Erdoğan’s Authoritarian Spiral: Mass Arrests, Political Repression, and the Unraveling of Turkish Democracy
Executive Summary
Turkey’s government has intensified a sweeping crackdown on opposition figures, arresting multiple mayors from the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and hundreds of municipal officials under broad corruption charges. This escalation, coming after the jailing of Istanbul’s mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu and amid historic mass protests, signals President Erdoğan’s shift from electoral competition to systematic authoritarian control. Simultaneously, Ankara is extending repression across civil society, tightening control over crypto platforms, targeting media freedom, and recalibrating foreign policy amidst fraught relations with NATO. The convergence of legal warfare, strategic purges, and shrinking civic space poses a significant threat to regional stability and the future of democratic governance in Turkey.
Strategic Analysis
Turkey is undergoing a dramatic authoritarian consolidation under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Following the March 2025 arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, Erdoğan’s chief political rival, Turkish authorities have arrested three additional opposition mayors—Zeydan Karalar of Adana, Muhittin Bocek of Antalya, and Abdurrahman Tutdere of Adiyaman—along with over 120 municipal officials in Izmir. All are affiliated with the CHP, which achieved sweeping victories in the 2024 local elections. The government justifies the arrests as part of corruption investigations into bribery and bid-rigging, but opposition leaders and civil society broadly characterize them as politically motivated attempts to neutralize democratic opposition ahead of national elections.
These detentions mark a new phase in Erdoğan’s crackdown, reflecting a full pivot away from pluralist governance. Ankara’s legal targeting of elected officials now spans all major opposition-controlled cities, with the goal of dismantling local power bases that challenge AKP dominance. The jailing of İmamoğlu—a candidate for the 2028 presidential race—provoked Turkey’s largest protests in over a decade. Massive demonstrations, sustained for over ten days and involving millions, have called for Erdoğan’s resignation and early elections. Yet Erdoğan’s administration has remained defiant, asserting judicial independence while tightening control over law enforcement and the courts.
The repression has extended beyond politics. In July 2025, authorities arrested four staff members of the satirical magazine LeMan over a cartoon allegedly depicting the Prophet Muhammad, which triggered violent protests by Islamist groups. Despite the magazine’s defense that the cartoon referenced victims of violence and was misinterpreted, a court ordered their detention for inciting “public hatred.” The arrests underscore the growing use of religious sentiment to justify censorship and legal persecution of media outlets critical of the government. Simultaneously, Turkey has moved aggressively to regulate digital platforms, banning the decentralized exchange PancakeSwap and blocking 46 crypto-related websites under new compliance laws. This reflects Ankara’s effort to consolidate control over financial flows, curb anonymous political funding, and preempt digital dissent.
Internationally, Erdoğan continues to push for reentry into the U.S. F-35 fighter program while maintaining possession of Russian S-400 missile systems—a posture that has frozen defense cooperation with Washington. Critics argue that Turkey’s possession of both systems risks exposing sensitive F-35 technologies to adversaries and poses a major threat to NATO’s technological edge. Furthermore, Erdoğan’s post-October 7 embrace of Hamas—highlighted by official mourning and political hospitality for its leaders—has drawn bipartisan concern in the U.S. and weakened Ankara’s standing among its Western allies.
The domestic and geopolitical trajectory of Erdoğan’s Turkey closely mirrors patterns seen in other hybrid authoritarian regimes: eroding institutional checks, criminalizing opposition, invoking religion to suppress dissent, and leveraging foreign policy ambiguity for tactical advantage. Turkey’s internal instability—driven by legal purges, societal polarization, and disillusioned youth—is creating a volatile environment with long-term risks for both regional dynamics and NATO cohesion. Unless constrained by coordinated domestic resistance and international pressure, Erdoğan is likely to deepen the authoritarian slide, using the full apparatus of the state to entrench power through 2028 and beyond.
