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In this introduction to the special issue, we situate Turkey’s 2023 election within a longitudinal analysis of the country’s drift to a consolidated competitive authoritarian regime. Drawing on seven articles, we contend that the 2023 elections were less a referendum on a democracy-versus-autocracy cleavage than a contest centred on the incumbent president. The ruling People’s Alliance successfully mobilised ethnic and religious-sectarian divisions while the opposition pursued a Downsian defence on these cleavages. The articles trace this dynamic across three thematic threads – polarisation, electoral strategy, and voting behaviour – to analyse how Erdoğan secured a third presidential term despite the severe economic and political shocks. We conclude by outlining the special issue’s contributions to the existing scholarship.
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Moral et al. (2026) studied this question.
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