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The political developments in both Turkey and Thailand in the last few years have separately garnered a lot of media attention, but the uncanny similarities between the democratic trajectories of these two countries have escaped the attention of most observers. Both countries emerged from the coalition fraught 1990s with strong leaders who were remarkable in their ability to attract a majority of the popular vote: Tayyip Erdoğan in the case of Turkey and Thaksin Shinawatra in the case of Thailand. In early part of this decade, both countries seemed poised to leave behind a checkered past with military interventions and well on their way to consolidating their democracies. Both Erdoğan and Thaksin had gained popularity by playing to the rural poor on the hand and accommodating big business on the other. However, in 2008, the prospects for the deepening of democracy in both contexts seem much dimmer than they did only a few years ago. Both leaders encountered an inconsolably strong opposition from a class usually known for its support for democracy: the urban, educated, middle-class elites. In both Turkey and Thailand, urban elites deliberately polarized the country in order to induce the military to stage another coup. In Thailand, these efforts were successful: Thaksin was deposed in a coup in 2006 and later found guilty of corruption charges. In Turkey, these efforts were semi-successful, culminating not in a coup but a dissolution charge against Erdoğan's majority party. The Turkish Supreme Court ultimately rejected the charge, but Erdoğan's political maneuvering ability was curtailed as a result. While studying these developments in the context of each country's particular culture and institutional legacy would certainly be helpful, the surprising similarities between these two cases point to new avenues of analysis. One commonality between the democratic quagmires in Turkey and Thailand seems to be the class dynamics present in both struggles. Class analysis has always been important to studies of democratization, but in the context of developing countries outside of Latin America, it often gets second billing to identity variables. That two countries, which share almost nothing culturally, are dealing with the same manifestation of democratic roadblocks is a timely reminder for us to revisit class analysis in these contexts. At the same time, identity variables are not without impact in these cases - they affect how class consciousness is articulated both in Turkey and Thailand. In both cases, the anti-democratic forces are otherwise 'modernized' and proud of it. In fact, what separates the urban middle class from the rural middle class is precisely that orientation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Muslim states such as Turkey and Pakistan face a unique set of challenges in constructing consolidated democratic systems. In order to understand the prospects for democratic deepening in these two states we compare the interaction of liberal and illiberal institutions in each context. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]