Turkey’s presidential and parliamentary elections on May 14 will pose a key question of our time: is it possible to slow authoritarian backsliding and renew democratic progress? notes Gönül Tol, the author of ‘Erdoğan’s War: A Strongman’s Struggle at Home and in Syria.’
At a time of autocratic surge, it has become fashionable to make bleak predictions about the fate of liberal democracies, Less scrutinized is the future of autocracies. Will countries such as Turkey that descended into one-man rule remain autocratic? Is it possible to depose entrenched strongmen like Recep Tayyip Erdoğan through elections? he writes for The Financial Times:
Turkey’s opposition faces an uphill battle. It will be a tight race. If the opposition wins, the country’s authoritarian turn under Erdoğan will be a detour in the long, difficult road to democratic consolidation. If it loses, Turkey will slide deeper into authoritarianism, and elections will not matter. What happens in the upcoming vote will not only determine the fate of the country. It will also decide what Turkey does beyond its borders. Above all, the result will say a lot about the future of democracy.
This year’s Einaudi Center Lund Critical Debate from the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies examines the threats democracies around the world are confronting, both from external forces and from within—and what governments and citizens can do to fight back.
Join Thomas E. Garrett, secretary general of the Community of Democracies and Damon Wilson, president and CEO of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) for a conversation on democratic backsliding, strategies for resilience, and the conditions and practices that undermine democracy: democracy … and its opposites.
Moderator: Rachel Beatty Riedl – Einaudi Center’s John S. Knight Professor of International Studies and professor in the Department of Government and Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy. Monday, April 24 · 5 – 6:30pm EDT. Alice Statler Auditorium ,106 Statler Dr Ithaca, NY 14853. RSVP
