The Failure of Popular Constitution Making in Turkey: Regressing Towards Constitutional Autocracy

This book offers an in-depth account of the failure of popular constitution making in Turkey from 2011 to 2013, which was an anomaly in the otherwise authoritarian history of Turkish constitutional politics. The authors demonstrate that, even in unfavorable conditions, constitution making that brings together different stakeholders can potentially lead to significant improvement of constitutional regimes. Long-standing societal divides regarding cultural and religious diversity, which were evident in political parties' negotiations, played a significant role in the failure of the process in Turkey. Most notably, the ruling AKP's insistence on establishing a presidential system - supported by neither other political parties nor the public - destabilized the process and exacerbated distrust among the drafters. Unfavorable procedures, particularly an unrealistic deadline and the unanimity principle, prevented consensus and allowed the AKP to hijack the process. The process was a missed opportunity for democratization before Turkey plunged into full-fledged democratic backsliding.

• Focuses on failure of constitution-making processes so that readers may draw lessons on conditions that are conducive to failure
• Looks at popular constitution-making methods in a largely authoritarian setting to help readers understand basic conditions of popular constitution making and to distinguish democratic from authoritarian constitution making
• Explores an extremely understudied period of Turkish constitutional history to not only fill in a gap in the literature, but also to help citizens understand what happened