Editors' Introduction

Abstract

Since before the publication of New Perspectives on Turkey’s spring 2023 issue, politics has been at the top of the agenda of public discussions in Turkey. The reason was the general elections for the presidency and the parliament on May 14; in the run-off on May 28, Recep Tayyip Erdogan was re-elected for a third, five-year term and the party ˘ he leads, the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi; AKP), maintained its majority in the parliament in an alliance with the Nationalist Action Party (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi; MHP) and smaller extremist parties. To what extent and how quickly the election results will lead to a further descent into full authoritarianism – already well documented in the pages of previous NPT issues – is something that social scientists are likely to continue to observe. Domestic politics therefore will continue to be an important theme for social science research on Turkey from diverse disciplines and methodologies