The Failure of Popular Constitution Making in Turkey; Regressing Towards Constitutional Autocracy

This book offers an in-depth account of the failure of popular constitution making in Turkey from 2011 to 2013, which was an anomaly in the otherwise authoritarian history of Turkish constitutional politics. The authors demonstrate that, even in unfavorable conditions, constitution making that brings together different stakeholders can potentially lead to significant improvement of constitutional regimes. Long-standing societal divides regarding cultural and religious diversity, which were evident in political parties' negotiations, played a significant role in the failure of the process in Turkey. Most notably, the ruling AKP's insistence on establishing a presidential system - supported by neither other political parties nor the public - destabilized the process and exacerbated distrust among the drafters. Unfavorable procedures, particularly an unrealistic deadline and the unanimity principle, prevented consensus and allowed the AKP to hijack the process. The process was a missed opportunity for democratization before Turkey plunged into full-fledged democratic backsliding.

Felix Petersen is the Minerva Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Richard Koebner Center for German History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research interests include modern political thought, constitutional politics, theory of democracy, and German and Turkish politics. He is a co-author of the forthcoming book The Constitutional Court of Turkey: Judicial Politics between Authoritarianism and Democracy.

Zeynep Yanasmayan is a senior research fellow and coordinator of the Max Planck Society-funded research initiative 'The Challenges of Migration, Integration and Exclusion' at the Department of Law and Anthropology, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology. Her research interests include migration and citizenship studies, governance of religious diversity, law and society and Turkish politics. She is the author of The Migration of Highly Educated Turkish Citizens to Europe: From Guestworkers to Global Talent (2019), and co-editor of Belief, Law and Politics: What Future for Secular Europe? (2014).