Introduction

This introductory chapter will lay out the challenge of Turkey’s experience since 2002 presents for the theory of regime change and suggest a new conceptual strategy to overcome these difficulties. The theories of democratization used to analyze the AKP’s first decade on power failed to take the AKP’s view of democracy into account and later analyses of backsliding does not theorize its role. What makes articulating the AKP’s majoritarian view of democracy into a theoretical account is the mainstream, essentialist conceptual strategies prevalent in the study of democracy. Using an alternative dialogical strategy will reveal that the AKP’s view only partially overlaps with the dominant Western view. The dialogue between the West and the AKP led to the end of the regime dominated by the Army, however, the regime which replaced it was based on a legitimizing narrative that prioritizes the National Will above everything else.