Good afternoon and welcome to the washington institute. I am the executive director. Im delighted to welcome all of you to this special event. Before i begin, if i can please ask everyone to take your iphones or samsungs or whatever and turn them on silent because we are broadcasting ve on cspan1. Please watch your language, speaking clear towns so people tones so people around the world can hear us. You are free to tweak as much as you like. Todaysager to get discussion out far and wide. It is not often that one can time the publication of a new propit for viciously iously to an international event. It is not often that one can time a referendum to a faraway country perfectly with the release of a new book. We have today this confluence of events. Turkey the referendum in. Although the results and process were provocative and remain controversial and subject to great debate, and im sure we will hear more about that, the result seems to be to elevate the existing president of turkey one more elevated position that one might be able to call the new sultan. Therisingly enough, that is title of this new book by the director of the washington department. Turkish we know that turkey is a country of soner as the title new book suggests. The question is how long a crisis . Crisis abroad, at home, hitting worse, or Getting Better . Some clarityn be about the direction of turkish leadership. Talk about these questions i am theghted to invite to letter my colleague soner cagaptay. We have an outstanding array of turkish expertise on the panel, and as i look around the audience, a remarkable array of turkish parties within these four walls expertise within these four walls. I am delighted to welcome the founding erector of the middle east Institutes Center for turkish studies and adjunct professor at George Washington university. Then we will turn to a Public Policy fellow at the Woodrow Wilson centers middle east program, veteran journalist, 15 years a turkish correspondent. We are 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 interest to this audience, the director of the u. S. Turkish relationship in this new era. We have already seen the first sign of the direction of the relationship with President Trumps outreach to the newly reempowered president erdogan yesterday. The oing to call to podium i colleague soner. He is the author of several books on turkish domestic and Foreign Policy. I think one of soners greatest claims to fame is that there is a generation of American ForeignService Officers who have gone on to serve america abroad in turkey who have passed through soners tender mercies as an instructor. I think we are all better served for that. Americas representatives in turkey have had the benefit of soners insight and wisdom. That is one of the things we try to do here at the institute, not just opine in books and television, but to do what we can to improve the quality of American Foreignpolicy by teaching american diplomats feared i am delighted to have soner. The podium is yours. Soner thank you. I am pleased to see so many of my friends and colleagues around town. It is a great day for me. I want to thank the rest of the panelists. They are two of the topnotch experts in town on turkish politics. There was an excellent oped in the New York Times this morning. She is a frequent commentator on various issues. I am pleased both are with me today. Thankingto start by for timing thean referendum to overlap the launch of my book. I could not have done it without them. This is obviously a critical time in turkish history. I want to tell you first about my book, the new sultan. I decided to write it in june. Originally, it was decided i would write it over a year, and publish it in the summer. As i was writing the book, my editor reached out to me and asked me to pull up the deadline. I wrote it between august and christmas and december, about four months. Andas edited and copyedited designed and printed in the last three months. There you go. Very proud of the book. I want to thank a number of people to whom i owe gratitude for getting this work together. First of all, my boss rob sutcliffe. Thank you, rob. This institute in my colleagues. This is a great place to work. It is one of the best places to work and probably the best celestial incubator. I have enjoyed my tenure here. I feel lucky to be surrounded by so many smart people and my colleagues as well as our research assistance. I have been blessed in the last decade and a half by an Impressive Group of interns and research assistants, some of whom are in his room. I seek meredith and jim. Would you get up for a second . I think you deserve a round of the posterior [applause] applause. Of [applause] we went through every sentence together. I would tell her sentence, and she would finish it. I cannot have done this without you. This book toted the loving memory of my mother. I was born into a workingclass family in turkey and went to yale for my phd. I want to turn to my book, why i wrote it and what it is about. I will go to my colleagues, and we will hopefully have a good discussion. I followed turkish policas a student for nearly two decades. In the last 15 years, i have been at the institute writing on turkey. You will find traces of our discussion in this book. In many ways, it follows my previous book, the rise of turkey. This was done by looking at turkeys Economic Growth under president erdogan and his justice and development party. Turkey has witnessed tremendous Economic Growth in the last decade, and after having been transformed economically, his task was to transform turkey politically. I think he wants to make turkey a great power. I said the path to that goes through becoming an advanced economy. Become an advanced economy and it has to become a hub for google. It has to become an open society and for democracy. The hope was to get to that advanced economy, the credit society, a new liberal order that would provide freedom for the two halves of turkey, which is freedom of religion and freedom from religion for the secular half. This new constitution would have to provide for broad liberties for all citizens. I concluded that relieved of its perennial secular religious tensions and the burden of the kurdish problem, turkey would of aand avoid the trap middle income economy and become a great power. I dont think erdogan read my book. I wrote this one, the crisis of turkey. Let me tell you what i think the crisis is. It is the story of erdogans power consolidation. I argue in the conclusion that he has become as unassailable as was ataturk was. He is the most powerful turk. Half of turkey loves him, and the other half loaths him. That is the crisis in which turkey finds itself. Wants tohat erdogan shape turkey in his own image in a way that ataturk did. Model. Ollowing ataturk turkey as a of modern state and shaped it in his own image, including education policy, as a secular, western society. Erdogan wants to use the ataturk model, but he also wants to emulate and replace him. He does not share ataturks values, just methods. That is topdown social engineering. He wants to use state power to shape turkey in his own image. A country that would therefore rdogansn hee image islamic, conservative. Erdogan has a problem. Ataturk was a military general. Erdogan has a democratic mandate. He had one until this sunday. There is widespread consensus that the election process was not there. There is emerging consensus that there were irregularities. We dont know the scale of them. That is the problem. Erdogan as suggested to move forward. He has declared himself an executive style present. President. He has assessed a mandate in question for half of the country that does not support him. Alleviate thenot tension but exacerbates it. Turkey is split in the middle between proand anti erdogan camps. It is unlikely that he will be able to impose his vision on the entire Turkish Society. There are many experts on turkey in this room. I see many of my friends and former students from the state department. It is a very complicated country with him a launch of political, at the, religious, and social groups. In sundays referendum. A near majority is not a majority. We have a map of turkey. If we can pull it up a second. There you go. As you can see on the map, overwhelming number of turkish provinces along the coast and northwest representing an overwhelming percentage of turkeys gp voted against them. He lost his home city. That is where he started his political career. In 1994 he became mayor. That is where he provided good governance. It is why the turks decided to make them Prime Minister later on. He has lost that. He has lost support in key cities of the country, and as well as losing the kurdish areas, he has lost istanbul, including his own neighborhood. I argue in my 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 his efforts to create a ,rony class of capitalists controlling a large part of turkeys economic wealth, it is too liberal, democratic and secular with european values. Let me look at trajectories that are highlighted in my book. I see three trajectories moving forward. I will include looking at postreferendum Foreign Policy which merits discussion as well. The first trajectory is the current state of affairs, crisis. A deeply polarized society in which half of the country, the conservative wing, islamist, nationalist, three groups believe turkey is heaven. The other half is a loose coalition of opposition, socialists, leftist, democrats, liberal muslims who believe turkey is hell. This is the best case Going Forward, a permanent state of crisis turkey is stuck under. So long as turkey is generally democratic, he cannot continue to govern the way he wants. There is a chance you might become more autocratic Going Forward. There is a chance he might even end democracy going for. That is the second trajectory. The third is societal polarization coupled with attacks from the right, far right by isis and far left by ppk. Argue could even catapult turkey into an unfortunate and unwanted civil conflict. I want to turn and look at erdogans Foreign Policy challenges. I spend a lot of time in the book talking about how russia is the nemesis that keeps coming despite the fact that the russians are friendly toward erdogan. They are deploying troops and setting up a base. Policy also works withpg, but only where there is isis. Regime. The assad russia is in syria to hurt turkey. Erdogan isean coming to the was above the western world . He is not. We saw this in the runup to the referendum. That is going to continue. That has a lot to do with his next steps. He has become an executive style present. There are elections coming up. He has to win those elections for the parliament in his party. Voters of the nationalist action party, which is a smaller faction in the turkish parliament, about 10 , voted for erdogan indy referendum. Some of them voted against him. It is splitting. The split is happening where voters in central and northeastern anatolia are slipping for erdogan. Voters in the coastal provinces are slipping against erdogan. Apkseans he can solidify popularity. This is an ultranationalist party. Mhps supportat strengthens apk. When that happens, apk has a super majority in the parliament. I think that is his goal Going Forward. That means ultranationalist on foreignpolicy issues. I anticipate major problems in ties with europe. He has suggested bringing back capital punishment. That would mean turkey is kicked out of the council of europe. Turkish citizens will not have access to that, and that changes the political dynamics of the country. He controls the courts. I anticipate a hard nationalist foreignpolicy line toward u. S. Cooperation with ypg. That is in line with his hardline policy on the kurds in general to make sure that mhp ers who have fled for flipped for him become reliable apk voters. That is enough doom and gloom. I dont want to tell you all about the fourth trajectory. I will you to buy the book. He has made turkey wealthy. This is a middleclass society. That is where he deserves credit. Turkey has grown. The citizens look better off than they did before. Erdogan came to power, mortality rate in infant mortality rate in turkey was comparable to prewar syria. Growth hast this grown the middleclass space, and theyre making middleclass demands. It is the wealthy voters that have voted against him in the referendum. I dont want to get carried away with the case for liberal turkey because the opposition that is against erdogan is divided. Pro as large as the erdogan camp. It includes seculars and conservatives, center right, and centerleft. Sometimes the gap between them is as wide as the gap between them and erdogan. The opposition lacks a charismatic leader. Conservative islamists have their own ataturk. The real ataturk is dead. That is the challenge for the other half of turkey. Until the day that a man or woman emerges that could make the case for a liberal turkey that would have a constitution that would provide freedom of religion and freedom from religion simultaneously, that would provide broad liberties for all, individual liberties including the kurds, until that moment comes, irene deeply worried about turkeys future. While liberal turkey remains a distant dream, it is possible given the Economic Transformation turkey has gone on under erdogan. I think it is next to him that i will write my next book. [applause] good afternoon, everyone. , congratulations. He makes us look lazy. My boss loves you. Aside from that, i really enjoyed reading your book. When i picked up the book, the first thing that came to my mind was, which sultan . After the this point, referendum, we can live with sue lemond amended since, who was magnificent, who was a reformer. This book does a great job of opening a window into erdogans psyche and through telling his personal narratives, a narrative of victimhood, which resonates very well among his constituency and beyond. It is showing us the interaction between the founding ideology and the reactions to it. That is why i enjoyed reading the chapters on kurdish nationalism and islamism. I think turkey lives in a postcapitalist and postislamist era. Endwould expect this era to with liberal values. S a radical authoritarian ideology. Really embracing liberal values. The opposite is happening. Book,er mentions, in the there is a growing middle class in turkey. They are demanding middleclass values. This is striking because at a time when there is a growing middle class in turkey, they are not really demanding middleclass values. Instead there is a growing authoritarianism. I think there is something inherently authoritarian in turkish political culture. Some might blame me for being an essentialist. That liesthat is at the heart of the issue here. I believe the origin of turkeys political culture is the loss of the statist ideology. The state occupies a particular place in the turkish psyche. Rebuilding society. Everything has been done through state. Even the bourgeois was created by the state itself. That is why we have a middleclass, a businessclass that is not really standing up against erdogans policies in the 21st century. Many are aligning with the government. Bourgeoisie from the 19th century, the rebuilding of the booth was he by the state itself bourgeoisie was by the state itself. I think that explains the state of turkish democracy at the moment. The people who are supporting erdogan. Going back to the islam versus secular debate, i think the people who voted on sunday in favor of the referendum, the 50 were not voting for it for islamism. Those opposed to it were not entirely camelist either. The 50 that voted yes on sunday, they do not mind authoritarianism. Course, this is a very dark picture. Where do we go from here . Aboutbit optimistic sundays results. The resultant sunday gives me hope. Electro politics will play a role. We do not know what his strategy will be Going Forward. I believe despite his victory he has lost ground within his own constituency. He lost all major cities, including istanbul. He launched his political career interest. He has not lost political career in istanbul. That fact is very telling. Base, i dontrban think they are 100 happy with his authoritarian tendencies. In the runup to the referendum, he played to the nationalists. His main strategy was galvanizing the nationalist vote. I think that strategy did not pay off. He could not mobilize the nationalist space as much as he wanted to. Votesd, he increased his in the kurdish region compared to november elections. Which is surprising. Right now it is very blue. It is difficult very fluid. It is difficult to be sure about the numbers. We are hearing hundreds of thousands of people, the ruling party, they increased their boats around 400,000, which is almost 1 . Did a lot ofan that. Speech, the one on the day of the referendum, he said we increased our votes in the kurdish region. If he really wants to return to favor, i think that is good news. Instead of aligning with the nationalists, he may have to recalibrate his strategy and work with the kurds. That could mean, and i know my friends and colleagues here may disagree with me, he might go back to the negotiations, resume the peace talks with the kurds. Play instead of aligning with the nationalists, aligning with the kurds, that would be good news domestically. The turkish economy has been hit hard by terrorist attacks. I think the economic downturn is going to impact is proper popularity as well. That would make some room to maneuver in syria. That would remove some of the tension in the turkishu. S. Relations. I would like to be optimistic. On the other hand, knowing he is up yesterday, there was a panel, one of my colleagues mentioned that we have always known him as a pragmatic leader. Long,eeded power for so he hasecome the state himself. That was the point i was trying to make, ideologies captured him. Now he is not the pragmatic leader that we always thought he was. Instead, he will be more ideological, have those reflexes which might prevent him working with the kurdish nationalists. So it is difficult to make predictions when it comes to turkey. It might be easier now that we. Ave a president ial system when it comes to its what his nextay move is