Editor's Introduction

since the 1990s, around the time of the collapse of the berlin wall and the Soviet empire, Social Research has published a periodic series of issues on political transitions. The first and most of the subsequent issues in this series focused on transitions toward democracy, beginning with countries in central and eastern Europe and moving on to include South Africa, India, Egypt, and Burma/Myanmar. But as the world changed and more countries began moving away from democracy and towards various forms of authoritarianism, our focus necessarily changed as well. Consequently, the most recent issue in this series looked at those shifts away from democracy in a number of countries. Our current issue fits squarely into this category.

Turkey has a checkered political history with respect to democracy and authoritarianism, but in the years since Erdoğan came to power, the trend is clearly in the direction of authoritarianism. This, then, is the focus of the current issue, in which experts in the field of Turkish history and politics survey and attempt to analyze the alarming shifts taking place in the country. Future issues will explore similar trends first towards and then away from democratic order, for example in India. I am sure you, our readers, share with us the hope that at some point in the not-too-distant future, these shifts will once again be reversed.