Anyone who has experienced the collapse of a democracy knows the score: the authorities often come to the power of a wave of public anger. Their early popularity can delay resistance, which makes it risky or even anti -democratic – but it is precisely when the real damage is caused.
The longer a movement of resistance, the harder the democracy.
We know by decades of research on democratic decline that timing and scale are important. This means that there is a brief window for action before an authoritarian potential consolidates power, and this window closes faster than most. In addition, mass mobilization alone is not enough to counter the momentum; It must be associated with a real institutional decline.
In Hungary, for example, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s ruling party has regularly dug the country’s democratic institutions, capturing courts, media and universities, while their opponents hesitated. Hungarian opposition leaders now admit that they have moved too slowly. Many feared resisting too early could seem anti-democratic, so they waited. They did not know how fast the system would erode.
In Türkiye, during this time, we have seen how mass manifestations can report resistance, but do not always stop the slide towards authoritarianism – at least, not in isolation. Even enormous demonstrations, such as the demonstrations of Gezi Park 2013, did not prevent the consolidation of the power of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. And once the authoritarian movements capture institutions, the game changes. Resistance becomes more difficult and much more dangerous.
Years later, Turkey is now on the verge of what the researchers of democracy call the end of the end of the end of the demonstration: the arrest of the mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem İmamoğlu, the most formidable rival of Erdoğan, indicates a new benchmark in the continuous decline in the country.
Politices
