Intro to Political Science
Application Essay
Dictatorship v. Democracy
Is Turkey more representing of a Democracy, or a Dictatorship? The answer is simple,
modern-day Turkey is, according to Colomer’s minimalist definition of a democracy, a
democracy. The question then becomes; to what extent does Turkey show signs of
being a democracy? This paper will discuss Turkey’s freedom of association,
expression, and information. Their broad suffrage rights, right to form candidates for
public office, free and fair elections, and government policies dependency on electoral
results (Colomer). This discussion will lead to figuring out that overall, Turkey barely
meets the minimalist definition of a democracy.
Turkey has very little freedom of expression and information in comparison to other
democratic countries. Turkeys level of freedom of expression and information is the
least democratic part of Turkey’s government and many might say, it reaches
Dictatorship levels. Although Freedom of Expression is Constitutionally guaranteed for
citizens of Turkey, multiple different journalists and intellectuals have seen jail time, with
even more being harassed and or essentially shut down completely. On top of that,
more journalists as well as students and a former Miss Turkey we’re charged for simply
insulting Turkey’s president. Some of these people also received jail time (freedom
house D). When compared to countries such as the United States this seems like there
is no freedom of expression whatsoever in Turkey. In the United States someone can
bad mouth the current President, which most people have, as much as their hearts
desire, with absolutely no repercussions as long as they don’t go into death threat
territory (Threatening Wiki). Although Turkey’s government seems to shut down anyone
or anything that has something bad to say about them in terms of the internet and
journalism, they allow people their right to protest in public gatherings with little to no
incidents as late as 2015, not mentioning those protests with participants throwing
incendiaries. Turkey has a very limited amount of freedom of expression for certain
journalists but has a larger amount of those freedoms for private citizens with their right
to protests. Many might say this makes Turkey look like an Authoritarian Dictatorship
with journalists and other groups having to support the current ruler, or at least not go
against him, being allowed to exist. But their Countries solid rights to association and
assembly, as well as Turkey’s citizens ability to live and travel where they please, barely
keep them from being a Dictatorship (freedom house G).
Turkey also makes up for many of the troubles in other categories with their broad
suffrage rights. Like most countries, Turkey’s voting age is 18. Turkey has had universal
voting since women won their right to vote back in March 20th, 1930, with the first
elections they voted in being held on February 6th, 1935 (OUP blog). Since then,
Turkey has had broad suffrage rights for all of their citizens no matter what sex they are,
or their beliefs. Many may find this is very or the most important part of being a
democracy in modern times. This is a big part of why Turkey is a democracy, since they
definitely have broad suffrage rights.
Naturally, broad suffrage rights goes into free and fair elections, which recently, many
people in Turkey don’t think they truly have. Although all citizens get to vote, in 2015,
many of those citizens don’t think their vote was not counted. There were many
allegations of fraud. Many voters were told they had already voted that day but claimed
they definitely had not. There were also claims of pre-stamped ballots and seemingly
mysterious unmarked cars outside of some polling stations. Other seemingly out-of–
place aspects for this election as well as in comparison to other countries is the speed
of the results and the lack of to the minute provisional results can also be alarming for
some. Many most likely believed the results came in uncharacteristically fast and not
seeing the results minute by minute, like countries such as the United States do every
year, can be very alarming for some (James in Turkey). Having a large amount of
alleged corruption and fraud during elections does not necessarily mean it’s true. Even
though there might have been aspects that made some amount of the election not truly
