In 1979 cspan was created as a Public Service by americas Cable Television companies. This is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. [inaudible conversations] good afternoon and welcome to the washington institute. Im rob the executive director and im delighted to welcome all of you to this very special event. Before i begin if i can please ask everyone to take your iphone or samsung or whatever and turn them on a silent because we are broadcasting live on cspan one. Please watch your language, speak in clear tones so people around the world can hear us today. You are free to tweet as much as you like because we are eager to get the message of todays discussion out far and wide. It is not often that one can time the publication of eight new book so proficiently to an International Event or its not one often one can arrange an International Referendum to be timed perfectly with the publication of a new book. As it turns out, we have today, this confluence of events. We have the referendum in turkey that although, the result in the process is provocative and remain controversial and subject to great debate. Well hear more about that. Right away we know turkey is a country in crisis as the title the subtitle with Outstanding New work suggests and the subject of todays discussion is what type of crisis, how lasting a crisis, a crisis at home, a crisis abroad or a crisis Getting Better for all the controversy that there may be clarity about the direction of turkish leadership and to talk about these questions, first, im going to be quite delighted to welcome to the podium the author of the new sulton and then we have an outstanding array of turkish expertise and remarkable array of tur i expertises within these four walls. After i turn to soner im delighted to welcome to the podium gonul tol and adjunct profess o at George Washington university to the middle east, that is here in washington and then we will turn to amberin zaman, middle eastern program, veteran journalists, 15 years of turkish correspondent for economist, really delighted to have this panel which brings such indepth knowledge of the current political situation and the likely direction of politics of turkey and special interests. This audience, of course, the direction of the u. S. Turkish relationship in this new area. We have already seen the first sign of the direction, of course, with President Trumps outreach to new dually reempowered erdegon just yesterday. I will call to the podium soner. Soner has been with the institute for many years, author of several books on turkish domestic and foreign politics. Theres a generation of American Foreign officers who have gone on abroad in turkey who have passed through as instructor. Americas representatives had the benefit of inside and wisdom , not just opine in book opeds but improve the quality of american policy by such thicks as teaching american diplomats. Thank you, rob, and im so pleased to see so many of my friends and colleagues from around town. Its a great day for me. I really appreciate that you all are here. I also want to think amerin and gonul. Gonul had excellent oped. Im very pleased that both are with me in this panel today. I also we wanted to start, of course, by thanking president redogan, i couldnt have done it without him. Literally and figuratively. I decide today write this book last year in june and the idea that was i would write it over a year and edited sometime this spring and published in the next summer. Then my editors reached out to me and they asked me to pull up the deadline. I agreed, so i wrote it between coming back from the beach in august and christmas in december, about four months and then it was edited, copyedited and there you go, in my hands, the new sultan. Im very proud of the book, of course, i really do want to thank a number of people to who i owe gratitude for getting this work together. First of all, my boss rob. Thank you, rob. [laughter] the institute of my colleagues, this is a great place to work, one to have best places to work and best intellectual incubator. I feel lucky to be sounded by many smart people and colleagues as well as research assistance. I have been blessed in the last decade and a half by very Impressive Group of interns and research assistants. Some are in this room. You guys are both in the book, thank you. Of course, the biggest thanks goes to hoya sitting up in the front. Sorry to embarrass you. You deserve a round of applause. Thank you. [applause] hoya was with me every stage. I hope that i did not write her crazy. Thanks for baring with me. I would tell her a sentence and she would finished it and i would say have you looked at the typo and said, yes, i fixed it, thank you, i wouldnt have done this without you. I have dedicated this book to the love and memory of my mother. I was working into a workingclass in turkey and went to yale for ph. D. This goes to my moms memory. But i want to turn to my book now, why i wrote it and what its really about and i will go to my colleagues and we will have hopefully a good discussion on that. A student for nearly two decades, ive written on it in the last 15 years ive been at the institute analyzing and writing about turkey. For those of you who follow my work, you will find traces of our discussions in this book and in many ways, the new sultan follows my previous book as rob has mentioned the rise of turkey. This in this book i looked at turkeys economy growth and erdegan and after turkey witnessed Economic Growth in the last decade and after having been transformed economically and his task was to transform turkey politically. I believe this, erdogan wants to make turkey a great power. The path is to becoming an advanced economy and erdogan made an economy turkey has to become hot for google and to pass to that to become open society and the liberal democracies. I argued argued in my book the rise of turkey that the homework was therefore to get to that advanced society, economy and open society, liberal and democratic order, one that would provide freedom for two halfs of turkey which im going to dismiss in the minute which is freedom of religion for the religious half and freedom from religious for the secular half. Roughly defined and this new constitution would have to provide for broad liberties, for all citizens, including the kurds, secular religious tensions and the burden off the turkish problem, avoid the traffic of middleincome economy. I dont think erdogan read my book. Happy to look at it in the q a and i argue in the cannings that erdogan has become unassailable. Half of turkey loves him and half of turkey loathes him. Erdogan wants to shape turkey in his own image. I suggest that hes following what i call in quotes that is editor model. What is the ataturk model. Education policy as a secular western european society. And erdogan wants to use the ataturk model, he wants to both emulate and replace ataturk, it would become in erdogans vision, religious and middle eastern and conservative. But erdogan is a problem, atuturk was a military general and erdogan had a mandate, he had one until sunday, theres widespread consensus that election process was not fair and theres emerging consensus that there was we are irregularities. The vote does not alleviate it and exacerbates and its split in the middle with proand anticamps. Turkey as you know, many experts on turkey in this room. I see some of my friends and former students. We have discontinued this many times. Its a very complicated country. Political ethic religious and social groups and erdogan is going to impose vision on entire country and society and we show this in sundays referendum. Near majority in not a majority voted against it. There you go. You can see on the map, overwhelming number of turkish provinces and northwest representing an overwhelming percentage of turkeys gdp voting against him. Istanbul is his home city. He started political career which i track in my book in 1994, that was his state, thats where he provided good governance, cleaned up the city. Its why the turks decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. We lost support of some of the key cities of the country but more importantly, as well as losing in the kurdish areas he lost i istanbul. Its going to be impossible for him to impose vision on the entire society Going Forward. I argue in the book that turkey is simply too large demographically, too big economically and too complicated politically for one person to control it in its entirety. Despite erdogans off to provide crony class of capitalism, turkeys fortune 500 which controls a large part of countrys economic wealth, foo liberal democratic, secular and democratic values. Its hard for him to move forward. Let me look at two ject oirs which i highlight in my book. I see three traject others and i will conclude which deserves some discussion as well. The first trajectory is the current state of affairs. Believe turkey is heaven and the other half a loose coalition, leftists, social democrats, liberal muslims who believe turkey is hell. So long as turkey is genuinely democratic erdogan cannot continue to govern the way he wants. Third is an extension of the second. Societal polarization coupled with attacks from the right, far right by isis from the far left with ppk. Thats a scenario i would have to be able to hash out for you in the q a, of course, and look at erdogan policy challenges. Russia is the nemesis that keeps coming. They are making up, they are deploying troops and setting up a base, enclave controlled by ipg which erdogan is fighting. U. S. Policy also works with ypg but only where theres isis. Its surrounded by assad regime, turkeybacked rebels and turkey. Guess who russia is there to hurt, its obviously not the assad regime but turkey allies. Its going to be the nemesis as well as most feared enemy. Does this mean that hes coming to the western world, hes not. Both the western European Union became a punching bag in the runup to the referendum. I think this is going to continue. Its a lot to do with erdogans next steps. He also wants to obviously elections coming up. He has to win those elections but for the parliament, his party, Something Interesting happened in the last question, so some of the voters of the National Action party, which is a smaller fraction of the parliament, polls 10 , voted for erdogan and some voted against him in the referendum. One of four parties in the parliament. Its splitting. The split is happening where essentially North Eastern with mhp are flipping for erdogan and in the coastal provinces and large cities are flipping against erdogan. Thats music to erdogans ears. This is ultra naturalist party. It also suggests that not only strengths akp in case of new elections, parliament elections, will fail high 10 electoral threshold. When that happens, akp has super majority in the parliament with as little 45 or perhaps even under and thats erdogans goals Going Forward. I anticipate major problems in ties with europe. He suggested that he might want to bring back Capital Punishment that would end turkey being kicked out of council of europe. Turkish courts will not be recognizing as the highest court of the country and turkish citizens will not have access to that. He control it is courts. I also anticipate a hard nationalist Foreign Policy line towards u. S. Cooperation with ypg because thats in line with his hardline policy on the kurds in general to flirt to make sure that mhp voters who flipped for him become permanent kkp voters. I have provided you with so much doom and bloom. Ive given you three in my book. I dont want to tell you all about it because i want you to buy it. The third trajectory excludes erdogan. He has made turkey wealthy. Middleclass society. Thats where he deserves credit. Citizens live better off than they did before. The fact from my previous book that i like most, rise of turkey, when erdogan came to power, infant was comparable to prewar syria and now comparable to spain. They live like the spanish and thats why they are voting for erdogan. The growth has built a middleclass base and making middleclass demands. Its the wealthier provinces that have voted against him in the referendum. So thats a good sign Going Forward. I dont want to get carried away for the case for liberal turkey, number one the opposition thats against erdogan is extremely divided and very divided. It includes turkish and kurdish nanl nationalists, center right and center left. Sometimes the wider gap between them is as wide as the gap between them and erdogan. We will go back the leadership issue. Conservative islamist turks have their own ataturk. I think until the day that such men or women emerges who can make case for liberal turkey, liberal turkey that would have a constitution that proprovide freedom of religion and freedom from religion simultaneous that would provide broad liberties for all including cultural liberties including including the kurds, until that moment comes i remain worried about turkeys future. It is plausible, given the Economic Transformation that turkey has gone under erdogan. Perhaps thanks to him that i will write my next book as well. Watch this space. Thank you everybody for coming. I appreciate it. [applause] good afternoon, everyone. First, of course, soner, congratulations. I think hes one of the most productive experts of turkey and he makes us look lazy and my boss loves you. Aside from that i really enjoyed reading your book. But, of course, when i picked up the book, the first thing came to my mind was which sultan, so i think at this point, after referendum manual, who was a reformer, but what about saltan who was a totalitarian ruler . I think the book does a great job of opening a window into erdogan psyche and through telling personal narratives and this is a narrative of victimhood which resinates very well among constituency and actually beyond. Its showing us the interaction between the founding ideology and the reactions to it. Thats why i particular enjoyed reading the chapters on kurdish nationalism and islamism, both reactions to the ideology. I think turkey right now lives in a post capitalist and post islamist era. And one would expect to embrace liberal values because islamism are radical toll totalitarian ideologies and the opposite is actually happening. Soner mentioned in the book, theres now a growing middle class in turkey. And they are demanding middle class values. So this is striking because at a time when theres going middle class in turkey, theres no middleclass values. Instead theres a growing authoritarianism and i think its because something inherent ly authoritarian culture and some might blame me for being an essentialist but i believe that that is really that lies at the heart of the issue here. I think the original sin of turkeys culture is the loss the state is ideology. The state occupies a very unique place in the turkey psyche. Everything has been done through state and even created by the state itself. Thats why we have a middle class, thats why we have a Business Class thats not really standing against erdogans policies and instead many are aligning with the government. So that bourgeoisie from the 19th century and rebuilding by the state itself, i think that was problematic and again, that explains the state of turkish democracy at the moment and the people who are supporting erdogan. Going back to islam versus secular debate, i think the people who voted on sunday in favor of the referendum, the 50 , they were not voting more islamism and those who were opposed to it, they were not obviously entirely camelist either. The 50 that voted yes on sunday, they just do not mind authoritarianism. Of course, this is a very dark picture so where do we go from here . And im a bit optimistic about sundays results because i think the raiserthin majority gives me hope and at the end electoral politics will play a role but i think more than that, of course, we dont know what erdogans strategy will be moving forward but i believe despite his victory, he has lost ground, he has lost ground within his own constituency. He lost all major cities including istanbul which is a very important place, he launched political career in istanbul and he hasnt lost since 1990s. The fact that he lost istanbul is very telling and some of his base specially the educated urban base, i dont think they are 100 happy with his authoritarian tendency n. The runup to the referendum he played to the nationalist, his main party was galvanizing the nationalist vote. And yet, i think that strategy didnt pay off, he could not be able to mobilize the National Space as much as he wanted to. And instead he increased his votes in the kurdish region compared to november elections which is surprising, of course, right now its very fluid, its very difficult to be sure about the numbers, but what we are hearing from specially from local journalists is that hundreds of thousands of people, the ruling party, the atp increased its votes by around 400,000 which is almost 1 and he i think erdogan did a lot of that and his speech, the referendum, he said that he increased our votes in the kurdish region. So if he really wants to return the favor, i think thats good news so instead of aligning with the nationalists this time he might want to recalibrate his strategy and maybe work with the kurds and that could mean and i know my friend and my colleagues disagrees with me, but he might go back to the negotiations, resume peace talks with the kurds. Of course, if he choose to play to the instead of aligning with the nationalists working with the kurds, so thats good news, that will be good news not only domestically but also turkish economy has been hit hard by terrorist attacks, so that would be good news for economy as well because i think the economy downturn is going to impact his popularity as well. So so and also that would make some room to maneuver for syria and also remove some of the tension from turkeyu. S. Relations as well. So i would like to be optimistic, but but on the other hand, i think this is knowing that hes a pragmatic leader gives me hope, but yesterday i was there was a panel, one of my colleagues mentioned that hes always been a pragmatic, we wont always known him as a pragmatic leader bus hes been in power for so long that hes become the state himself and that was the point that i was trying to make, the ideologies captured him now so n