What happened to Recep Tayyip Erdogan? The Turkish president came to power in 2003 promising economic and political liberalization. But under his rule, Turkey has instead moved in a profoundly illiberal, authoritarian direction—although not toward repressive Islamism, which some feared was Erdogan’s true agenda, given his background in Islamist politics. Rather, Erdogan has become something more akin to a traditional Middle Eastern strongman: consolidating personal power, purging rivals, and suppressing dissent.

Over the summer, it briefly appeared as if Erdogan might have overreached, when a group of military officers attempted to topple him—at the direction, Erdogan has insisted, of his erstwhile ally turned bitter foe Fethullah Gulen, an influential Turkish cleric based in the United States. But when the plotters struck, Erdogan was able to quickly rally support inside the armed forces and among the broader public and managed to put down the coup attempt with surprising ease. A subsequent crackdown has been swift and merciless: the government has jailed tens of thousands of alleged Gulenists, conducted a sweeping purge of the army and the state bureaucracy, shut down media outlets, and suspended thousands of academics. Erdogan’s response to the coup attempt has demonstrated that the president’s grip on power remains stronger than even many of his fiercest critics had assumed.

No one could have foreseen the coup or its aftermath. But even long before those events, it should have come as no surprise that Erdogan had failed to live up to the expectations of many liberals in Turkey and elsewhere who had initially hailed his ascent as a sign of progress. Erdogan never really aimed to make Turkey an Islamic state, but he also never wanted to liberalize it. Read more

Azerbaijan Since Independence offers a comprehensive intro- duction to modern Azerbaijan, a post-Soviet republic located on the western shore of the Caspian Sea. This small country has outsized importance due to its strategic location at the cross- roads of Europe and Asia, its energy wealth, and its historical experience as an early modernizer in the Muslim world.

The book begins with six chapters on Azerbaijan’s history from pre-Soviet times to the present, with an emphasis on the past twenty years. The next four chapters are thematic, covering the con ict over Karabakh, the political system, the oil-dominated economy, and societal changes and trends including the role of Islam. The remainder of the book surveys Azerbaijan’s foreign relations, with an analysis of the foreign- policy-making context complemented by chapters on relations with Iran, Russia, Turkey, and the West. The book closes with a brief epilogue discussing the country’s future.