EDITOR'S NOTE.

• Author: Ataman, Muhittin

Turkiye is currently commemorating the centenary of the proclamation of the Republican regime. After signing the Lausanne Peace Treaty with the victorious powers of the First World War on July 24, 1923, the Turkish state changed the regime from monarchy to republic. Therefore, although it was designed as a new state by transforming its capital city from the imperial Istanbul to Ankara, the Republic of Turkiye is the successor state of the Ottoman Empire. Most state institutions such as the Council of the State (Danistay) and the Turkish Police Service (Turk Polis Teskilati), both established in the second half of the 19th century, are inherited from the Ottomans.

The establishment of the Republican regime as a continuation of the Ottoman Empire, a global power extending over three continents, can be compared with the birth of a phoenix out of its ashes. According to the Greek and Egyptian mythology, the phoenix is a bird that throws itself into fire after living for centuries and is reborn from its ashes. It is believed that the main reason for this suicidal act is the distress caused by living in the same pattern for a long time, since it desires to return as a different bird from the ashes and to live forever. Similarly, many historians and political scientists consider the entry of the Ottoman Empire into the First World War as a suicidal act. Following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, after the war, the Turkish state was born out of its ashes, changed its pattern of government in 1923 and established a new regime to live forever.

However, domestic, regional and global conditions and developments did not allow Turkiye, the phoenix, to spread its wings. Throughout the 20th century, Turkiye largely followed a defensive domestic and foreign policy. While it tried to build a new "nation" and consolidate the new regime at the domestic level, Turkiye tried to follow a passive and reactive policy towards external developments at the international level. Turkiye secured its borders during the first half of the 20th century and entered into the NATO alliance, with the Western world against the Soviet threat, for the second half. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Turkiye experienced an identity crisis in the first decade of the post-Cold War era.

Early in the 21st century, the AK Party, under the leadership of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, came to power and largely restructured Turkiye's domestic and foreign policies. At the domestic setting, President Erdogan and the AK Party successfully normalized state-society relations, made peace with its history, abolished the long-time bureaucratic tutelage, and decreased pressure on certain social groups excluded from the state structure such as the religious groups, Kurds, and Alevis. Radical changes, which are described as a "quiet revolution" by Turkish and foreign observers, were made in different issue areas such as education, health, infrastructure, and economy.

Since 2002, the successive AK Party...