Democracy collapses not because of army tanks, but because of the division fostered by leadership and legitimate voting. Just over a decade ago, Turkey was praised as a successful model for the democratic development in the world, aligned with the Middle East and Europe. However, the current Turkey is showing totally the opposite situation. According to the recently published Freedom House 2025 report, Turkey has fallen into sharpest decline in freedoms. This decline is not just a coincidence or the result of an accident. There might be a lot of triggers leading to the breakdown of democracy,like in other countries. But how did Turkey turn from a shining model to a cautionary case?

The biggest turning point was the leader of the country’s introduction of ‘Extreme Polarization’  to this country. It led Turkey to destroy the ‘Democratic Institutional Guardrails’ of checks and balances.

The polarization that I talked about in this part is not just policy disagreement. It means ‘Us vs Them’ condition. In Turkey, the leader group and state elites divided society into two groups; true citizens and enemies of the state. By making such a division, they tried to make people who did not support them enemies of the country. In the beginning, Turkey supported polarization, but it was not in this form. As Murat Somer notes in his 2019 study , Turkey’s political divide seemed productive. The polarization that they had at that time acted as a challenge to the old establishment. Initially, the actual polarization targeted the old military and secular elites to democratize the system.

However, the original purpose was forgotten long ago and it took a sharp turn. The elite group transformed it into the ‘revolutionary polarization’.This polarization is for disregarding their opponents to maintain the authority that they wanted to protect. Specifically, the opponents could be anyone who opposed their leadership, such as rival politicians, critical journalists, minority groups, and even peaceful protesters. They were arbitrarily labeled a terrorist or a foreign agent to the public. Modern illiberal leaders rely on a ‘Medium-Size-Lie’ manufactured crises or conspiracy theories, to unify their base. By pushing the narrative that their opponents were an ‘existential threat’ linked to terrorism, the leadership effectively created an alternative reality where extreme actions against democratic institutions seemed entirely justified.

Weaponizing the Fear Modern authoritarians rarely rely on visible violence, like a coup. Instead, they use the very legal mechanisms that exist in democracies to consolidate power, masking their repressive practices under the veneer of the rule of law. One of the ways that they used for their own sake was making their opponents seem as an ‘existential threat’, not just a political competitor, to the public. To solidify their own power, the leadership manipulated public narratives and media discussions. They just used the public as a tool for their political ends. The leadership successfully weaponized this extreme division into a perfect political weapon by instilling fear in the masses with the message, “We must stop them to save the nation.”

Dismantling the Referees: The 2017 Referendum This manufactured fear and polarization became the perfect excuse to legally dismantle the democratic institution. Under the excuse of protecting the state from the enemy, the leadership broke the ‘Guardrails of Democracy’. Moreover, they revised the institution to serve their own interests. How did this dismantling happen in practice? The most fatal blow to Turkey’s guardrails was ‘the 2017 constitutional revision’. This revision happened under the ‘state of emergency’ declared by the government after the 2016 coup attempt. The office of the Prime Minister was abolished, and the parliament lost its crucial oversight powers. Moreover, during this period, the government ran a campaign while disabling other political groups and the media. The ultimate beneficiary of all these dismantling processes was the President. ‘The 2017 constitutional revision’ transformed Turkey from a parliamentary democracy into a ‘hyper-presidential system,’ which caused the concentration of power in one leader. The president got the authority to directly assign the members of the highest body in the government, where it appoints judges and prosecutors.  Ultimately, Turkey became authoritarian, apparently.

The Fall of Independent Media But it was not the end. Following this, one of Turkey’s largest media groups, the Dogan Media Group, which had previously reported on the government corruption, was sold to the pro- government Demirören Group. Unable to withstand the severe political pressure and enormous taxes from the government, the Dogan Media Group was forced to sell. This marked the devastation of the entire media environment designed to hold power accountable.

As a result, it provoked the failure of democracy. And that failure caused another failure, the collapse of liberty. The data backs up this reality. According to a recent report by Human Rights Watch (HRW), civil liberty in Turkey suffers from the suppression of its government. Many people, such as politicians, human rights activists and journalists, are arbitrarily jailed just for expressing dissent to the government. Even people who merely posted the critical message on social media were indicted. Additionally, the data from V-Dem Institute shows that Turkey is categorized into an ‘electoral autocracy’ nation. This means that even though the formal facade of voting systems still exists, the playing field is not worked out formally. The voting in Turkey is not truly a fair and free election as we know.

Turkey’s democratic collapse is not just a distant nation’s news. It is a terrifying warning for every democracy struggling with severe polarization today. Turkey proves that no matter how strongly designed, institutional guardrails are fragile when leaders weaponize an ‘us-versus-them’ mentality. From beginning to end, their claim that they did it simply for the public well-being remained consistent. Even after knowing all these facts, do you still believe their claim is correct?

The only thing that might have prevented such a ‘Turkey’ tragedy is vigilant citizens. If we fall into the trap of viewing our fellow citizens as enemies, the next guardrails to break could easily be our own. We should think once more. Who is the real enemy? Who should we block? Is it our fellow citizens or the leaders who divide us?