A historic regime change took place in Turkey between 2007 and 2011. This book provides an account of the change and the use of power in its immediate aftermath, offering a prismatic survey of virtually all of the major issue areas in the domestic politics, with some emphasis on rights. As such, the book is very much about the political rule under the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi), a self- defined ‘conservative’ force that emerged out of the local Islamist politics to be in charge from late 2002. The book charts the phenomenal rise of this political party, notably supported by a group of secular intellectuals intent to use it as a vehicle for reform, the turnaround it led by wresting power from the grip of the bureaucracy long at the helm, and the no- nonsense majoritarianism the change would subsequently initiate. The discussion attempts to make sense of the shift in the political order by placing it in the larger context of political modernisation in the country from the second half of the nineteenth century, articulating and rehearsing answers in so doing to one apparent conundrum that pervaded the assessments of some of the salient aspects of authority in the wake of the recasting of power. The drive behind the readjustment had looked, for most of the way, a bona fide quest for political normalisation, with the masses to be fully enfranchised via unqualified observance of basic rights for the first time, and through in-depth integration with the wider world, principally Europe. The unhindered mandate of the elected government, achieved by 2011, was only the initial goal towards that much- promoted end, dubbed ‘advanced democracy’. How did this pursuit of normalisation along the model of more evolved democracies develop, shortly after an all- embracing sway had been secured for the political rule, into what seemed to be simply a new form of authoritarianism?

The transformation drew on a broad base, convincing along the way key international policy circles, which would extend considerable support to the repositioning in process, in turn inhibiting much that would otherwise have been in the way domestically.