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Since the Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in 2002 Turkey has undergone double regime transitions. First, tutelary democracy ended; second, a competitive authoritarian regime has risen in its stead. We substantiate this assertion with specific and detailed evidence from 2015 election cycles, as well as from broader trends in Turkish politics. This evidence indeed confirms that elections are no longer fair; civil liberties are being systematically violated; and the playing field is highly skewed in favour of the ruling AKP. The June 2015 election results and their aftermath further confirm that Turkey has evolved into a competitive authoritarian regime.

THE IMPORTANCE AND ROLE OF AFRICAN COUNTRIES FOR TURKISH FOREIGN POLICY UNDER THE RULE OF THE JUSTICE AND DEVELOPMENT PARTY (AKP) The main aim of the article is to trace an evolution of Turkey’s foreign policy towards African countries. Assuming that during the rule of the Justice and Development Party a qualitative change took place in Turkey’s approach to this area, the paper will analyse its particular importance in the process of shaping the new identity of Ankara’s foreign policy after 2002. In addition, the ambition of the submitted paper is also to indicate the reasons for the change that took place in the way of building relations with some countries of the region, so characteristic for overall Turkey’s international activities during the rule of R.T. Erdoğan and his political party.

This article examines Turkey’s authoritarian state surveillance regime by developing the concept of the authoritarian surveillant assemblage (ASA), building on and expanding the concept of the surveillant assemblage (SA). Turkey’s ASA is the outcome of diverse surveillance systems, which continuously expand their reach, form new connections and incorporate new actors. These systems include a protest and dissent surveillance system, an internet surveillance system, a synoptic media surveillance system and an informant–collaborator surveillance system. Turkey’s ASA is controlled by the Turkish state and serves its repressive interests. Although pivotal in emphasizing the complexity of surveillance connections and increasing diversification of and collaboration among surveillance actors, the SA model of surveillance puts the main emphasis on decentralized, uncoordinated and multifaceted forms of surveillance, and does not offer sufficient analytical space to understand how an authoritarian state could coordinate diverse surveillance systems and use it for the overarching purpose of control. The article draws on Michael Mann’s theory of state power and the authoritarian state to address these limitations of the SA and conceptualize the ASA. It shows how the diverse systems of Turkey’s ASA work in concert with one another under the hierarchical command of Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) to control the population and suppress dissent.

Under the Justice and Development Party AKP and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey has become one of the most polarized countries in the world, and has undergone a significant democratic breakdown. This article explains how polarization and democratic breakdown happened, arguing that it was based on the built-in, perverse dynamics of an “authoritarian spiral of polarizing-cum-transformative politics.” Furthermore, I identify ten causal mechanisms that have produced pernicious polarization and democratic erosion. Turkey’s transformation since 2002 is an example of the broader phenomenon of democratic erosion under new elites and dominant groups. The causes and consequences of pernicious polarization are analyzed in terms of four subperiods: 2002–2006, 2007, 2008–2013, and 2014–present. In the end, what began as a potentially reformist politics of polarization-cum-transformation morphed into an autocratic-revolutionary one. During this process, polarization and AKP policies; the politicization of formative rifts that had been a divisive undercurrent since nation-state formation; structural transformations; and the opposition’s organizational, programmatic, and personal shortcomings fed and reinforced each other.

Abstract Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is estimated to influence as many as 1% children worldwide, but its etiology is still unclear. It has been suggested that gut microbiomes play an important role in regulating abnormal behaviors associated with ASD. A de facto standard analysis on the microbiome-associated diseases has been diversity analysis, and nevertheless, existing studies on ASD-microbiome relationship have not produced a consensus. Here, we perform a comprehensive analysis of the diversity changes associated with ASD involving alpha-, beta-, and gamma-diversity metrics, based on 8 published data sets consisting of 898 ASD samples and 467 healthy controls (HC) from 16S-rRNA sequencing. Our findings include: (i) In terms of alpha-diversity, in approximately 1/3 of the studies cases, ASD patients exhibited significantly higher alpha-diversity than the HC, which seems to be consistent with the “1/3 conjecture” of diversity-disease relationship (DDR). (ii) In terms of beta-diversity, the AKP (Anna Karenina principle) that predict all healthy microbiomes should be similar, and every diseased microbiome should be dissimilar in its own way seems to be true in approximately 1/2 to 3/4 studies cases. (iii) In terms of gamma-diversity, the DAR (diversity-area relationship) modeling suggests that ASD patients seem to have large diversity-area scaling parameter than the HC, which is consistent with the AKP results. However, the MAD (maximum accrual diversity) and RIP (ratio of individual to population diversity) parameters did not suggest significant differences between ASD patients and HC. Throughout the study, we adopted Hill numbers to measure diversity, which stratified the diversity measures in terms of the rarity—commonness—dominance spectrum. It appears that the differences between ASD patients and HC are more propounding on rare-species side than on dominant-species side. Finally, we discuss the apparent inconsistent diversity-ASD relationships among different case studies and postulate that the relationships are not monotonic. We adopted Hill numbers to measure diversity, which appears that the differences between ASD patients and HC are more propounding on rare-species side than on dominant-species side.

A unified framework is presented for the solution structure of three-dimensional discrete integrable systems, including the lattice AKP, BKP and CKP equations. This is done through the so-called direct linearizing transform, which establishes a general class of integral transforms between solutions. As a particular application, novel soliton-type solutions for the lattice CKP equation are obtained.

The microbiological behavior of dental polymer materials is crucial to secure the clinical success of dental restorations. Here, the manufacturing process and the machining can play a decisive role. This study investigated the bacterial adhesion on dental polymers as a function of manufacturing techniques (additive/subtractive) and different polishing protocols. Specimens were made from polyaryletherketone (PEEK, PEKK, and AKP), resin-based CAD/CAM materials (composite and PMMA), and printed methacrylate (MA)-based materials. Surface roughness (Rz; Ra) was determined using a laser scanning microscope, and SFE/contact angles were measured using the sessile drop method. After salivary pellicle formation, in vitro biofilm formation was initiated by exposing the specimens to suspensions of Streptococcus mutans (S. mutans) and Streptococcus sanguinis (S. sanguinis). Adherent bacteria were quantified using a fluorometric assay. One-way ANOVA analysis found significant influences (p < 0.001) for the individual parameters (treatment and material) and their combinations for both types of bacteria. Stronger polishing led to significantly (p < 0.001) less adhesion of S. sanguinis (Pearson correlation PC = −0.240) and S. mutans (PC = −0.206). A highly significant (p = 0.010, PC = 0.135) correlation between S. sanguinis adhesion and Rz was identified. Post hoc analysis revealed significant higher bacterial adhesion for vertically printed MA specimens compared to horizontally printed specimens. Furthermore, significant higher adhesion of S. sanguinis on pressed PEEK was revealed comparing to the other manufacturing methods (milling, injection molding, and 3D printing). The milled PAEK samples showed similar bacterial adhesion. In general, the resin-based materials, composites, and PAEKs showed different bacterial adhesion. Fabrication methods were shown to play a critical role; the pressed PEEK showed the highest initial accumulations. Horizontal DLP fabrication reduced bacterial adhesion. Roughness < 10 µm or polishing appear to be essential for reducing bacterial adhesion.

Guillermo O'Donnell's influential work 'Delegative Democracy' set the discourse on a peculiar type of democracy. Lying between representative democracy and authoritarianism, the uniqueness of delegative democracy lies in its features, including an absence of horizontal accountability, strong centralised rule, individual leadership with unchecked powers, a cult figure embodying the nation and clientelist practices. While delegative democracies seem to arise out of presidential systems, Turkey, though a parliamentary system, has also displayed the distinctive features of delegative democracies. This paper identifies three characteristics of delegative democracy, which are responsible for the lack of democratic consolidation, if not the erosion of democracy itself: anti-institutionalism, an anti-political agenda and clientelism. Arguing that delegative democracy is the best concept with which to examine contemporary Turkey, the paper lays out how, post-2011, Turkey has demonstrated the three elements of delegative democracy. The final section discusses the implications of the Turkish case for scrutinising the very possibility of delegative democracy in parliamentary regimes.

Although a voluminous literature has studied the substantive representation of women, these studies have largely been confined to advanced democracies. Similarly, studies that focus on the relationship between Islam and women's rights largely ignored the substantive representation of women in Muslim-majority countries. As one of the first studies of its kind, this article investigates the role of religion in the substantive representation of women by focusing on a Muslim-majority country: Turkey. Using a novel data set of 4,700 content coded private members' bills (PMBs) drafted in the Turkish parliament between 2002 and 2015, this article synthesizes competing explanations of women's representation in the Middle East and rigorously tests the implications of religion, ideology, critical mass, and labor force participation accounts. The results have significant implications for the study of gender and politics in Muslimmajority countries.

After the Justice and Development Party (AKP) rose to power in 2002, Turkey’s Middle East policy underwent a radical change. Erdoğan’s readings of the Arab Spring events are a vivid example of Turkey’s new foreign policy. In the last months of 2019 and 2020, Turkey took two other important steps that have attracted the attention of the international community: engagement in Operation Peace Spring in northern Syria without UN Security Council authorization, and steps to reach an agreement with the Libyan government on oil and gas exploration in the Mediterranean in tandem with sending troops to Libya. Turkey’s recent actions, which violate international law and UN resolutions, raise several questions: what changes have taken place in Turkey’s foreign policy? What are its core drivers and main components? And what results will the new policy deliver in the future? We argue that Turkey’s behavior conforms to the principles of offensive realism. The shift in Turkey’s foreign policy and the trend toward offensive realism are rooted in the 2011 Arab Spring and subsequent events in the Middle East. The failed coup of 2016 accelerated these changes and pushed them in new directions. Turkey is now seriously aiming to maximize its power, particularly in the politico-military field, which could increase tensions in the sensitive region. We submit that Turkey cannot be guided by offensive realism in the long term, however. Después de que el Partido de la Justicia y el Desarrollo (AKP) subiera al poder en 2002, la política de Turquía en Oriente Medio experimentó un cambio radical. Las lecturas de Erdoğan sobre los acontecimientos de la Primavera Árabe son un ejemplo vívido de la nueva política exterior de Turquía. En los últimos meses de 2019 y 2020, Turquía dio otros dos pasos importantes, que han vuelto a llamar la atención de la comunidad internacional: la Operación Fuente de Paz en el norte de Siria sin la autorización del Consejo de Seguridad de Naciones Unidas y llegar a un acuerdo con el Gobierno libio sobre exploración de petróleo y gas en el mar Mediterráneo junto con el envío de tropas a Libia. Las acciones recientes de Turquía, que claramente violan el derecho internacional y las resoluciones del Consejo de Seguridad de la ONU, plantean las siguientes preguntas: ¿qué cambios se han producido en la política exterior de Turquía? ¿Cuáles son sus principales impulsores y componentes principales? ¿Y qué resultados dará la nueva política en el futuro? Este artículo sostiene que el comportamiento de Turquía se ajusta a la teoría del realismo ofensivo. Las raíces de este cambio en la política exterior de Turquía y la tendencia hacia el realismo ofensivo deben perseguirse en la Primavera Árabe de 2011 y los eventos posteriores en el Medio Oriente. El fallido golpe de Estado del 15 de julio de 2016 ha acelerado estos cambios y los ha impulsado de nuevas formas. Turquía ahora apunta seriamente a maximizar su poder, particularmente en el campo político-militar, lo que podría aumentar las tensiones en la sensible zona de Oriente Medio. Sin embargo, parece que Turquía no puede dejarse guiar por un realismo ofensivo a largo plazo. 2002 年正義與發展黨（AKP）上台後，土耳其的中東政策發生了根本性的變化。埃爾多安對阿拉伯之春事件的解讀是土耳其新外交政策的生動例證。在 2019 年和 2020 年的最後幾個月，土耳其採取的另外兩個重要步驟再次引起了國際社會的關注：未經聯合國安理會授權，在敘利亞北部參與了“和平之春”行動；並採取步驟與利比亞政府就地中海​​的石油和天然氣勘探達成協議，同時向利比亞派兵。土耳其最近的行為明顯違反國際法和聯合國安理會決議，引發了幾個問題：土耳其的外交政策發生了哪些變化？它的核心驅動力和主要組成部分是什麼？新政策在未來會帶來什麼結果？本文認為，土耳其的行為符合進攻性現實主義理論。土耳其外交政策的這種轉變和進攻性現實主義的趨勢植根於 2011 年的阿拉伯之春和隨後在中東發生的事件。 2016 年失敗的政變加速了這些變化，並將它們推向了新的方向。土耳其現在正認真地致力於最大化其權力，特別是在政治軍事領域，這可能會加劇中東敏感地區的緊張局勢。然而，從長遠來看，土耳其不能以進攻性現實主義為指導。