Erdogan’s End Game: Will He Undermine Turkish Democracy to Stay in Power?

Over the past few months, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has looked increasingly desperate. He has stepped up his repression of critics and political opponents, including Metin Gurcan, who was arrested in November on espionage charges. He has threatened to expel diplomats from the United States and other NATO allies. And as his popularity at home has nosedived, he has embarked on a reckless experiment to lower interest rates amid already high inflation, a policy that has pitched the country into economic turmoil. Meanwhile, he faces an emboldened opposition that for the first time poses a direct threat to his rule. The urgent challenge confronting the country, then, is how to engineer a transfer of power that does not threaten the foundations of Turkish democracy...

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