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By Joshua Muravchik and Jeffrey Gedmin By Joshua Muravchik and Jeffrey Gedmin April 19 at 6:00 AM

About the authors

Joshua Muravchik is a Distinguished Fellow at the World Affairs Institute.

Jeffrey Gedmin is a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council and a former President and CEO of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Freedomdiminished aroundthe world in 2016for the 11th consecutive year, according to Freedom House.These years sawthe devastating failure of the Arab Spring and thesad turn of Russia and other states of the former Soviet Union back todictatorship. Russia, China and Iran are increasingly assertive in their regions.And illiberal populistparties nearly four dozen of various stripes are on the risein Europein parallelwitha new angry nationalism in the United States.Taken together, its hard not to at least contemplate whether democracy might be an endangered species.

To Americans, democracy is a given. But to the rest of the world, its a fairly recent invention a creature of the past two centuries.Thisisa relatively narrow slice of recorded history, briefer thantheMingor Songdynastiesin Chinaorvarious otherdynastieselsewherethat appear as mere blips in historical memory.Maybe this democratic moment is just another phase.

The original experiments with democracy in ancient Greece and Romedisappeared, and this form of government meaningfully returned only two millennialaterwith the birth of the American republic. Abraham Lincoln said at Gettysburg that the Civil War would determine whether any nation so conceived can long endure.In the 20th century,Communism, Nazism and fascism presented powerful challenges to the democratic world not only on the battlefieldbut also in the realm of ideas,offering models for how societies should be organized thatmany believed were superior to democracy.

The Washington Post's Griff Witte explains how French youth contributed to National Front party candidate Marine Le Pen's rise in popularity. (Sarah Parnass,Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post)

With the serial defeat of those enemies, democracysascentseemed assured. Francis Fukuyamasaidthe Wests victory in the Cold War amounted totheend of history, meaning thatdebate about the best form of society was resolvedfor all time.All countriesthat had not alreadyadoptedliberal democracy were nonetheless headed in that direction, he wrote.

Another political scientist, Samuel Huntington, took another approach in The Third Wave. He argued that democracydid not rollsteadily forward,butrose and fellin waves.The firstwavehad begun inthe United States when it was a young country, crested at the conclusion of World War I with the transformation of empires in Europe into independent, democraticstates, and then crashed in the 1920s asmost of those statesdevolved into dictatorships. The secondwave began after World War II, with the liberation of Asian and African colonies, but it too crashed as these newborn democracies fell, one after another,under strongman rule. The third wave began in 1974, with the democratization of Portugal followed by other countries in Southern Europe, then Latin America, then, most dramatically,the Soviet bloc.This wavehad not yetcrested when Huntington wrote, but it did so early in the 21st century, when Freedom House found that nearly two-thirds of the worlds countries were electoral democracies whilea record45 percent fulfilled thegroups more demandingcriteria for being labeled a free country.

[How fascist is Donald Trump? Theres actually a formula for that.]

Since then, democracy and freedom havebeen in gradual recession. The falloff has been modest,butaconstellation ofrecent eventsand trends suggests that an all-out crashcould follow.Each of the first two crashes left the world with a radically reduced number of democratic states.How many democracies might disappear and how many might remain afterathird crash? Since the crest of the third wave was higher than the first two,more might be left intact,butby the same token, a crash from this high crestmightprove tobe all themore momentous, darkening the livesof hundreds of millions of peopleand reshaping international relations and Americas place in the world.

* * * * * * * *

What makes thisevenseem possible? First,the new century has witnessed some major disappointments for democrats.The Arab Spring of 2011 promised for a moment to bring a large measure of democracy to the region that has been mostresistant to it. But only onesmall country, Tunisia, emerged more democratic, while a handful movedin the opposite direction, either because wary regimes (in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait andothers)tightened the screws or because countries collapsed into warringmilitary factions (as in Syria,Libyaand Yemen).Another bitter disappointment has been the former Soviet Union, which devolved into 15 independent states in 1991, each holding elections and adopting democratic institutions. Today,onlysixremain as democracies, of which half are none too stable; the rest are once again ruled by dictators, including some of the worlds most repressive ones.

Elsewhere,democratic reverses have occurredin pivotal countries thatseem likely to influence others around them. Turkey, for example, has been for decades a leading example of democracy in the Muslim world, especially in its Middle Eastern core, notwithstanding the imperfections of itsdemocraticinstitutions. Now,thegraspof Recep Tayyip Erdoganfordictatorial power will convince many that democracy is incompatible with Islam. In Hungary, the peeling away of freedoms is inspiring imitation in the other countriesof the formerEastern bloc.Unless reversed, recent moves by the government of Viktor Orban to close the Central European University in Budapest since its founding in 1991 a symbol of democratic transition and Western-style academic study are likely to have a chilling effect in the region.Hugo Chvez destroyed democracy in Venezuela and inspired imitators, who have weakened, albeit not eliminated, democracy inseveral other Latin nations. Other mercurial strongmen who have come to power through elections,in the Philippines and South Africa,couldwielda similar impact withintheir regions as well astheirown countries.

Influence is sometimes exerted more forcefully than merelybysetting an example. Threeaggressivedictatorships Russia, China and Iran are exercising increasing sway over theareas around them.

[Chill, America. Not every Trump outrage is outrageous.]

RussiasVladimir Putin,having stampedout the last embers of post-Communist democratization and imposedone-man rule,has invaded two of the former republics of the Soviet Union Georgia and Ukraine and uses economic leverage and dirty tricks to ensure the elimination of democracy inothers. Heno doubt aims to dothe same in thosethat remaindemocratic, but he is not stopping there. He is nurturing anti-democratic forces in former states of the Soviet bloc (Russian influence in media and politics is on the rise in the Czech Republic, once a model of Central European democratic development), as well as of Western Europe (Frances presidential front-runner, Marine Le Pen, recently made a pilgrimage to Moscow that reportedly bankrolls her party and others of its ilk). Putin is evenbeginning to reassert Russian influence in the Middle East, hoping to makehis country onceagain a global power. Likewise, Chinas Xi Jinping, having reversed a four-decade trend of liberalization, pushes forward an intimidating military buildup while flexing Chinas muscles in the surrounding seas. And Iran, having smothered the pro-democracyGreen Movementthat arose after the disputed 2009 presidential elections,has achieved dominance in Lebanonandmuch of Syria and wieldsgreatweightin Iraqand Yemen, all steps ontheway toits self-proclaimed goal ofregional dominance.

These deleterious actions weigh the more heavily in view of the abdication of American efforts in the opposite direction. TheUnited States hasbeen the modern worldsmost influential country and has promoted democracy passively by serving as a model and actively through its diplomatic efforts, aid, and even militaryand covert action practices. But President Barack Obamacameto office aiming to correct the overreach of President George W. Bush, who aspired to impose democracy on Iraq andperhaps the whole Middle East. Obama believed America should practice greater self-restraint andexercise extreme cautionabout saddling others with our beliefs. Wary of neo-imperialism, he resisted calls tomore forcefullycounteract Iranian and Russianassertionsof power.

President Trumps policies go in the same direction as Obamas, only further. This week, he congratulated Turkeys president for eliminating the parliament and consolidating power against the opposition. His America first nationalism focuses on what we can extract from the worldrather thanhow we can influenceit. His moral relativism toward Russia implies utter indifference to the behavior of foreign governments, unless commercial interests are at stake. Recently, he has added a couple further exceptions: Other countries mustnt gas babies or threaten America with intercontinental nuclear missiles. The list still falls dramatically short of Americas issues of interest and realm of influence. In aFebruary interview, when confronted with the assertion that Putin is a killer, Trump replied, there are a lot of killers. You think our countrys so innocent? The foreign policy thinkers who havegathered underTrumps banner have gone out of their way to de-emphasize or disparage Americas role in promoting democracy.

Notwithstanding a recent about-face the alliance is no longer obsolete, he said this month Trump has denigrated NATO, applaudedBrexit,and embracedEuropean politicians who seek to weaken or abolish the European Union. Given that economics and trade seem to be the centerpieces of his international interests andgivenhis apparent view that international relationsconstitutea zero-sum game, onethat America has been losing, it makes sense to welcome the disintegration of the E.U.

Yet it is preciselytherethat the dangers ofademocratic crash weighmost heavily. The countries of Western Europe have not only been Americas principal allies in the Cold War and the war against terrorism, they also, as stable, advanced and successful countries, constitute the other main cornerstone of the democratic world. The young democracies of Central and Eastern Europe were seen two decades ago as a source of inspiration for the older, more established West. Today,there is reason to fear for the solidity of Europes democracies (both East and West).

[Heres what demagogues like Trump do to their countries when they take power]

Many of these nations are being whipsawed between, on the one hand, burgeoning immigrant-and-refugee populations from predominantly Muslim landsthat sometimes show little attachment to their new countries or democratic institutions, and, on the other hand, populist parties channeling anti-immigrant feelings parties that are themselvesequivocalin their commitment to democratic values and institutions.Conditions vary from country to country, but a variety of additional factors also lie at the root of European populism, including low growth and high youth unemployment in the south; voter frustration with Brussels over regulations and matters of sovereignty; anxiety about terrorism; and dissatisfaction with globalization and free trade. The central problem is not that citizens speak out and voice concern in a number of areas, of course. The threat is what populist leaders do with all this.Populists see themselves as sole moral representatives of the true people,Princeton Universitys Jan-Werner Muellersays. Media, courts, even universities can be viewed as enemies of the people.

None of this will go away easily, or soon. In French elections, Marine Le Pen may end up losing in second-round voting in May. But her populist National Front would almost certainly gain more support than last time. Germanys Alternative for Germany party is down to 8 percent in polls compared with 15 percent earlier this year. The right-wing populists nevertheless now hold seats in 10 of Germanys 16 state parliamentsand will almost certainly enter the Bundestag throughnational elections in September.

The sky is not falling yet. But were todays E.U. to break apart, expect a surge of protectionism, illiberal nationalism and anti-American sentimentin pockets across the continent. Count on even greater Russian assertiveness in Europe in backing anti-democratic forces. Moscow is the source of none of these unfortunate trends, but it has shown itself eager to support and promote all of them.

* * * * * * * *

ScholarsRoberto Stefan Foa and Yascha Mounk have recently challenged the establishedviewinpolitical sciencethat democracy in economically developed countries cannot be reversed.In academic jargon, countries that havealternated powerpeacefully through electionsa couple of timesor moreand have surpassed a certain income level are deemed to be consolidated democracies. Never has such a country slid back to authoritarianism.But Foa and Mounk have adduced a range of surveys showing that publics in Europe and the United Statesare registering an unprecedented loss ofattachment to, even disillusionment with, democratic norms. They ask whether democracy in some of these countries might be in the process of becoming deconsolidated.

In our eyes, American democracy is sturdy enough to withstandthis trend and even the rise ofan erratic, megalomaniacal president. The questionthat troubles us moreis whethertheglobalanti-democratic trends of the past decade will be accelerated byAmericas abandonment ofits historic role asmodel andchampion of democracy. Already Trumps egregious behavior has weakened Americas impact as an exemplar. At this moment, much of the world looks at us astonished or aghast rather than in admiration.The further issue is whether our actions in the realms of diplomacy, commerce and foreign aid will count democracy as an important value or will they all be guided by the pursuit of the deal and of ego gratification. The presidents impulses to destabilize Mexico, appease Russia and congratulate Turkey do not bode well in this regard.

[In Venezuela, we couldnt stop Chvez. Dont make the same mistakes we did.]

The withdrawal ofAmerican supportfordemocracy couldcompoundthe various anti-democratic trends we have described and lead to the fall of Huntingtons third wave. Thatcrashmight carry away many of the newly minted democracies of the developing world and of the former Soviet empireand might even send tremors through other parts of Europe.

So what? Trump says he wants to put only America first. So why care how democracy is faring elsewhere? The answer is that a less democratic world will be a less stable world, more rife with conflict, more fertile with terrorism and less friendly to the United States. The members of Team Trump are not the first Americans to dream of avoiding foreign wars, but time and again we have found ourselves drawn in, however reluctantly.

A range of developmentsmake this a dangerous time. Americas abdication ofleadership, of its devotiontoideals and practice of generosity in favor of a policy of narrow and short-term self-interest will only make this time more dangerous, not least for America itself.

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This is what the beginning of the end of democracy looks like - Washington Post

Last December, when the United States and the rest of the world were distracted, absorbing the shock of an unexpected presidential win by Donald J. Trump, something quite remarkable was unfolding in West Africa.

A constitutional crisis, triggered by an incumbent president unwilling to accept electoral defeat, ended peacefully. Civil conflict was averted. Democracy restored. It was an outcome driven by a populations readiness to risk-it-all to make their votes count, and defended by regional diplomacy and international law.

Heres what happened.

On Dec. 1, 2016, opposition leader Adama Barrow defeated long-time Gambian ruler, Yahyah Jammeh, who had come to power in 1994 through a military coup. Jammeh had managed, until that day, to manipulate the States institutions for 23 years to maintain his grip. The Gambia is a tiny sliver of a country on the western belly of the continent almost swallowed entirely by Senegal, with the exception of 80 kilometer coastline on the Atlantic Ocean.

Initially, Jammeh accepted his defeat, in what the UN called a peaceful, free and fair election. And, initially, Gambians took to the streets to jubilate.

But days later, for reasons only known to him, the Gambian president changed his mind. There were serious and unacceptable abnormalities in the election, he claimed. And with those words, he moved to Plan B, diverting to the courts to overturn the ruling of the electoral commission.

Jammeh must have presumed that his plan B would play out like Zimbabwe in 2013, when 92 year-old President Robert Mugabe, in power for three decades, withstood pressure to step aside after a disputed election, with the blessing of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Or like Burundi, in 2015, when the sitting president, Pierre Nkurunziza, ran for a third-term despite, constitutional limits on the presidency. When the opposition boycotted the vote, he won. Civil chaos unfolded, but the East African Community (EAC) gave Nkurunziza a pass.

But the 14 member-State Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), led by President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the president of the Republic of Liberia, the first woman democratically elected to lead an African nation, wasnt having it. And neither were the other 12 democratically elected heads of states of ECOWAS, many of whom defeated entrenched incumbents in their own countries. Jammeh would not be afforded the political space to hold on to power.

The case under international law was made. On Dec. 12, with ECOWAS in the lead, followed by the Africa Union (AU), and the United Nations, a unified international community called on the government of The Gambia to abide by its constitutional responsibilities and international obligations, demanding it was fundamental that the verdict of the ballots should be respected.

Then on Dec 21 the UN passed Resolution 2337, which authorized an African peace operation, the Economic Community of West African States in Gambia (ECOMIG), made up of troops from Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal.

The ECOWAS heads of state shuttled back and forth to The Gambias capital, Banjul, pressuring their colleague to leave peacefully. The group included Ghanaian President John Mahama, who just days earlier had lost his re-election bid to opposition candidate Nana Afufo-Addo. His mere presence in the group signaling to the besieged Gambian president, this is what we do in a democracy when we lose. We accept the will of our people.

But it would take the relentless defiance of the people of The Gambia, and diplomacy, backed by lethal force, to dislodge Jammeh.

ECOMIG mobilized on The Gambias eastern border and Jammeh was given an ultimatum to leave. On January 21, he signed a political agreement setting out the terms of his departure. Jammeh jetted off to exile. Adama Barrow took his rightful place as president of The Gambia. And the Gambian people returned to their jubilation.

Many are now studying The Gambia example, looking at the factors that enabled a peaceful resolution so soon after a flash point. Some, like associate Professor of International Affairs at George Washington University Daniel Williams, who examines the legal basis for the ECOMIG intervention, concludes that the Gambia conflict-resolution success was an anomaly, its small size, unique geography, universally hated leader could offer no real resistance to a unified regional response.

But for me, The Gambia is no anomaly, but indicative of an emerging Africa. Here are the takeaways.

First, democracy begets democracy. The ECOWAS heads of state were all democratically elected. Several of the ECOWAS nations, Liberia, Guinea, Cote d Ivoire, Sierra Leone, are still recovering from cross-border conflict and civil wars, and are raising their first generation of children in peacetime. West Africa has paid a steep price for their young constitutional democracies. Jammeh staying in power would have been more than a threat to regional stability, it would have signified a betrayal by each of these presidents to their own constituents.

Second, The Gambia reaffirms the value of the investment in soft power that the U.S., and other bilateral and multilateral donors have made in Africa. The U.S. did not move battle ships offshore in The Gambia, nor dispatch special operation units to protect or evacuate U.S. citizens and foreign nationals from a country exploding in civil conflict. These are actions the U.S. was forced to take in the region, repeatedly, barely a decade earlier and at tremendous cost to the military and U.S. taxpayers.

The crisis was managed by Africans themselves, in part, because we had invested in the long-game building capacity and strengthening democratic institutions.

In the recent past, across Republican and Democratic administrations, the U.S. has provided assistance to support national electoral commissions, strengthen education and healthcare systems, build civil society institutions, train investigative journalists, fortify regional organizations, insist on performance-based foreign assistance, streamline government procurement processes, stand-up anti-corruption commissions, and encourage people-to-people exchanges. And the Ghanaian, Nigerian and Senegalese forces contributing to ECOMIG received some level of US assistance over the years in the form of logistics expertise, training, engineering support, and through joint exercises with the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM).

Third, The Gambia reaffirms that the greatest export of the United States to the world is still its foundational values of freedom and democracy.

And fourth, and finally, The Gambia example reveals the thirst for participatory democracy in Africa, and the coming-of-age of a population ready to hold their leaders accountable.

Today, former president Jammeh is living in exile in Equatorial Guinea, where President Theodoro Obiang, another entrenched leader, has been in power since 1979, long past his expiration date. But his time will come too. History is marching on.

K. Riva Levinson is President and CEO of KRL International LLC a D.C.-based consultancy that works in the worlds emerging markets, and author of "Choosing the Hero: My Improbable Journey and the Rise of Africa's First Woman President" (Kiwai Media, June 2016), Silver Medal winner Independent Book Publishers Award, Finalist, Forward ReviewsINDIES Book of the Year Awards.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.

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Africa's example: How democracy begets democracy - The Hill (blog)

New York Times

How Autocrats Can Triumph in Democratic Countries New York Times Today, the most common way for a democracy to collapse is through the actions of an elected incumbent, not a coup or revolution. Hugo Chvez, elected to four terms as president of Venezuela, used his time in office to dismantle the institutions of ...

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How Autocrats Can Triumph in Democratic Countries - New York Times

The Republican war on local democracy is a top-down effort to prevent Americans from voting where they live to protect the environment, preserve their communities, promote public safety, respect civil liberties, organize fair elections, raise wages, guarantee family and medical leave for workers, and welcome immigrants.

While the Trump administration's assault on sanctuary cities as part of the aggressive anti-immigrant agenda promoted by the president and Attorney General Jeff Sessions gets a good deal of attention, the federal and state pre-emption of local ordinances and local processes that ensure voters have a voice has accelerated as President Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan have taken power in D.C. and Trump-style governors and Ryan-style legislators have placed their imprints on Republican-controlled states across the country.

Encouraged by groups such as the American Legislative Exchange Council, with an authoritarian agenda dictated by corporate-allied funders such as billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, the top-down politicians in states across the country have attacked local democracy at the county, city, village and town levels of government. And in few states has the gubernatorial and legislative overreach been so extreme as in Scott Walker's Wisconsin.

But voters are starting to push back by pushing out politicians who go along with top-down and anti-democratic policies.

In Wisconsin, resistance came about recently after a bill was introduced in the Legislature that proponents said would streamline the process for towns to withdraw from countywide zoning. As originally written, the legislation would have made any vote by town residents on opting out advisory rather than binding, taking the decision out of the hands of voters and giving it to the town board.

As the Republican-controlled Legislature advanced the legislation, residents of the town of Middleton in Dane County caught wind of what was happening. They wanted to send a clear signal that the town should protect the right of residents to have a say. Dissatisfied with what they saw as failures of focus and advocacy on the part of the town chairman and a key Town Board member, challengers stepped forward to highlight the local democracy issues that came into play as the state Assembly was considering the zoning bill in March.

But the April 4 election was only a few weeks away, and the filing deadline to get on the ballot had passed. So the local-democracy candidates had to mount write-in bids.

We just decided the way to win this was to knock on every door in the town of Middleton that was physically possible, said Cynthia Richson, a town plan commission member, who took on the incumbent town chairman. Former Town Board member Richard Oberle challenged an incumbent board member who,as The Capital Times reported, had pushed for a zoning opt-out law that was signed in 2016 and had also backed the bill that "would have relegated resident votes to advisory, as opposed to binding.

Both Richson and Oberle won their write-in bidsin a result that shocked local political observers and made news well beyond Dane County.

Rightly so, as the town of Middleton election was about more than local issues. It was about defending local democracy at a time when too many politicians in Madison and Washington are attacking it.

The challengers were opposed to opting out of Dane County zoning. But the primary focus of their campaigning was the right of citizens to have a say when big decisions are being made. Number one, explained Oberle, is to make sure the citizens are allowed to have a vote on this opt-out issue and get informed about it so they can make a good decision.

The opt-out bill, which is still pending, was eventually changed to restore a vote by town residents, and the wranglingover zoning has continued. Different sentiments have been heard in the town of Middleton and in towns across Dane County. But this is about more than zoning and land use. This is about democracy.

When you cut the people you are elected to represent out of the process, thats going to haunt you, said Dane County Executive Joe Parisi, a critic of the zoning opt-out bill. People in our community overwhelmingly want us to manage our growth in a manner that maintains the quality of life and the character of our community. And people want to have a voice in how we grow.

There are voters in Dane County towns who have agreed with Parisi, just as there are voters who have disagreed.

Whats essential is that the process remain open and transparent, that barriers to civic participation be removed, and that voting is easy, inclusive and definitional.

Thats something conservative Republicans in the Legislature do not understand.

They have little respect for local democracy especially when local democracy might trip up the plans of development interests that make substantial campaign donations.

If write-in candidates mounting last-minute bids on behalf of local democracy can win in the town of Middleton, they can win in other places as well. And a new generation of contenders can take on the Republican legislators who so frequently disrespect and disregard the will of the people who live in Wisconsin towns, villages and cities.

Newly elected town of Middleton Chair Cynthia Richson got it right when she said after her write-in win: I would hope that it would be a reminder and perhaps a wake-up call to other representatives who may be deciding that once they get elected that they can pursue any agenda they personally want to as opposed to reaching out to their electors and taking public input.

Share your opinion on this topic by sending a letter to the editor to tctvoice@madison.com. Include your full name, hometown and phone number. Your name and town will be published. The phone number is for verification purposes only. Please keep your letter to 250 words or less.

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Editorial: Rejecting the Republican war on local democracy ... - Madison.com

Elif Shafak is a Turkish novelist and essayist whose works include The Bastard of Istanbul, The Architects Apprentice and Three Daughters of Eve. The WorldPost interviewed her about the results of Turkeys historic referendum granting President Recep Tayyip Erdoan sweeping new powers.

What does it mean for Turkeys long experiment with democracy now that President Recep Tayyip Erdoan has gained more autocratic power through this referendum?

First of all, it needs to be acknowledged that the months of campaigning prior to the referendum were neither balanced nor fair nor free. Every day and night the yes vote was propagated all over Turkish media, both print and TV, most of which are blatantly pro-government. The no vote was not given an equal voice or a free platform to express its concerns. Most of the states resources and news outlets were unilaterally used by and for the yes campaign. People who publicly dared to say that they were going to vote no were intimidated, bullied and attacked by trolls on social media and some of them even lost their jobs. President Recep Tayyip Erdoan included, the AKP [or ruling Justice and Development Party] elite repeatedly accused supporters of the no vote of siding with terrorists. We therefore need to understand the turbulent background to this referendum. Turkey has become the worlds biggest jailer of journalists. Academics have been sacked for signing a peace petition. The co-leaders of the pro-Kurdish HDP, [or Peoples Democratic Party], alongside the local mayors, have been detained and imprisoned. In such a climate of fear and intimidation, how can there be a free, fair and balanced referendum and especially on such an important issue that will alter the countrys entire political system?

This referendum is going to have a massive impact on Turkeys destiny for generations to come. And Turkeys journey will have an impact on an entire region. A decision of such magnitude has been taken through an unfair, one-sided campaign with a slight margin of electoral victory in the end. Given the fact that the governments propaganda has been so widespread and systematic, it is remarkable that only 51 percent have voted yes eventually and that with some serious questions as to the validity of the total number of votes. What the electoral board did at the last minute changing the rules and deciding to count the votes without unofficial stamps was totally unexpected, scandalous. So I am sad about the outcome and worried about my motherland. The referendum has not solved anything. If anything, it deepened the existing cultural and ideological divisions. There is no national consensus, there is no culture of coexistence. Sadly, there is no unity among the opposition either. Turkey is going through not only a political crisis, but also an existential one. Ours is a nation in a deep identity crisis.

Umit Bektas / Reuters

What do the referendum results mean for Turkeys relationship with Europe?

Turkeys relationship with Europe has already hit a rock bottom. The governments rhetoric is jingoistic nationalist and anti-Western, especially with Europe. So we can expect an escalation in that kind of language now. But these things can change and fluctuate, depending on the politics and the interests of the day, for both sides. We should also bear in mind that Turkey is a society of collective amnesia. Last year, Russia was the enemy. This year, it was our friend. It is amazing how fast feelings and foreign policies change when societies are unstable. In fact, one of the first things Erdoan mentioned in his victory speech was reinstating the death penalty. This means severing ties with the European Union. The hegemonic discourse in Turkey today is shaped by Islamism, Turkish nationalism and Euroskepticism.

Does this mark the most significant turning point for the Turkish republic since Mustafa Kemal Atatrk? In a way, is it the final repeal of Kemalism?

This is the most significant turning point in Turkeys modern political history. It is a shift backwards; the end of parliamentary democracy. It is also a dangerous discontinuation of decades of Westernization, secularism and modernization; the discontinuation of Atatrks modern Turkey. Those who defend the presidential system are trying to play it down by arguing that it will be just like France or America. But it wont. It wont because we do not have the culture of democracy, we only have the shape of democracy. In Turkey, the ruling elite do not understand that you need more than the ballot box for a proper, functioning, pluralistic democracy. Turkey does not have the same checks and balances, rule of law, separation of powers and free/diverse media that the U.S. and France relatively enjoy under their presidential systems.

BULENT KILIC via Getty Images

A little over a year ago you said the crackdown on media in the country and the refugee crisis were causing Turkey to slide backwards and become increasingly polarized. You say the referendum is also a shift backward. The narrowness of the victory, the critique by monitors and Erdoans loss of Istanbul also highlight these divisions. What does this identity crisis mean for the future of Turkey?

Turkey has been sliding backwards for many years now. It is not new. But there have been accelerating factors and moments when the decline in our democracy became faster, sharper. The collapse of relations with the EU was one watershed moment. The abandonment of the peace/reconciliation process with the Kurdish PKK [Kurdistan Workers Party] was so sad, if not dangerous. Another horrible moment was the bloody coup attempt in July. Then came the purge. Today, politicians and pro-government newspapers tell young people that it is better to abandon any prospect of joining the EU and walk in the other direction and enter the Shanghai Pact [also known as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization] with Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Russia and China. Its true that this would be the right place for any country with a depressing freedom of speech violations record.

Last summer you described the coup attempt in Turkey as a nail in the coffin of democracy and said we are heading into a Kafkaesque world. Where does Turkey go from here? What are you most concerned about?

The coup attempt was wrong, shocking, sinister and it made everything worse. Turkeys liberals and democrats do not want another military takeover. They dont want a military or a civilian dictatorship. What we need is a proper, functioning, pluralistic democracy. I do not wish anyone in Turkey to have extraordinary powers, to tell you the truth. Whoever has power, demands more and then more. It is never enough. So, primarily, I am concerned about the monopolization of power, the crackdown on diversity and dissent. Turkey is fast becoming yet another Middle Eastern country. Once we used to think this country was a successful and sui generis synthesis, blending a majority-Muslim culture with secularism and Western democracy. No longer.

OZAN KOSE via Getty Images

U.S. President Donald Trump recently congratulated Erdoan on his win. How might his victory impact U.S.-Turkey relations? Do you think Erdoansnewly won power will give hope or momentum to other populist leaders worldwide, specifically Marine Le Pen ahead of the French election? If so, how so?

What is very worrisome is how democracy stopped being a priority, both in the East and in the West. This is the trend we need to reverse across the globe. How can we make democracy a priority again? After decades of globalization, whether we like it or not, we are all interconnected. That is why the kind of isolationism that populist movements champion is neither feasible nor realistic. Populists are encouraged by each other, for sure. The erosion of democracy in one country gives pretext for the erosion of democracy in another country. Extremism in one country breeds extremism elsewhere. Turkey holds important lessons for the world. Turkeys story is a lesson in the fragility of democracy vis--vis populist demagoguery.

Are there any benefits to this result? Stronger defenses against terrorism or a reunified Cyprus, for instance?

That is what the proponents of the presidential system claim they say Turkey will be stronger and decisions can be made speedily. They also say that in the Middle East, we need to choose between stability and democracy. But this is a false dichotomy. Those who believe in this have learned nothing from history. History has shown us time and again that top-down monopolization of power, no matter by which individual, group or party, will bring only unhappiness, and unhappy nations cannot possibly be stable.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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Turkey Is A Cautionary Tale Of Fragile Democracy, Says Turkish Novelist - Huffington Post