Definitely not a Turkish Spring

For anyone who has been remotely following international news the last week, you may have heard ago the protests that have been occurring all over turkey. At the center of the demonstrations are divisions within Turkish society over the role of prime minister Recep Teyyep Erdoğan.

Turkey as a modern state was founded on a principle of almost radical public secularism enforced by the judiciary and the military. Erdoğan has changed the game. He is a rough and tumble urban politician whose base of support are Muslims. And while 99.6% of turkey are Muslims, politicized Islamism has never played a big role in Turkish politics.

Erdoğan has changed the rules of the game in three ways: he has curbed the army and brought it under civilian oversight (in the past, the army has engaged in coups when it felt secularism was being threatened); he has led turkey in a decade of booming economic prosperity (in the last decade Turkey's economy has tripled, with plans to triple it again in time for the republic's centenary in 2023 which would make it the tenth largest economy in the world); and he has become to be seen as an incredibly strong public figure.

This last feature is what most disturbs most people on the streets of turkey. Erdoğan is engaging in a show of force, reminiscent of his earlier days. He is not the typically aristocratic politician, and he has shown flashes of an inferiority complex. This is an outgrowth of the same.

What are the consequences of the demonstrations?

Turkey will not undergo a "Turkish Spring."  At question is not the validity of the Turkish political system. It is a question of Erdoğan. He is currently engaged (along with his economic growth plans) in an attempt to replace the current constitution put in place by a military junta. Under the proposed constitution, the president would be more in the mold of an American president with much more political power.

In his push for the withdrawal of secularism, the "growth above all else" approach to development, and the strengthening of the executive at the expense of traditional powers like the judiciary and the military, Erdoğan has over reached.

Erdoğan will not be swept from power, I don't even think he will lose his position as prime minister in the next elections. However, there will be real consequences of these crackdowns.

1) the proposed constitution will not pass
2) İstanbul will not be awarded the 2020 Olympic Games
3) FDI to turkey will take a hit

All of these are massive personal blows. The Olympics were to be Turkey's coming out party as it approached its centenary and entry as the newest BRICs country.  They will not be awarded to İstanbul. The constitution will be rejected, and this will be a rejection of Erdoğan and his executive style. Finally the growth that Turkey is planning on (an effective 900% expansion of the economy over two decades) is currently about at the limits of what Turkish input can achieve. It requires foreign investment, and I believe foreign corporations will look at state security forces indiscriminately tear gassing, hosing, and (horrifically) running over protestors with water tankers, and these corporations will need to be convinced to come to Turkey.

This is the long term impact of the Taksim protests. Erdoğan will leave office eventually, but the foreign perception of Turkey as a homogeneous Eden of investment has been exposed. Turkey has experienced internal divisions over government's role vis à vis religion before, but now large swaths of the population have challenged the government on it.

The short

The next decade will be expansionary for Turkey but not as smooth as it looked last week, even.