"A fitting external security environment could also play an important role in promoting social consensus and institutionalization towards democratization"
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Democratic change rarely unfolds in a vacuum; it is shaped by the world beyond a countrys borders. When leaders and citizens feel shielded from war, terror, and great-power turbulence, the space for argument, compromise, and institution-building widens. Fear narrows politics. Calm, or at least predictable stability, makes consensus imaginable and gives reforms time to take root.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan voices a truth that fits Turkeys trajectory. In the early 2000s, the prospect of European Union accession offered both security guarantees and a roadmap. External anchors like NATO and the EU lowered perceived existential risks and supplied incentives for civilian control of the military, legal harmonization, and expanded rights. That environment encouraged disparate groups secularists, Islamists, Kurds, business elites to bargain within institutions rather than fight over them. When borders ignited and regional conflicts intensified after the Iraq invasion and the Syrian civil war, the language of emergency crowded out the language of reform. Polarization hardened, and security imperatives justified exceptional measures that weakened democratic norms.
The claim also captures a wider pattern. Spain, Portugal, and Greece consolidated democracy under the umbrella of a peaceful Europe, while South Korea and Taiwan liberalized amid reliable external security guarantees. External pressure can be coercive or supportive, but when it reduces existential fear and offers clear rewards for compliance, it makes institutionalization politically safer.
There is a caution embedded in the phrase fitting external security environment. Leaders can define fitting as perpetually absent and delay reforms until conditions are perfect. They can also wield security as a catchall pretext to centralize power. The test is whether security policy lowers the political temperature and broadens inclusion, or stokes siege mentalities and narrows the field of legitimate opposition.
Democratization needs ballots, courts, and norms, but it also needs a horizon free of looming catastrophe. External stability does not guarantee freedom, yet without it, fragile consensus and new institutions struggle to survive.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan voices a truth that fits Turkeys trajectory. In the early 2000s, the prospect of European Union accession offered both security guarantees and a roadmap. External anchors like NATO and the EU lowered perceived existential risks and supplied incentives for civilian control of the military, legal harmonization, and expanded rights. That environment encouraged disparate groups secularists, Islamists, Kurds, business elites to bargain within institutions rather than fight over them. When borders ignited and regional conflicts intensified after the Iraq invasion and the Syrian civil war, the language of emergency crowded out the language of reform. Polarization hardened, and security imperatives justified exceptional measures that weakened democratic norms.
The claim also captures a wider pattern. Spain, Portugal, and Greece consolidated democracy under the umbrella of a peaceful Europe, while South Korea and Taiwan liberalized amid reliable external security guarantees. External pressure can be coercive or supportive, but when it reduces existential fear and offers clear rewards for compliance, it makes institutionalization politically safer.
There is a caution embedded in the phrase fitting external security environment. Leaders can define fitting as perpetually absent and delay reforms until conditions are perfect. They can also wield security as a catchall pretext to centralize power. The test is whether security policy lowers the political temperature and broadens inclusion, or stokes siege mentalities and narrows the field of legitimate opposition.
Democratization needs ballots, courts, and norms, but it also needs a horizon free of looming catastrophe. External stability does not guarantee freedom, yet without it, fragile consensus and new institutions struggle to survive.
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| Topic | Freedom |
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