bayart has published a new article entitled 'Turkey: Erdoğan’s Authoritarian Turn' in the Global Challenges research series.
The diplomatic and strategic price to pay for leaving Turkey to its own devices, alone to play a game of free rider in service of what it believes to be its national interests, remains to be seen. Already, it is eyeing the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the club bringing together continental Asia’s authoritarian powers under the umbrella of Russia and China.
It goes shopping for antiballistic missiles in Beijing, and then in Moscow, to the great displeasure of NATO. And it is moving closer to Tehran on the Iraq-Syria issue. This was the blind spot of those who were against Turkey joining the European Union: quick to complain about the cost that this would supposedly entail, they never wondered about the cost of Turkey not joining. We have reached this point, and European democracy – as well as its security – will be the great loser from this mess.