Aslı Aydıntaşbaş, The Turkish Sonderweg: Erdoğan’s New Turkey and its Role in the Global Order, February 2020
2019 Mercator-IPC Senior Fellow Aslı Aydıntaşbaş’s policy brief “The Turkish Sonderweg: Erdoğan’s New Turkey and its Role in the Global Order” was published.
This paper tries to delve deeper into some of the fundamental questions on the nature of Turkey’s new course: is the New Turkey simply an Islamist antithesis of the pro-Western Kemalist regime, or is there a more complex, forward-looking ideal behind the country’s role in the 21st century? Will the New Turkey be part of the West, an authoritarian ally of Russia and China, or an independent power on the global stage? Is this all about Erdoğan, or will the New Turkey outlast his reign?
