THE DEMODERNIZATION OF TURKEY UNDER RECEP TAYYIP ERDOĞAN
Études balkaniques (Sofia) 2025, N 2, pp. 544 – 566
DOI: https://doi.org/10.62761/645.EB.LXI2.09
Plamen NANOV 
Paisii Hilendarski University of Plovdiv, Bulgaria
Abstract: While the foundation of the Turkish modernization was laid during the Tanzimat period, when a series of western mechanisms were implemented to prevent the apparent end of the Ottoman Empire, the main Western-inspired socio-political reforms happened under the Kemal Atatürk government. With the sudden break from Ottoman political and religious institutions and the innovations in economy, culture, and education, it seems that Atatürk’s project has realized itself in a linear and foreseeable fashion. The past century since the establishment of the Turkish state has provided ample opportunity for unbiased academic analyses. The goal of this article is to contribute to the ongoing discussions and debates by outlining the processes in modern Turkey that go directly against modernization postulates. Stepping on de-modernization theories, I shall argue that due to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s twenty-year government the course of Turkish modernization history is slowly beginning to turn.
Keywords: modernization, demodernization, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, New Turkey, AKP Party