ANKARA: Turkey’s highly contentious executive presidential system is again under the spotlight following a new report released by the Checks and Balances Network, a prestigious umbrella organization gathering 294 non-governmental organizations.
Turkey’s presidential system was launched in July 2018, sparking widespread debate because of the powers it put in the president’s hands, diminishing the role of the parliament, leading to the erosion of judiciary oversight and undermining civil society’s ability to monitor public projects.
The report asserts that this system has led to a hyper-centralization of the country’s decision-making process because the president is not constrained by any supreme body or constitutional breaks.
ANKARA: A new international study has produced striking results about the growth of polarization in Turkey this year.
The study, by the German Marshall Fund of the US and the Istanbul Bilgi University Center for Migration Research with financial support from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), published its results on Dec. 22, revealing the social distance, political intolerance and echo chambers within Turkish society.
The survey, entitled “Dimensions of Polarization in Turkey 2020”, was conducted through face-to-face interviews across 29 cities with some 4,000 representing Turkey’s adult population. The results were announced on Tuesday morning.
Among all political party supporters, the US is seen as the biggest threat, followed by Israel and Russia.
December 21, 2020
Strategies and Tools for Mitigating Polarization Project aims to raise awareness in Turkish society about polarization and the harm it is doing and to equip Turkish civil society, academia, media, and political parties with strategies and tools for mitigating polarization to contribute to a new ecosystem in Turkey with the prevalence of human rights, social harmony, and respect to others.
Recent developments indicate that political polarization, which is a key problem in Turkey, might replace populism as the next political pandemic. Within the context of the project on
, the German Marshall of the United States and Istanbul Bilgi University recently undertook a study and held a virtual workshop with leading scholars to discuss the roots of polarization and strategies for mitigating it.