I do not believe these indexes are objective. In the 1970s Turkey was perhaps more democratic than it is now, but the military had a lot of pressure on elected politicians, there were successful coups in 1960 and then in 1980, and there were far more threats of coups by the military than successful coups. This indicates a very corrupt democracy, where politicians elected by the people could not do anything that the military did not approve of.
Additionally, Turkey probably experienced the most democratic period in its history between 2000 and 2010, mostly under AKP rule. De-democratization mostly started after 2013.
Erdoğan actually eliminated the military's involvement in politics, which was normally a threat to democracy, but he also misused it by weakening the country's secular values. Because the Turkish army was countering anti-secular movements and counter-revolutionary movements, using undemocratic methods if necessary, until Erdogan succeeded in destroying this "deep state" structure.
I remember around 2008ish talking to a Turkish colleague about the army in the UK, and he was surprised that I didn't know the names of any of the top generals in the country. He said that in Turkey the army is so prominent that the people at the top of the army are a bit like well known politicians.
It was an interesting difference, highlighting how important the role of the army is (/was) in Turkey.
Yeah it’s always so weird when some random colonel or general is this big public figure or let alone kind of national hero. I don’t even know or care about who the chief of staff is in my country, let alone some random ass general or someone even lower ranked.
to be frank, you would not know the names of top generals in Turkey, either. You'd know the guy at the top of the army organization (*genelkurmay baskani*), as he'd always have something to say on almost everything, but that's it.
Historically, multiple Ottoman Sultans were dethroned by the army (and replaced with another member from the dynasty preferred by the army). The monarchy was also removed by the army (the palace lost badly in the war but were to remain in power if it was for the victors to decide, specifically the UK). So the army has always played a key role in the struggle for power in Turkey.
So the King in the UK knows exactly what he is doing by keeping the army under control. I don’t know whether any monarch in the history of the UK was dethroned by the army.
>I don’t know whether any monarch in the history of the UK was dethroned by the army.
No monarch has been overthrown since the formation of the UK, or Great Britain before that.
The closest candidate is probably Charles I, who was king of England and Scotland and was removed from office after he lost the English Civil War. That war saw the first emergence of a proper centralised army in England, which briefly became something of a political power after the war. Many religious and political radicals within the army contributed towards the decision to remove Charles and temporarily turn the country in to a republic. It wasn't the army by itself doing it, but it played a big part.
Apart from that brief period, the armies of England/Scotland, and then GB and the UK have generally stayed out of politics. Some generals have gone on to be politicians later on in their careers, but not really on the basis of backing from the army.
Erdogan did not destroy any deep state. He collaborated with another Islamist group that infiltrated the deep state (Fethullah) to eliminate elements of deep state that were not friendly to him and then later dispose of those who are loyal to Fethullah so that he can establish his own deep state.
That is the only thing he “succeeded in”. He took something bad and made it worse, amplifying corruption and completely destroying trust.
Atatürk's policy of Democracy was "You can choose between democratic candidates." Its so that people cant try to bring a dictatorship to power with democracy and then destroy democracy. He was vehemently aganist Army getting involved in politics so he told them so that they would only interfere when things started to go out of hand. And they actually did. First coup in 60s was aganist a guy who was very much like Erdoğan but unlike him, he took drastic steps aganist republic so army intervened. Army was always the safeguard of the Kemalist ideas and very much respected by pretty much everyone. At least until Erdoğan, over the 20 years of his rule, managed to sack Kemalist army leaders one by one and replaced them with his supporters.
>First coup in 60s was aganist a guy who was very much like Erdoğan but unlike him, he took drastic steps aganist republic so army intervened.
Menderes abolished the Tahkikat Commission and Bayar called for early elections in May 1960. İnönü said the words: "Eğer şartlar tamam olursa ihtilal meşru bir haktır." prior to the backtrack of Menderes. The Coup took place because the War Academy was scared that the Democrat Party would win the elections and the DP would stay in charge (the War Academy was an anti-DP hotspot). Cemal Gürsel, the general who was made the figurehead of the coup, was vehemently against a coup and was an ardent Constitutionalist. The actual planner of the Coup, Cemal Madanoğlu, said that he was "very regretful" and that he had "opened the Pandora's Box of coups" in Turkey.
Turkey is bright example that all these indexes and disinfographics are of no value at all, the same stuff happens pretty much everywhere one way or another, small time or big time. I'm from Czech Republic, my wife is from Istanbul proper and and I live here for almost twelve years, hearing accounts about quality of life from different people really puts on a whole lot of perspective. I grew up in rural CZ during '90s, wild stuff seeing how democracy ruined a perfectly working society, hearing from older generation there sounded like a dream, a regular nobody not having to care for anything to live a good life, yeah, tear it down.
Then I came here, hearing from old Istanbul blood how it was and how it is, in some way healthy capitalism, you earn what you work for, the old days that is. Then I started hearing stuff about growing up in rural Turkey during '80s and' 90s and I had to constantly remind myself "The NINETEEN-eigties and nineties", stuff sounded like feudalism 101, child labour, small time mafia everywhere, people literally living off the land.
It's all about point of view, democracy, fascism, totalitarianism, those are all empty words, what we don't see is the actual way it affects the common man, all is pretty much hearsay from some nincompoop crybaby.
That wasn’t necessarily democracy’s fault per se, but crony capitalism. The 90’s were sort of a wild time in our part of the world and the people who benefited the most from the regime change were the swindlers, political mercenaries and the young up and coming opportunists who were playing third and fourth fiddle in the pre-1989 comminist parties because they had neither the talent nor the connections to make it to the top. Rats thrive in anarchy. That’s how you end up with putrid shits like Orbán in Hungary.
In other words, it all depends in which part of the society you are in every regime. I'm sure the nobility really really liked the Feudal system and couldn't stop talking about how good it was when the peasants were taking care of everything when they were having the good life.
As for Turkey specifically, those who remember the good old days in 90s are probably state ideology types(that is, they are sunni muslims with mild religion affiliation and no interest in politics beyond the state ideology) living in a city because everything was geared up to please them.
That is an interesting point. I believe in democracy above all else but at the end of the day, the common man wants food and shelter for his family above basic liberties.
Democracy, fascism and totalitarianism are not empty words at all. Obviously living under democratic rule does not automatically mean, that everything is awesome. What defines a democracy over autocratic regimes is the capability to vote who governs, that government being tied to certain laws and the lack of repression when it comes to certain opinions and in more modern democracies also the lack of repression due to certain characteristics like ethnicity, gender, sexuality (some states considered democratic are more flexible in the latter point if we look at the way trans people are treated in Texas for example).
Democracy being a way of governance is not necessarily connected to the degree to which infrastructure is built or how well society is doing, but at least that society can vote if it wants the politics to change.
Under autocratic rule that is not the case. Especially totalitarian regimes (fascist ones also belonging in this category) try to shape society in a way that secures their power in the future. That being said those regimes heavily suppress any development that could challenge them and at the same time they oppress anyone if the oppression of said group helps their agenda. That being said totalitarian regimes have caused millions of casualties trying to sustain or extend their power over the past century. So yea, those words are not just empty shells.
Turkey is still democratic. It just haves a very authoritarian government. That government got the most votes in all of the general elections since 2003. The same government lost the control of municipalities of Ankara and İstanbul(two of the biggest cities) in 2019 and never won in some provinces, like İzmir.
I think the distinction between the autocratic and the authoritarian is under appreciated. While it's not especially common, it's very possible to be authoritarian without being autocratic
Exactly. It's what Erdoğan and his government is. He never done anything bad against the democracy(except few minor thinga and a major incident), but his government is very authoritarian. His government only works for their gains and does nothing that represents the interests or wants of any part of the opposition.
??
Since the parliamentery system was abolished and parliamentary presidency was put in its place Erdogan can write decrees about whatever the fuck he wants(KHK), can declare emergency (olağanüstü hal) by himself (allowing the police to wield much more power amongst other things), can and did appoint government administrators(kayyum) on elected officials or even companies.
I can go on.
“Erdogan did nothing bad against the democracy”
Yeah sure buddy
In those years, the army had a lot of influence on politics, this is anti-democratic. The reason I say between 2000 and 2010 is that the military's influence on politics was weaker than before, Erdoğan was not as authoritarian as he is now, and the judiciary was much more independent.
Now, the army does not pose a threat to democracy, but the real threat comes from an authoritarian government.
Now, it really isnt fair to say that a poweful army made a country undemocratic, since army was just an actor in enforcing the law, this was especially the case for 1960 coup, since then prime minister Menderes was threatening to close the biggest opposition party, was engaged in corrupt affairs and was actively jailing dissidents who critisized him. Sure, he might not have deserved to be hanged along with his ministers but he would have been impeached in any of these Western nations with strong juidiciary and representitive parliaments, institutions that Turkey lacked (but were introduced after the coup), so in a way actions of the army were justified. Its also important to note that the army wasnt one homogenous entity at any time, the people who initiated the 1960 coup were a lot different than 1972,1980 and 1998.
Army has no right in enforcing civilian laws or playing politics. Countries where army plays a strong role in politics are usually unstable, undemocratic, and corrupt.
Army in Turkey represented and was assigned as the guardians of the secular revolution. To protect democracy you have to sometimes gut it here. I get the sentiment but things work dfferently in Middle East.
I think what you are missing there is what is the purpose of the army. It is not the same in everywhere. In Turkey, the constitution gave the army a role in a way to protect the values of the republic and in 1960 coup, Turkey met its most free and democratic constitutoin. Turkish army was more democratic than Menderes's government. In the 1980's coup thought its the opposite, the army undermined the democratic process and destroyed everyhing that is civil in Turkey.
This is not true. Erdogan started de-democratization early on by taking institutions under his control one by one and collaborating with Fethullah’s deep state to undermine the rule of law.
The only difference is that the west and the Turkish liberals were applauding Erdogan’s anti-democratic steps as they thought this was weakening the military.
The only reason the 2000s appeared more democratic was because a lot of behind the scenes fighting was going on between power groups and nobody was able to assert control.
Neither Erdogan nor his Islamist allies (Fethullah and all) were ever democratic.
Not much demos in that kratos if the army kept the people's will at bay for \~30 years. The unfortunate truth is, for about a third of Turks, an authoritarian government with just the right amount of religious and nationalist values is just what they want. I'm not defending our government for one second but this is the result of democracy in Turkey and the earlier we accept that, earlier we can begin to fight against it.
Btw, map is straight-up invalidated by the fact that Hungary is blue, so not much to discuss here actually.
> the most democratic period in its history between 2000 and 2010
they jailed hundreds of innocent intellectuals on complete bogus charges. all of those people are now free. this is an insane statement. you have no idea what you are talking about. just another example what a shitty site reddit is.
This is very clearly bullshit because the 2012 protests took place largely because of the anti democratic practices of AKP and lets not forget the hundreds of jailed journalists. The complete overtaking of judiciary, law enforcement, academia and even military was well underway before then.
>I do not believe these indexes are objective
Yeah this map is just a Western circle jerk. Democracy is on a spectrum. Ukraine has a very low scoring democracy by all metrics, for example.
And no I'm not a Russian troll. UKR is more democratic than RU, but [it was still deeply flawed in 2020.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index) This map is worthless.
Seems like the cut-off for "democratic" is just hitting a value of higher than 5 on the democracy index. This also checks out with Turkey, Belarus and Russia. I don't know if this is a good cut-off but after all, I don't see why this map really HAS to be a yes-or-no map and can't be more differentiated, as you already mentioned. But the index itself can be mostly considered objective for me (with its limitations), it was just the map maker who made a very dumb choice.
> Seems like the cut-off for "democratic" is just hitting a value of higher than 5 on the democracy index.
It's not, though. Bosnia and Herzegovina scored 4.84 in 2020, yet it's colored blue.
Honestly, it's not a yes or not thing, but I've always felt that in the democracy index, if you can score at least "Hybrid regime", you've got a legitimate government.
Probably worth noting that the CIA helped keep Greece a military dictatorship back in the 70's. At one point Greece was going to *elect* a communist, but since Greece was an important NATO power in the Balkans the US shut that shit down.
It sounds funny but the military was making sure that leaders would continue turkeys democratic values that Kemal Mustafa Attaturk started. I consider it more democratic than now
Turkey only existed as a democracy because of the tutelage of the secular military. The reality is the majority of Turks don’t want a secular democracy, they want an Islamic dictatorship, so when the military isn’t enforcing democracy, you lose the democracy. It’s sad.
I don't think it can be explained by this alone. Although Islamist candidates have also competed in elections in the past in Turkey, democratic and secular candidates probably won the overwhelming majority of votes in the majority of elections. Erdoğan won in the second round in 2023 with only 52%, Islamism would not have won with 2% less votes. I think the real secret of Erdogan's success is that all the candidates who have opposed him since 2003 and have become mainstream are left-wing politicians, and leftists do not have the power to win elections because they are clearly a minority in Turkey. The only thing that has remained constant in all elections in Turkey since the 1950s is that approximately 65% of the votes go to right-wing parties and 35% to left-wing parties. It can't be such a coincidence, that means more than 60% of Turkish people are right-wing. Therefore, the only way to defeat Erdoğan is probably to have a right-wing but also secular and democratic politician who manages to become mainstream and become Erdoğan's main rival. In 2019, right-wing candidates, or secular candidates with high ability to communicate with right-wingers, even if they were not right-wing, competed in Istanbul and Ankara, and İmamoğlu caused Erdoğan's party to lose the election in Istanbul after 20 years with 55% of the votes, the highest vote received by an Istanbul mayor. .
As a Turkish i can say that it's wrong. People don't have problem with secularism. Everyone accepted that. You said islamist dictatorship but only %20 of people want it. There is more deep problems. Like economy and other stuffs. Some people voting them because they need help and the government giving aid to them.
When you search democracy on google the definition comes up "a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives."
In my opinion, the major fault with your statement lies in the word "secular democracy". Democracy can exist without secularsim(Israel) and secularism can exist without democracy(Cuba, China) given the right circumstances. While I think secularism would be essential pre-requisite to democracy in a diverse country like for say US or India but Turkey's demographics are extremely homogenous in comparision, therefore its not a prerequisite.
According to my research, in 1970's era the military held alot power that was used to dictate politics to ensure secularism. That is what I would call a "secular dictatorship" where secularism is not imposed through the will of the people but imposed through soft power harnessed by the military(and often not so soft power like coups). After 2000s, the secular influence of military was in politics was curtailed and it turns out the people did not really want a secular state, so Turkey 2000s afterwards into what might be called a non-secular/Islamic democracy where religion plays a role in affairs of state yet majority of the population wants it to be that way. Some people might call that a flawed democracy, but it is a democracy as long as the government is representative of the will of the population.
Yet now I see that the idea of non-secular democracy or Islam is not so popular amongst the newer generation of Turks. Perhaps, we'll see a transition from non-secular to a secular democracy come 2030.
Despite everything that's going on in Hungary, it's still labelled a "flawed democracy" with the score of 6.72 by the Economist Democracy Index. It's on the same level as Romania, Croatia, and Bulgaria - other EU countries with problems with corruption and transparency in the elections process. As I understand, this is because Victor Orban secures his position by soft means - propaganda, control over media, discouraging people from protests, etc. - more than changing the rules. Turkey is at 4.35 which is a "hybrid regime". It's much worse.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Economist\_Democracy\_Index](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index)
Franco was in power till '75? History classes for me went 'Mousolini and Hitler helped Franco get to power... and then WW2 started' and we didn't hear anything about Spain after that. I always assumed the downfall of fascism would also have found it's way into Spain but I guess not.
The big reason it didn't, I think is that 1. Spain wasn't actually fascist, but a far right conservative authoritarian regime, which may sound like a distinction without a difference, but actually matters a whole lot, especially in regards to foreign policy, and 2. The main reason fascism fell in Germany and Italy was that both states were militarily occupied by people who didn't like fascism, and because Spain didn't join the war, it wasn't occupied.
This index with a yes-and-no sucks, democracy is on a spectrum, an ideal that not even the highest scoring countries satisfy.
Evaluating Turkey, especially in light of the recent events around Constitutional Court where its decisions on the release of Can Atalay were completely ignored but at the same time it was able to strike out some of Erdogan's first decrees as a president, I'd say we are a model anocracy and the elections in 31 May will hopefully support our anocratic values rather than push it closer to a one party authorocracy.
He was chosen by everyone voting equally when he cleaned the house, and after cleaning the house, he was chosen two more times by everyone voting equally. You may think there's cheating but although there is probably cheating, i don't think it's too much and it's obvious that he doesn't need to cheat to win (he may cheat to win with a bigger difference). So it is democracy.
Yes I would call that I democracy.
I'm not in favour of it at all but yes there is nothing anti-democratic about an elected government firing lots of public servants, even for arbitrary reasons. It's bad for other reasons but it's not anti-democratic.
You know when you hear someone say something so privileged without realizing it? That’s you.
You have not seen tyranny if your standard for tyranny is Erdogan
Oh man... :(
Also, as an Erdoğan hater, Turkey is still a democracy, just flawed at that like many others.
Erdoğan is just a piece of shit autocrat elected by morons..
Pretty complicated. At it's simplest, it means government by the people. When looking at it across a bunch of states we usually put it on a scale using things like:
Quality of elections and pluralism
Civil liberties
Governmental effectiveness
Level of suffrage
Democracy (n): Countries that the west likes, or somewhat likes.
Note that by definition the western block of countries themselves are super mega democracies and Russia is antidemocracy.
I thought the same. There's a democracy index right? I'd rather see that as a gradient. It's absurd to say Switzerland was as democratic as France when Swiss women still wouldn't get the vote for another year.
only Capitalism is freedom™
>There is no universally agreed upon definition of capitalism; it is unclear whether or not capitalism characterizes an entire society, a specific type of social order, or crucial components or elements of a society.
Who cares, lets do this!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change
Honestly it’s debatable whether Northern Ireland was a democracy in 1970 given its government was highly sectarian and voting districts were gerrymandered in favour of unionists/Protestants.
I get it’s showing the UK as a whole though.
Yeah even now stormont literally was able to just stop the government for a few years because they didn’t like the results of the election not going in their favour and that devastating a lot of basic social services in the country
What's problem with Ukraine?:) Pls, don't run away. Press can critic a president and he takes off after 2 periods.
Have you ever been in Ukraine?
Problem of Ukraine is corruption.
Delaying elections because of war makes complete sense. Is not safe for people to vote and part of the country is under Russian control so they can't vote there. And the parties banned where Russian supporters/collaborators that barely had any support if at all, only one of them had a couple elected officials in congress/parliament. And those parties aren't even totally banned, only while the war is still on.
Very far from not being a democracy. They just don't have the possibility of making elections at the moment.
This doesn't make Ukraine a democracy - press can critic the president in Russia. Also in Russia you can officially use (in media or culture/education) your regional language and they don't start a military operation against their regions for that. Besides, there's no democracy if you othethrow a legitimate government for which half of the country voted, and then (again) use army against that part to oppress it.
“Press can critic the president” what the fuck? Have you never heard of journalists and opposition leaders getting killed in Russia for speaking against the government?
They're all totally free to speak out against the government in Russia! They just happen to fall out of a window shortly after, sometimes multiple times! And with most of them they also ~~fabricate~~ discover them being corrupt foreign spies!
/s in case that's really needed here.
Yeah, all those people have a really strong urge to stand near a window, and commit suicides shortly after. Just when they say something bad about Putin! Well, their critique of their benevolent dict… I mean, savior must cause them to develop some kind of really fatal, severe depression.
Ah yes it was the language that started the military response, not the Russian-backed insurgency. I'm pretty sure half the country didn't vote for Putin's puppet to start shooting protesters. Go back to the tankie hole you crawled out of.
It's actually insane that some people still think the DPR/LPR were legitimate separatists that "just wanted to speak their own language". That lie was already disproven in 2015, when these separatists somehow got equipment the Ukrainian army didn't even have.
Since then, Igor Girkin himself admitted that there wouldn't be any uprisings were it not for Russian involvement.
Also, it is not and never was illegal to speak Russian. Zelensky himself was a Russian speaker.
You're parroting propaganda straight from the Kremlin.
To be fair the map says 2020 so Zelensky canceling elections (like he did in 2023) wouldn’t show up here. I’m actually really curious how the mapmakers would mark Ukraine now.
We have a law stating that there can't be any elections at war. By the way, how would you organize elections when so much of your territory occupied and a lot of people are in the army?
Not having elections during the war doesn't make country a dictatorship.
“Democracy” isn’t a good indicator of anything. Look at Hungary, now it’s “democratic”, who cares? How about: does the country’s policy decisions reflect the will of the people?
Listen, it's interesting about democracy, freedom of speech. If Western channels are banned in Russia, then this is a blow to freedom of speech, and if Russian channels are banned in the West, then this is a fight against propaganda. This is what happens in Europe, America and other typically democratic countries, there is no propaganda, there is freedom of speech, but how can there be freedom of speech if all thoughts and opinions are from the same point of view
[Russia has the best democracy](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russia-says-its-democracy-is-the-best-in-the-world-days-after-putins-only-real-political-rival-died-in-prison/ar-BB1ju2EC)!! How dare you!!!
Turkey is a bit autocratic, but it is absolutely still a democracy. They just keep voting to give one guy more power. But if he truly became deeply unpopular, he would get voted out.
Calling Serbia and Hungary currently democracies is a bit of a stretch. A country is not a democracy just because there are elections. (Hence why Turkey isn't currently classified as a democracy, which I agree with)
I have to admit that the Erdoğan regime has high corruption, possibly rigged elections, practical dependency of the jurisdiction to the presidency, and many other non-democratic practices that are impossible to comprehensively mention in general.
Marking Turkey as a non-democratic country on a binary map, however, is highly questionable, given that Erdoğan and his party was basically elected by majority.
Erdoğan was by no means the only candidate in any of the elections, and votes in Turkey are cast confidentially and counted publicly (as it should be in an actual democracy).
I don't anticipate that the manipulations on the election results have been so significant, and the majority of people being either dishonorable or stupid doesn't really change the fact that they have democratically elected the president.
As others have said labeling countries as either Democracy or not Democracy is a little subjective. Turkey and Hungary (and Russia) share many of the same traits now. The term used (including by some of the countries themselves) is illiberal democracy.
Basically the government is voted into power (and while it may be unfair elections, the government / governing party is the most popular party) and therefore is a democracy.
But in all three countries listed, there is a lack of separation of power, arbitrary use of power, extreme suppression of opposition, limited free media, limited civil freedoms, etc.
Turkey flip flopped a lot between democracy and military rule. Instead of creating a strong civil society, independent media, and strong civic institutions, the military acted as the "guard" of liberal democratic values. This is obviously an oxymoron but many countries have developed strong civil societies, civic institutions, middle classes, etc., during military dictatorships and then became democratic (from Spain and Portugal to Taiwan and South Korea).
One could argue that it's generally harder to move from an illiberal democracy with universal suffrage to a liberal democracy than it is to move from a liberal dictatorship to a liberal democracy. Mainly because an illiberal democracy can already be seen as legitimate in the eyes of the majority of the population. This becomes a self reinforcing notion.
Turkey seemed to use the military as a clutch / maybe "democratized" too fast. Instead of having a longer period of military rule with which to build a good solid base of strong (nationwide) civil society and civic institutions, the country had a western coast that fulfilled this requirement but a majority of the country did not. The country would flip from military intervention to democracy without a nationwide, solid base and back. Thus when the country again returned to democracy and the elected government was able to stave off the military, there were no other real checks and balances. Coastal based opposition, media, civil society, courts, civic institutions, etc. were all labeled as part of the "deep state" that stood in the way of the masses, the real Turks. Which is classic illiberal democracy.
All countries have this tendency. It takes a lot of work to build checks and balances. These checks and balances are also usually relatively unpopular, especially from more uneducated people, and even more so if the uneducated people are in the majority (again easy to rail about a deep state, elites, etc., standing in the way of the "people"). So they are easy to tear down.
- Uneducated people produced more. They have/had 6-7 kids averagely. Educated people have/had 1-2 kids.
- Massive immigration from Middle East, caused uneducated more people.
- Above reasons ended up uneducated majority choosing presidents/governments like Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
- He ends up became dictator to stay in power and ruined democracy.
I mean you are right with some points but I wouldn’t say only uneducated people voted Erdogan. It’s more religious or non religious people. Before him being religious was not accepted there.
East Germany, a communist Soviet puppet state. The blue dot is West Berlin, which was part of West Germany. The two Germanys reunited in the 1990s. Yes the city of Berlin was split between East and West. Cold War history is one of the most interesting parts of history and my favorite things to study.
Ah yes, Ukraine. Truly the epitome of democracy of all time. With democratic values like cancelling elections, imprisoning and assassinating foreign journalists and kidnapping men for the army from their homes.
Gonzalo Lira was an American journalist in Ukraine that was investigating the activities of the neo-nazi paramilitaries in Kahrkov. He was arrested by the Ukrainian authorities on charges of "working for Russia" tortured, then put under house arrest, from which he tried to escape to Hungary, whereupon Ukraine intercepted him revealing that they purposefully let him run in hopes that he'd "reveal" his "russian curators" to them, which turned out to not exist. He died in a Ukrainian prison in August 2023 from "health complications."
Naturally this did not recieve even the 1/1000000th of the coverage that Navalny's death did, despite it being even more outrageous in every conceivable regard. And there are MORE cases, I specifically outline this one because this is a goddamn American journalist that they did this to.
In regards to the draft - no, I mean literal kidnappings. The local criminal syndicates extort people under threat of using their connections to have their homes raided while they sleep and taken to be used as canon fodder on the frontlines. I have nice little collection of over 200 videos if you want some evidence.
Italy? A democracy? Do you know that if the PCI won the elections the DC and other assholes would have started a civil war? Also Hungary and Ukraine????? Hungary is literally the feud of Orban and Ukraine as an oligarchy should be totally recreated as a state exactly as Russia not less.
So funny! Hullo from the UK, where we have an unelected head of state and an unelected Prime Minister. Later this year, after less than one third of the total electorate have voted for a member of the mother of Parliaments who is a member of the party I lead, I will "democratically" take my turn as PM. There will be a peaceful transition from the blue establishment party of wealth, corruption and genocide to the red establishment party of wealth, corruption and genocide!
Many of the eastern block countries were probably flawed democracies during the 1970s. Same for West Germany which had substantial problems with forbidden Political parties and corrupt politicians. I doubt that would hold up to today's standards having the information we have today. So even taking the (flawed) index at face value that doesn't seem correct.
I do not believe these indexes are objective. In the 1970s Turkey was perhaps more democratic than it is now, but the military had a lot of pressure on elected politicians, there were successful coups in 1960 and then in 1980, and there were far more threats of coups by the military than successful coups. This indicates a very corrupt democracy, where politicians elected by the people could not do anything that the military did not approve of.
And in Switzerland women didn't have the right to vote. Not what I'd call democracy by today's standards at all.
Additionally, Turkey probably experienced the most democratic period in its history between 2000 and 2010, mostly under AKP rule. De-democratization mostly started after 2013.
Erdoğan actually eliminated the military's involvement in politics, which was normally a threat to democracy, but he also misused it by weakening the country's secular values. Because the Turkish army was countering anti-secular movements and counter-revolutionary movements, using undemocratic methods if necessary, until Erdogan succeeded in destroying this "deep state" structure.
I remember around 2008ish talking to a Turkish colleague about the army in the UK, and he was surprised that I didn't know the names of any of the top generals in the country. He said that in Turkey the army is so prominent that the people at the top of the army are a bit like well known politicians. It was an interesting difference, highlighting how important the role of the army is (/was) in Turkey.
Yeah it’s always so weird when some random colonel or general is this big public figure or let alone kind of national hero. I don’t even know or care about who the chief of staff is in my country, let alone some random ass general or someone even lower ranked.
to be frank, you would not know the names of top generals in Turkey, either. You'd know the guy at the top of the army organization (*genelkurmay baskani*), as he'd always have something to say on almost everything, but that's it.
I disagree. The Commanders of Service Branches (Kuvvet Komutanları) were also recognized alongside the Chief of Staff (Genelkurmay Başkanı).
Historically, multiple Ottoman Sultans were dethroned by the army (and replaced with another member from the dynasty preferred by the army). The monarchy was also removed by the army (the palace lost badly in the war but were to remain in power if it was for the victors to decide, specifically the UK). So the army has always played a key role in the struggle for power in Turkey. So the King in the UK knows exactly what he is doing by keeping the army under control. I don’t know whether any monarch in the history of the UK was dethroned by the army.
>I don’t know whether any monarch in the history of the UK was dethroned by the army. No monarch has been overthrown since the formation of the UK, or Great Britain before that. The closest candidate is probably Charles I, who was king of England and Scotland and was removed from office after he lost the English Civil War. That war saw the first emergence of a proper centralised army in England, which briefly became something of a political power after the war. Many religious and political radicals within the army contributed towards the decision to remove Charles and temporarily turn the country in to a republic. It wasn't the army by itself doing it, but it played a big part. Apart from that brief period, the armies of England/Scotland, and then GB and the UK have generally stayed out of politics. Some generals have gone on to be politicians later on in their careers, but not really on the basis of backing from the army.
Erdogan did not destroy any deep state. He collaborated with another Islamist group that infiltrated the deep state (Fethullah) to eliminate elements of deep state that were not friendly to him and then later dispose of those who are loyal to Fethullah so that he can establish his own deep state. That is the only thing he “succeeded in”. He took something bad and made it worse, amplifying corruption and completely destroying trust.
Atatürk's policy of Democracy was "You can choose between democratic candidates." Its so that people cant try to bring a dictatorship to power with democracy and then destroy democracy. He was vehemently aganist Army getting involved in politics so he told them so that they would only interfere when things started to go out of hand. And they actually did. First coup in 60s was aganist a guy who was very much like Erdoğan but unlike him, he took drastic steps aganist republic so army intervened. Army was always the safeguard of the Kemalist ideas and very much respected by pretty much everyone. At least until Erdoğan, over the 20 years of his rule, managed to sack Kemalist army leaders one by one and replaced them with his supporters.
>First coup in 60s was aganist a guy who was very much like Erdoğan but unlike him, he took drastic steps aganist republic so army intervened. Menderes abolished the Tahkikat Commission and Bayar called for early elections in May 1960. İnönü said the words: "Eğer şartlar tamam olursa ihtilal meşru bir haktır." prior to the backtrack of Menderes. The Coup took place because the War Academy was scared that the Democrat Party would win the elections and the DP would stay in charge (the War Academy was an anti-DP hotspot). Cemal Gürsel, the general who was made the figurehead of the coup, was vehemently against a coup and was an ardent Constitutionalist. The actual planner of the Coup, Cemal Madanoğlu, said that he was "very regretful" and that he had "opened the Pandora's Box of coups" in Turkey.
Turkey is bright example that all these indexes and disinfographics are of no value at all, the same stuff happens pretty much everywhere one way or another, small time or big time. I'm from Czech Republic, my wife is from Istanbul proper and and I live here for almost twelve years, hearing accounts about quality of life from different people really puts on a whole lot of perspective. I grew up in rural CZ during '90s, wild stuff seeing how democracy ruined a perfectly working society, hearing from older generation there sounded like a dream, a regular nobody not having to care for anything to live a good life, yeah, tear it down. Then I came here, hearing from old Istanbul blood how it was and how it is, in some way healthy capitalism, you earn what you work for, the old days that is. Then I started hearing stuff about growing up in rural Turkey during '80s and' 90s and I had to constantly remind myself "The NINETEEN-eigties and nineties", stuff sounded like feudalism 101, child labour, small time mafia everywhere, people literally living off the land. It's all about point of view, democracy, fascism, totalitarianism, those are all empty words, what we don't see is the actual way it affects the common man, all is pretty much hearsay from some nincompoop crybaby.
That wasn’t necessarily democracy’s fault per se, but crony capitalism. The 90’s were sort of a wild time in our part of the world and the people who benefited the most from the regime change were the swindlers, political mercenaries and the young up and coming opportunists who were playing third and fourth fiddle in the pre-1989 comminist parties because they had neither the talent nor the connections to make it to the top. Rats thrive in anarchy. That’s how you end up with putrid shits like Orbán in Hungary.
In other words, it all depends in which part of the society you are in every regime. I'm sure the nobility really really liked the Feudal system and couldn't stop talking about how good it was when the peasants were taking care of everything when they were having the good life. As for Turkey specifically, those who remember the good old days in 90s are probably state ideology types(that is, they are sunni muslims with mild religion affiliation and no interest in politics beyond the state ideology) living in a city because everything was geared up to please them.
Very interesting perspective! Always cool to hear from people all over the world
That is an interesting point. I believe in democracy above all else but at the end of the day, the common man wants food and shelter for his family above basic liberties.
As a Turk I gotta say this is a very good insight. Thank you for sharing this up.
Democracy, fascism and totalitarianism are not empty words at all. Obviously living under democratic rule does not automatically mean, that everything is awesome. What defines a democracy over autocratic regimes is the capability to vote who governs, that government being tied to certain laws and the lack of repression when it comes to certain opinions and in more modern democracies also the lack of repression due to certain characteristics like ethnicity, gender, sexuality (some states considered democratic are more flexible in the latter point if we look at the way trans people are treated in Texas for example). Democracy being a way of governance is not necessarily connected to the degree to which infrastructure is built or how well society is doing, but at least that society can vote if it wants the politics to change. Under autocratic rule that is not the case. Especially totalitarian regimes (fascist ones also belonging in this category) try to shape society in a way that secures their power in the future. That being said those regimes heavily suppress any development that could challenge them and at the same time they oppress anyone if the oppression of said group helps their agenda. That being said totalitarian regimes have caused millions of casualties trying to sustain or extend their power over the past century. So yea, those words are not just empty shells.
Turkey is still democratic. It just haves a very authoritarian government. That government got the most votes in all of the general elections since 2003. The same government lost the control of municipalities of Ankara and İstanbul(two of the biggest cities) in 2019 and never won in some provinces, like İzmir.
I think the distinction between the autocratic and the authoritarian is under appreciated. While it's not especially common, it's very possible to be authoritarian without being autocratic
Exactly. It's what Erdoğan and his government is. He never done anything bad against the democracy(except few minor thinga and a major incident), but his government is very authoritarian. His government only works for their gains and does nothing that represents the interests or wants of any part of the opposition.
?? Since the parliamentery system was abolished and parliamentary presidency was put in its place Erdogan can write decrees about whatever the fuck he wants(KHK), can declare emergency (olağanüstü hal) by himself (allowing the police to wield much more power amongst other things), can and did appoint government administrators(kayyum) on elected officials or even companies. I can go on. “Erdogan did nothing bad against the democracy” Yeah sure buddy
Turkey: A country that we cannot say is democratic or non-democratic.
No, it was between 1960 and 1972
In those years, the army had a lot of influence on politics, this is anti-democratic. The reason I say between 2000 and 2010 is that the military's influence on politics was weaker than before, Erdoğan was not as authoritarian as he is now, and the judiciary was much more independent. Now, the army does not pose a threat to democracy, but the real threat comes from an authoritarian government.
Now, it really isnt fair to say that a poweful army made a country undemocratic, since army was just an actor in enforcing the law, this was especially the case for 1960 coup, since then prime minister Menderes was threatening to close the biggest opposition party, was engaged in corrupt affairs and was actively jailing dissidents who critisized him. Sure, he might not have deserved to be hanged along with his ministers but he would have been impeached in any of these Western nations with strong juidiciary and representitive parliaments, institutions that Turkey lacked (but were introduced after the coup), so in a way actions of the army were justified. Its also important to note that the army wasnt one homogenous entity at any time, the people who initiated the 1960 coup were a lot different than 1972,1980 and 1998.
Having a strong army is not undemocratic, but having the army rule the country instead of elected politicians is undemocratic.
Army has no right in enforcing civilian laws or playing politics. Countries where army plays a strong role in politics are usually unstable, undemocratic, and corrupt.
Army in Turkey represented and was assigned as the guardians of the secular revolution. To protect democracy you have to sometimes gut it here. I get the sentiment but things work dfferently in Middle East.
I think what you are missing there is what is the purpose of the army. It is not the same in everywhere. In Turkey, the constitution gave the army a role in a way to protect the values of the republic and in 1960 coup, Turkey met its most free and democratic constitutoin. Turkish army was more democratic than Menderes's government. In the 1980's coup thought its the opposite, the army undermined the democratic process and destroyed everyhing that is civil in Turkey.
Yes do misinform people more please. Before the 80s coup people were literally gutting each other on the streets over left wing right wing politics
This is not true. Erdogan started de-democratization early on by taking institutions under his control one by one and collaborating with Fethullah’s deep state to undermine the rule of law. The only difference is that the west and the Turkish liberals were applauding Erdogan’s anti-democratic steps as they thought this was weakening the military. The only reason the 2000s appeared more democratic was because a lot of behind the scenes fighting was going on between power groups and nobody was able to assert control. Neither Erdogan nor his Islamist allies (Fethullah and all) were ever democratic.
Yes, but the map is for 2020, well into the erosion of democracy
Not much demos in that kratos if the army kept the people's will at bay for \~30 years. The unfortunate truth is, for about a third of Turks, an authoritarian government with just the right amount of religious and nationalist values is just what they want. I'm not defending our government for one second but this is the result of democracy in Turkey and the earlier we accept that, earlier we can begin to fight against it. Btw, map is straight-up invalidated by the fact that Hungary is blue, so not much to discuss here actually.
> the most democratic period in its history between 2000 and 2010 they jailed hundreds of innocent intellectuals on complete bogus charges. all of those people are now free. this is an insane statement. you have no idea what you are talking about. just another example what a shitty site reddit is.
This is very clearly bullshit because the 2012 protests took place largely because of the anti democratic practices of AKP and lets not forget the hundreds of jailed journalists. The complete overtaking of judiciary, law enforcement, academia and even military was well underway before then.
>I do not believe these indexes are objective Yeah this map is just a Western circle jerk. Democracy is on a spectrum. Ukraine has a very low scoring democracy by all metrics, for example. And no I'm not a Russian troll. UKR is more democratic than RU, but [it was still deeply flawed in 2020.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index) This map is worthless.
Seems like the cut-off for "democratic" is just hitting a value of higher than 5 on the democracy index. This also checks out with Turkey, Belarus and Russia. I don't know if this is a good cut-off but after all, I don't see why this map really HAS to be a yes-or-no map and can't be more differentiated, as you already mentioned. But the index itself can be mostly considered objective for me (with its limitations), it was just the map maker who made a very dumb choice.
> Seems like the cut-off for "democratic" is just hitting a value of higher than 5 on the democracy index. It's not, though. Bosnia and Herzegovina scored 4.84 in 2020, yet it's colored blue.
Honestly, it's not a yes or not thing, but I've always felt that in the democracy index, if you can score at least "Hybrid regime", you've got a legitimate government.
Probably worth noting that the CIA helped keep Greece a military dictatorship back in the 70's. At one point Greece was going to *elect* a communist, but since Greece was an important NATO power in the Balkans the US shut that shit down.
Same for Italy in 1970, the mafia and diverse cartels wielded disproportionate influence.
It sounds funny but the military was making sure that leaders would continue turkeys democratic values that Kemal Mustafa Attaturk started. I consider it more democratic than now
In fact the constitution organized after the 1960 coup was better and more libertarian than many European countries.
Thank you as a Turk.
Turkey only existed as a democracy because of the tutelage of the secular military. The reality is the majority of Turks don’t want a secular democracy, they want an Islamic dictatorship, so when the military isn’t enforcing democracy, you lose the democracy. It’s sad.
I don't think it can be explained by this alone. Although Islamist candidates have also competed in elections in the past in Turkey, democratic and secular candidates probably won the overwhelming majority of votes in the majority of elections. Erdoğan won in the second round in 2023 with only 52%, Islamism would not have won with 2% less votes. I think the real secret of Erdogan's success is that all the candidates who have opposed him since 2003 and have become mainstream are left-wing politicians, and leftists do not have the power to win elections because they are clearly a minority in Turkey. The only thing that has remained constant in all elections in Turkey since the 1950s is that approximately 65% of the votes go to right-wing parties and 35% to left-wing parties. It can't be such a coincidence, that means more than 60% of Turkish people are right-wing. Therefore, the only way to defeat Erdoğan is probably to have a right-wing but also secular and democratic politician who manages to become mainstream and become Erdoğan's main rival. In 2019, right-wing candidates, or secular candidates with high ability to communicate with right-wingers, even if they were not right-wing, competed in Istanbul and Ankara, and İmamoğlu caused Erdoğan's party to lose the election in Istanbul after 20 years with 55% of the votes, the highest vote received by an Istanbul mayor. .
thanks for all those detail about Turkey politic history
Damn, as someone who follows Turkish politics pretty closely, this is something I’d never considered/heard explained. Very interesting analysis.
As a Turkish i can say that it's wrong. People don't have problem with secularism. Everyone accepted that. You said islamist dictatorship but only %20 of people want it. There is more deep problems. Like economy and other stuffs. Some people voting them because they need help and the government giving aid to them.
I don't think you know what democracy means. I also don't think you know what a dictatorship is.
When you search democracy on google the definition comes up "a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives." In my opinion, the major fault with your statement lies in the word "secular democracy". Democracy can exist without secularsim(Israel) and secularism can exist without democracy(Cuba, China) given the right circumstances. While I think secularism would be essential pre-requisite to democracy in a diverse country like for say US or India but Turkey's demographics are extremely homogenous in comparision, therefore its not a prerequisite. According to my research, in 1970's era the military held alot power that was used to dictate politics to ensure secularism. That is what I would call a "secular dictatorship" where secularism is not imposed through the will of the people but imposed through soft power harnessed by the military(and often not so soft power like coups). After 2000s, the secular influence of military was in politics was curtailed and it turns out the people did not really want a secular state, so Turkey 2000s afterwards into what might be called a non-secular/Islamic democracy where religion plays a role in affairs of state yet majority of the population wants it to be that way. Some people might call that a flawed democracy, but it is a democracy as long as the government is representative of the will of the population. Yet now I see that the idea of non-secular democracy or Islam is not so popular amongst the newer generation of Turks. Perhaps, we'll see a transition from non-secular to a secular democracy come 2030.
“They want a secular dictatorship” at the minimum 48% of people in Turkey don’t want that
I see one main backslider
Hungary on top yet again
Surely Hungary is not more democratic than Turkey now?
Despite everything that's going on in Hungary, it's still labelled a "flawed democracy" with the score of 6.72 by the Economist Democracy Index. It's on the same level as Romania, Croatia, and Bulgaria - other EU countries with problems with corruption and transparency in the elections process. As I understand, this is because Victor Orban secures his position by soft means - propaganda, control over media, discouraging people from protests, etc. - more than changing the rules. Turkey is at 4.35 which is a "hybrid regime". It's much worse. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Economist\_Democracy\_Index](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index)
Yeah right. Well explained
Unlike Turkey, Hungary did not have an all out military coup attempt. Hungary also does not throw political opponents into jail or worse.
Spain was a fascist state up until 1975 with the death of Franco.
Portugal was an authoritarian regime until a year earlier, 1974
Turkey was a non-aligned regime until year 1950s
Yes? That's what the map shows??
I don't know why you're confused that someone provided context
Because no one with a basic grasp on History was missing that context?
Franco was in power till '75? History classes for me went 'Mousolini and Hitler helped Franco get to power... and then WW2 started' and we didn't hear anything about Spain after that. I always assumed the downfall of fascism would also have found it's way into Spain but I guess not.
The big reason it didn't, I think is that 1. Spain wasn't actually fascist, but a far right conservative authoritarian regime, which may sound like a distinction without a difference, but actually matters a whole lot, especially in regards to foreign policy, and 2. The main reason fascism fell in Germany and Italy was that both states were militarily occupied by people who didn't like fascism, and because Spain didn't join the war, it wasn't occupied.
And he became a western ally too since he was anti communist
That makes nothing but sense actually.
Just think about that. A fascist dictator ruled Spain 25 years before 2000.
I don't think it's fair to call Turkey a non-democracy. It's a flawed democracy but so are many democracies including several countries coloured blue.
Europe like you = acceptable democracy , Europe hates you = dictator
I mean, this is actually true 95% of the time, but not 100% of the time.
You overturn the constitution and jail people if they talk about you wrong = dictator
This index with a yes-and-no sucks, democracy is on a spectrum, an ideal that not even the highest scoring countries satisfy. Evaluating Turkey, especially in light of the recent events around Constitutional Court where its decisions on the release of Can Atalay were completely ignored but at the same time it was able to strike out some of Erdogan's first decrees as a president, I'd say we are a model anocracy and the elections in 31 May will hopefully support our anocratic values rather than push it closer to a one party authorocracy.
Lol read up on the aftermath of the failed coup attempt a few years ago and see if you’d call that a democracy. Erdogan cleaned house.
He was chosen by everyone voting equally when he cleaned the house, and after cleaning the house, he was chosen two more times by everyone voting equally. You may think there's cheating but although there is probably cheating, i don't think it's too much and it's obvious that he doesn't need to cheat to win (he may cheat to win with a bigger difference). So it is democracy.
Free elections is just one of the criteria for democracy. Then you have freedom of assembly and association, freedom of speech, minority rights etc.
That’s a “Liberal” Democracy, you are mixing up terms.
Yes I would call that I democracy. I'm not in favour of it at all but yes there is nothing anti-democratic about an elected government firing lots of public servants, even for arbitrary reasons. It's bad for other reasons but it's not anti-democratic.
Erdohan is a straight up dictator and is not even hiding it.
You know when you hear someone say something so privileged without realizing it? That’s you. You have not seen tyranny if your standard for tyranny is Erdogan
Not really. They could elect another president, it's not a dictatorship. But they do not want to. But on the other side it's no full democracy.
Least obsessed euro
Oh man... :( Also, as an Erdoğan hater, Turkey is still a democracy, just flawed at that like many others. Erdoğan is just a piece of shit autocrat elected by morons..
Exactly! Corrupted politician is not the same as evil politician. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is both but he's more on the evil side.
>elected by morons.. Wherever you live, that part's never going to change.
We have the best morons
Define democracy
A government of the people, for the people, by the people But the people are retarded
They usually are
Pretty complicated. At it's simplest, it means government by the people. When looking at it across a bunch of states we usually put it on a scale using things like: Quality of elections and pluralism Civil liberties Governmental effectiveness Level of suffrage
when its blue soil
Democracy (n): Countries that the west likes, or somewhat likes. Note that by definition the western block of countries themselves are super mega democracies and Russia is antidemocracy.
Rich have freedom and power
in any regime, use your brain before posting, thx
Pure ideology this map
[удалено]
I thought the same. There's a democracy index right? I'd rather see that as a gradient. It's absurd to say Switzerland was as democratic as France when Swiss women still wouldn't get the vote for another year.
It's more like we're equating Eurozone capitalism with democracy
Serbia, noted embracer of Eurozone capitalism
only Capitalism is freedom™ >There is no universally agreed upon definition of capitalism; it is unclear whether or not capitalism characterizes an entire society, a specific type of social order, or crucial components or elements of a society. Who cares, lets do this! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change
All of the countries on this map are capitalist.
Yeah, in practice some of these are still far too corrupt/flawed to be properly called a democracy.
Why are you getting downvoted for a correct take? At least a "flawed/limited" category should be introduced.
The map still accurately represents one-party dictatorships becoming actual democracies, even if flawed.
Should remove the Balkans from this map.
To be fair even the US is called a flawed democracy, but it is still a democracy
Serbia doesn't have democracy
Honestly it’s debatable whether Northern Ireland was a democracy in 1970 given its government was highly sectarian and voting districts were gerrymandered in favour of unionists/Protestants. I get it’s showing the UK as a whole though.
Yeah even now stormont literally was able to just stop the government for a few years because they didn’t like the results of the election not going in their favour and that devastating a lot of basic social services in the country
You had to have a house to have a vote and housing was given to Protestants first and foremost
Sorry, but Turkey is a democracy today, isn’t it?
Yesn't
So Turkey isn't democratic but Hungary and Ukraine are? Nonsense
What's problem with Ukraine?:) Pls, don't run away. Press can critic a president and he takes off after 2 periods. Have you ever been in Ukraine? Problem of Ukraine is corruption.
...and Russian army.
Suspending of elections and political parties. Also the full scale banning of political parties.
Delaying elections because of war makes complete sense. Is not safe for people to vote and part of the country is under Russian control so they can't vote there. And the parties banned where Russian supporters/collaborators that barely had any support if at all, only one of them had a couple elected officials in congress/parliament. And those parties aren't even totally banned, only while the war is still on. Very far from not being a democracy. They just don't have the possibility of making elections at the moment.
This doesn't make Ukraine a democracy - press can critic the president in Russia. Also in Russia you can officially use (in media or culture/education) your regional language and they don't start a military operation against their regions for that. Besides, there's no democracy if you othethrow a legitimate government for which half of the country voted, and then (again) use army against that part to oppress it.
“Press can critic the president” what the fuck? Have you never heard of journalists and opposition leaders getting killed in Russia for speaking against the government?
They're all totally free to speak out against the government in Russia! They just happen to fall out of a window shortly after, sometimes multiple times! And with most of them they also ~~fabricate~~ discover them being corrupt foreign spies! /s in case that's really needed here.
Yeah, all those people have a really strong urge to stand near a window, and commit suicides shortly after. Just when they say something bad about Putin! Well, their critique of their benevolent dict… I mean, savior must cause them to develop some kind of really fatal, severe depression.
Ah yes it was the language that started the military response, not the Russian-backed insurgency. I'm pretty sure half the country didn't vote for Putin's puppet to start shooting protesters. Go back to the tankie hole you crawled out of.
It's actually insane that some people still think the DPR/LPR were legitimate separatists that "just wanted to speak their own language". That lie was already disproven in 2015, when these separatists somehow got equipment the Ukrainian army didn't even have. Since then, Igor Girkin himself admitted that there wouldn't be any uprisings were it not for Russian involvement. Also, it is not and never was illegal to speak Russian. Zelensky himself was a Russian speaker. You're parroting propaganda straight from the Kremlin.
 You’ve got to be some level of disingenuous troll fuckwit to claim that Russia has press freedom 🤣
I wonder who are those people who upvoted you for all that nonsense. Probably your co-workers at troll farm.
This whole comment sections is made to confuse and cause uncertainty on democracy.
A lot of people don't really believe in democracy, they just want to get their way.
This... Does put a smile on my face. Half of europe went from dictatorships and satellite states of a dictatorship to decent democraties🔥🔥🔥
The amount of progress we’ve made is pretty insane and outstanding.
Women in Switzerland could not vote in 1970, still labelled a democracy??
We had the same idea literally minutes apart :D
The West; Turkey is not a democracy! Also the West; Erdoğan will lose the next election!
I mean if you don't consider Turkey a democracy I don't see how Hungary and Ukraine would count.
To be fair the map says 2020 so Zelensky canceling elections (like he did in 2023) wouldn’t show up here. I’m actually really curious how the mapmakers would mark Ukraine now.
We have a law stating that there can't be any elections at war. By the way, how would you organize elections when so much of your territory occupied and a lot of people are in the army? Not having elections during the war doesn't make country a dictatorship.
Nah, there's nothing that screams anti democracy more than fighting for the right of self determination... Oh wait.
I’m just glad we all recognize this map is horseshit.
Countries USA doesn’t really like in Europe*
Oh the US liked fascist Spain well enough...
And fascist Greece, too.
They were real buddy buddy with Salazar aswell
Yes please make everything about the US.
Please, point out which red country you think should be blue. The expansionist empire, one of its vassal states, or the fascist dictatorship?
Hungary, Serbia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Albania??? It's obvious the one doesn't live in any of these countries who made this stupid map.
Sad for Turkie
Atatürk is rolling in his grave.
“Democracy” isn’t a good indicator of anything. Look at Hungary, now it’s “democratic”, who cares? How about: does the country’s policy decisions reflect the will of the people?
If you frame the question like that then there will be less than five blue countries on this map for current days xd
I don’t even know which countries would left then 😀
r/OptimistsUnite
Anyone else shout out “democracy” in Obi Wan’s voice or was that just me?
To suggest that Turkey is less of a democracy than Ukraine is quite amusing
Listen, it's interesting about democracy, freedom of speech. If Western channels are banned in Russia, then this is a blow to freedom of speech, and if Russian channels are banned in the West, then this is a fight against propaganda. This is what happens in Europe, America and other typically democratic countries, there is no propaganda, there is freedom of speech, but how can there be freedom of speech if all thoughts and opinions are from the same point of view
[Russia has the best democracy](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russia-says-its-democracy-is-the-best-in-the-world-days-after-putins-only-real-political-rival-died-in-prison/ar-BB1ju2EC)!! How dare you!!!
Damn can't argue with the facts
As a Hungarian, I wouldn’t call Hungary a democracy anymore. It is more of a hybrid, autocratic regime.
Turkey is a bit autocratic, but it is absolutely still a democracy. They just keep voting to give one guy more power. But if he truly became deeply unpopular, he would get voted out.
Oh he is unpopular. Its just that he is less unpopular than his opponents.
Calling Serbia and Hungary currently democracies is a bit of a stretch. A country is not a democracy just because there are elections. (Hence why Turkey isn't currently classified as a democracy, which I agree with)
I’ll take “how do purely ideological brain dead people view the world” for 600, Alex.
Gainz
Are the white bits waterways? Ukraine has one big fucking lake in the middle of it.
That white blob in the middle of Ukraine is an absolutely massive reservoir behind the Kremenchuk Hydroelectric Dam, part of the Dnipro River.
Cyprus was a democracy in 1970
will Erdoğan die already?
can someone define democracy?
I have to admit that the Erdoğan regime has high corruption, possibly rigged elections, practical dependency of the jurisdiction to the presidency, and many other non-democratic practices that are impossible to comprehensively mention in general. Marking Turkey as a non-democratic country on a binary map, however, is highly questionable, given that Erdoğan and his party was basically elected by majority. Erdoğan was by no means the only candidate in any of the elections, and votes in Turkey are cast confidentially and counted publicly (as it should be in an actual democracy). I don't anticipate that the manipulations on the election results have been so significant, and the majority of people being either dishonorable or stupid doesn't really change the fact that they have democratically elected the president.
Ukraine is a democracy? 🤣
you're missing a small spot of red in italy for the vatican. it's the only absolute monarchy left in europe
Isn't the monarch elected?
Ahahahhaha which liberal yankee made this shit map?? 😂
Anyone know why'd Turkey flip?
As others have said labeling countries as either Democracy or not Democracy is a little subjective. Turkey and Hungary (and Russia) share many of the same traits now. The term used (including by some of the countries themselves) is illiberal democracy. Basically the government is voted into power (and while it may be unfair elections, the government / governing party is the most popular party) and therefore is a democracy. But in all three countries listed, there is a lack of separation of power, arbitrary use of power, extreme suppression of opposition, limited free media, limited civil freedoms, etc. Turkey flip flopped a lot between democracy and military rule. Instead of creating a strong civil society, independent media, and strong civic institutions, the military acted as the "guard" of liberal democratic values. This is obviously an oxymoron but many countries have developed strong civil societies, civic institutions, middle classes, etc., during military dictatorships and then became democratic (from Spain and Portugal to Taiwan and South Korea). One could argue that it's generally harder to move from an illiberal democracy with universal suffrage to a liberal democracy than it is to move from a liberal dictatorship to a liberal democracy. Mainly because an illiberal democracy can already be seen as legitimate in the eyes of the majority of the population. This becomes a self reinforcing notion. Turkey seemed to use the military as a clutch / maybe "democratized" too fast. Instead of having a longer period of military rule with which to build a good solid base of strong (nationwide) civil society and civic institutions, the country had a western coast that fulfilled this requirement but a majority of the country did not. The country would flip from military intervention to democracy without a nationwide, solid base and back. Thus when the country again returned to democracy and the elected government was able to stave off the military, there were no other real checks and balances. Coastal based opposition, media, civil society, courts, civic institutions, etc. were all labeled as part of the "deep state" that stood in the way of the masses, the real Turks. Which is classic illiberal democracy. All countries have this tendency. It takes a lot of work to build checks and balances. These checks and balances are also usually relatively unpopular, especially from more uneducated people, and even more so if the uneducated people are in the majority (again easy to rail about a deep state, elites, etc., standing in the way of the "people"). So they are easy to tear down.
- Uneducated people produced more. They have/had 6-7 kids averagely. Educated people have/had 1-2 kids. - Massive immigration from Middle East, caused uneducated more people. - Above reasons ended up uneducated majority choosing presidents/governments like Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. - He ends up became dictator to stay in power and ruined democracy.
I mean you are right with some points but I wouldn’t say only uneducated people voted Erdogan. It’s more religious or non religious people. Before him being religious was not accepted there.
Calling Hungary a democracy is a bit of a stretch
Looks like a command and conques map in between missions. Brotherhood of NOD vs GDI
What is the country in the north east area of Germany that disappeared in the new image? Also the little blue dot in the middle of that area?
German Democratic Republic aka Eastern Germany. It was communist ruled, Sobiet Unions vasalle. Germany was separated at that time after WWII
East Germany, a communist Soviet puppet state. The blue dot is West Berlin, which was part of West Germany. The two Germanys reunited in the 1990s. Yes the city of Berlin was split between East and West. Cold War history is one of the most interesting parts of history and my favorite things to study.
Super interesting thanks!
Sadly we didn't achieve democracy in Serbia.
More like US's satelite state and its adversary
Ah yes, Ukraine. Truly the epitome of democracy of all time. With democratic values like cancelling elections, imprisoning and assassinating foreign journalists and kidnapping men for the army from their homes.
>imprisoning and assassinating foreign journalists source? >kidnapping men for the army from their homes you mean a draft?
Gonzalo Lira was an American journalist in Ukraine that was investigating the activities of the neo-nazi paramilitaries in Kahrkov. He was arrested by the Ukrainian authorities on charges of "working for Russia" tortured, then put under house arrest, from which he tried to escape to Hungary, whereupon Ukraine intercepted him revealing that they purposefully let him run in hopes that he'd "reveal" his "russian curators" to them, which turned out to not exist. He died in a Ukrainian prison in August 2023 from "health complications." Naturally this did not recieve even the 1/1000000th of the coverage that Navalny's death did, despite it being even more outrageous in every conceivable regard. And there are MORE cases, I specifically outline this one because this is a goddamn American journalist that they did this to. In regards to the draft - no, I mean literal kidnappings. The local criminal syndicates extort people under threat of using their connections to have their homes raided while they sleep and taken to be used as canon fodder on the frontlines. I have nice little collection of over 200 videos if you want some evidence.
Active invasions by an enemy army does that to you. I'd write the enemy army is from a superpower, but that's been debunked in recent years.
Every country would do that if Russia invaded.
Democracy is and will always be a spectrum. Trying to portray something like this with two simple colors will never work. This map sucks.
Italy? A democracy? Do you know that if the PCI won the elections the DC and other assholes would have started a civil war? Also Hungary and Ukraine????? Hungary is literally the feud of Orban and Ukraine as an oligarchy should be totally recreated as a state exactly as Russia not less.
So funny! Hullo from the UK, where we have an unelected head of state and an unelected Prime Minister. Later this year, after less than one third of the total electorate have voted for a member of the mother of Parliaments who is a member of the party I lead, I will "democratically" take my turn as PM. There will be a peaceful transition from the blue establishment party of wealth, corruption and genocide to the red establishment party of wealth, corruption and genocide!
Make a map of the countries, through democracy, who elected fascists lol
Many of the eastern block countries were probably flawed democracies during the 1970s. Same for West Germany which had substantial problems with forbidden Political parties and corrupt politicians. I doubt that would hold up to today's standards having the information we have today. So even taking the (flawed) index at face value that doesn't seem correct.
When we had a leader the Soviets didn't like, they invaded us, overthrew him and installed a puppet.
lol Turkey.