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Edinburgh Studies on Modern Turkey

Guardianship and Democracy in Iran and TurkeyTutelary Consolidation, Popular Contestation

By Karabekir Akkoyunlu

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About this book

A comparative analysis of the political consolidation and popular contestation of regime guardianship in Turkey and the Islamic Republic of Iran
  • Moves beyond the Secular vs. Islamic, Sunni vs. Shia dichotomies to highlight Turkey and Iran's understudied hybrid institutional architecture
  • Compares and contrasts the foundations, consolidation, internal frictions and popular contestation of regime guardianship in two ideologically inimical republics
  • Provides insights for the democratisation and hybrid regime scholarship into how tutelary institutions shape and constrain electoral institutions and processes
  • Analyses the key actors, dynamics and turning points of the power struggles that shaped and transformed Iran and Turkey in the 21st century
  • Critically assesses the causes and consequences of the fragility of democratic governance and the persistence of patriarchal power structures in both countries

This book offers the first comparative study of the foundations, consolidation and contestation of regime guardianship in the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Republic of Turkey. For decades, the military in Turkey and the clergy in Iran acted as the guardians of Atatürk and Khomeini’s ideological legacies. At the turn of the 21st century rising popular actors in both countries started challenging the tutelary control of the state and society. While in Turkey the clash between the Kemalist guardians and their Islamist-led rivals resulted in a victory for the latter, although not for democracy, in Iran, traditionalist guardians were able to thwart popular challenges to their authority at the expense of the regime’s democratic legitimacy. How was guardianship established, consolidated and contested in these republics with seemingly inimical founding ideologies? Why did it unravel in Turkey but survive in the Islamic Republic in the early 2010s? And what do these power struggles and their outcomes tell us about political contestation in tutelary hybrid regimes?

Reviews

By using the concept of guardianship, this subtle and original book provides unique insights into contemporary Iranian and Turkish politics. It reveals the logic but also the fragility of hybrid regimes that divide power and sovereignty between 'the people' and elite guardians tasked with preserving the polity's core values.
This thought-provoking book is a valuable scholarly and intellectual contribution to modern Turkey and Iran Studies as well as comparative political regime theories.
Drawing upon an impressive range of empirical data and employing a multidisciplinary methodology, Akkoyunlu crafts a nuanced narrative of institutional persistence and erosion under varying domestic and international pressures.
Table of contents

List of Acronyms

Preface

Introduction

Part I: Foundations

1. Of Power and Legitimacy: The Idea of State in Iran and Turkey

2. Atatürk and Khomeini: Political and Ideological Legacies of Charismatic Founders

Part II: Consolidation

3. Institutional Duality in the Islamic Republic of Iran

4. Democracy Under Tutelage in Turkey

Part III: Contestation

5. The Strangling of the Republican Pillar in Iran

6. The Dismantling of the Kemalist Guardianship in Turkey

Part IV: The Outcome

7. The Rouhani Presidency and the Limits of Moderation

8. Change and Continuity in the Making of Erdoğan's 'New Turkey'

Conclusion

Bibliography

About the author

Karabekir Akkoyunlu

Karabekir Akkoyunlu is a lecturer at the Department of Politics and International Studies at SOAS University of London, where he convenes courses on the politics of the Middle East, comparative politics and research methods. His research focuses on democratisation, autocratisation, hybrid regimes, militarism and civil-military relations. Before joining SOAS, he was a lecturer at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation (FGV) in São Paulo and a visiting scholar at the Institute of International Relations, University of São Paulo in Brazil, and a post-doctoral fellow at the Centre for Southeast European Studies, University of Graz, in Austria. He is the co-editor of the special issue on ‘The Limits of Autocratisation: Actors and Institutions of Democratic Resistance and Opposition’ (Third World Quarterly, 2024) and of Exit from Democracy: Illiberal Governance in Turkey and Beyond (Routledge, 2018).

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