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The May 2023 elections in Turkey—comprising both parliamentary and presidential races—represented a pivotal moment in the country’s political history. These elections provided a crucial evaluation of the hyper-presidential system instituted after the 2017 constitutional transition. This article delves into the impact of the 2023 electoral outcomes on Turkey’s party system within the context of Turkey’s transition to a presidential system. It examines the ramifications of institutional changes, such as the introduction of winner-takes-all dynamics and alliance laws, on party system dynamics. Our findings indicate substantial transformations in key aspects of the party system, including increased polarization, heightened fragmentation, enhanced volatility, and intensified personalization. Through empirical analysis, showcasing the evolving dynamics of these challenges within the Turkish party system and their consequences for both the party system’s structure and the broader political regime, we offer insights into potential future trajectories for Turkey’s political landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

American democracy is in crisis. The emergence of affective polarization and populism has contributed to a divided America in which both sides perceive every election as an existential threat to their ways of life, values, and democracy itself. Central features of liberal democracy, including the right to vote, the system of checks and balances, and presidential transitions of power, appear to be collectively under threat in ways they have not been since the Civil War. Scholars diverge on both the sources of and responses to the crisis. For some, the problem is too much democracy, and the solution is less. For others, the problem is too little democracy, and the solution is more. This review offers a synthesis of the contrasting accounts of American democracy in crisis and advances a third alternative of better democracy as a key to escaping the crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Federal administrative agencies are one of the primary policymaking venues in the United States. One of the core features of U.S. administrative practice is the notice-and-comment process in which agencies solicit, collect, and respond to comments from the public before issuing new regulations. In this paper, we develop a model of commenting based on three motivations—litigation preservation; agency persuasion; and expression—and analyze public comments to determine how features of the political environment, and specifically the president in power, affect the pool of commenters. We focus on the 2017 presidential transition, when there was both a change in Presidents and the party in control of the White House. We find that there were greater differences in the pool of commenters between administrations than within administrations and that interest groups tended to participate more when they were more closely associated with the party in power. Our findings support the view that many commenters use the public comment process for persuasive purposes, and not only to preserve litigation opportunities or for purely expressive reasons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic nationalism and state intervention recently gained attraction in many countries including Turkey. This paper questions whether Turkey has changed its economic policy framework towards a statecentric model and, if so, whether these changes are well thought-out and sustainable. The examination of key areas of state capitalism, that is the monetary, industrial, trade, financial, and state economic enterprise (SEE) policies put forward in the officially adopted five-year plans and annual programs, suggests that the changes in the economic policy framework began after the 2008 global crisis and accelerated after the transition to a presidential system. Upon examination, the policy framework does not reflect a definitive, coherent, and wholistic approach but rather a pragmatic attitude that swings back and forth, which exposes the country to swings in the global system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Upon the development of information and communication technologies (ICTs), countries embarked on a structuring process in the public sector in order to provide faster and more efficient services. Acting positively towards technological developments in the public sector, Türkiye started digital transformation reform studies and developed "e-Government applications" especially in the recent years. In this context, during the transition to the Presidential Government System, Türkiye established the Digital Transformation Office (DTO), which is considered the most important stage of the smart government (s-Government). With the establishment of DTO, the transition process from "e-Government" to "s-Government" has started and radical changes have taken place in the Turkish public administration. With this office, consolidation of the coordination functions under the same entity was aimed regarding the issues such as cyber security, critical infrastructures, big data and artificial intelligence. By considering the associated changes in the public sector along with the development of technology, this study attempts to examine the functions and structure of DTO, which played an effective role in the transition from "e-Government" to "s-Government" in Türkiye. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay is written as an open letter to whomever the 47th President may be and whenever he or she may take office. It proposes several different approaches to a presidential transition to allow an incoming President to have a strategy and other plans in place sooner than has been the norm over the past several transitions to direct the national security system more effectively. While the 2024 presidential election may feature the reelection of the current incumbent or the return of the previous president to the Oval Office, either may wish to consider new approaches to how they will organize their national security strategy and the personnel and processes that will manage it from the way they did in their first administrations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the behaviour of credit rating agencies (CRAs) during the ebbing 'pink tide'. It claims that the actions of S&P Global, Moody's and Fitch contributed to dismantling left-wing regimes in Latin America, to the benefit of their right-wing competitors. The methodology draws on case studies of Brazil and Argentina, where the governments of Dilma Rousseff and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner were replaced by those of Michel Temer and Mauricio Macri, respectively. The research is based on sovereign ratings, reports and press releases the agencies issued during those transitions, which are analysed in the light of critical theories of their modus operandi and confronted with the political processes unfolding in both countries. This allows us to draw conclusions that are consistent with the presented argument, thereby contributing to advance the research agenda around the CRAs and to shed light on Brazil and Argentina's recent critical presidential transitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pictures of the US Capitol attack, on January 6, 2021, represent a before and after in a country marked by the culture of political polarization. Following a presidential campaign based on misinformation and accusations of electoral fraud by Republican candidate Donald Trump, the level of maximum polarization causes a climate of social rupture. Faced with this, the Democratic candidate and winner of the elections, Joe Biden, projects a discourse of institutional stability and legality as a strategy before public opinion. Two years later, the abrupt division of the US electorate is evident, with a significant percentage of Republican voters questioning the legitimacy of the electoral process. The objective of this research is to find out the strategies of political polarization deployed by Donald Trump and Joe Biden on Twitter in the 2020-2021 presidential transition period, as well as the public's response. Based on a general sample of 1,060 tweets, a comparative content analysis methodology with a triple approach (quantitative-qualitative-discursive) is applied, based on the study of themes, emotions, and the ability to go viral of the messages of both political leaders. The results confirm a Trump's speech defined by polarization, misinformation and the attack on the democratic system, relegating information from his presidential administration in the last months of his term to the background. On the contrary, Biden avoids confrontation and reinforces his legitimacy as president-elect, by announcing management measures of the future government. The engagement value of the social audience on Twitter is also added, with a position of support for the winner of the elections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study examines the question of how information technology is managed in Turkish public administration. In this context, within the framework of policy, actor and resource management, e-governance has been examined. For a long time, the effort to transform the progress in information and communication technology into public administration reforms draws attention. In this process, although there were attempts to ensure the integrity of strategy in digital public administration, the existence of a multi-actor and multi-part structure in resource use continued. The Presidency Digital Transformation Office, which was established with the transition to the Presidential Government System in 2018, is planned to lead the development of digital public administration. Although important steps have been taken within the framework of the "public digital transformation leader" mission imposed on the Head of the Digital Transformation Office, it is seen that there is a need to develop management mechanisms that will support the interaction between the actors and the use of resources. In the study, document analysis technique was used within the scope of qualitative research method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Angola's government has historically championed the revival of the agricultural sector as a national priority, though it has remained unclear what role the nation's peasantry is intended to play. Looking to the future while fixated on the past, the first failed recipe for growth was initially based on nationalizing the colonial export model by incorporating the social and economic forces of the rural economy. The government's early embrace of authoritarian modernization has since pursued an illiberal rural development model seeking to entrench the state's control over rural areas and extend elite reproduction capacities, exercised principally through a series of state-owned enterprises. Upon the end of the civil war in Angola in 2002, the timely arrival of Chinese loans and technical assistance allowed the administration of President José Eduardo dos Santos to revitalize this strategy with a return to the establishment of a series of state agro-industrial farms a quarter century later. A historical presidential transition in 2017 upended these strategies of rural governance, leading to a vast privatization scheme of state assets built up over decades. This article reveals how the Angolan state has historically sought to engineer elite minority control over the agricultural sector while marginalizing the vast majority of the main rural economic actor, the peasantry. Likewise, the case study provides insight into the hidden costs of Chinese loans on Angola's rural economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We combine personnel records of the United States federal bureaucracy from 1997 to 2019 with administrative voter registration data to study how ideological alignment between politicians and bureaucrats affects turnover and performance. We document significant partisan cycles and turnover among political appointees. By contrast, we find no political cycles in the civil service. At any point in time, a sizable share of bureaucrats is ideologically misaligned with their political leaders. We study the performance implications of this misalignment for the case of procurement officers. Exploiting presidential transitions as a source of "within‐bureaucrat" variation in political alignment, we find that procurement contracts overseen by misaligned officers exhibit greater cost overruns and delays. We provide evidence consistent with a general "morale effect," whereby misaligned bureaucrats are less motivated to pursue the organizational mission. Our results thus help to shed some of the first light on the costs of ideological misalignment within public organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the Congressional Review Act (CRA), legislators deploy expedited procedures to repeal agency regulations. For decades, the conventional wisdom--drawn from a handful of cases in which rules were repealed--has been that the CRA is primarily used by Republicans to nullify regulations issued at the close of Democratic presidential administrations. In this article, we demonstrate that the conventional wisdom provides an incomplete account of the use of the CRA. The centerpiece of our approach is an original data set of all resolutions disapproving of agency regulations introduced over a 26-year period. The analysis of this data set demonstrates that Democrats make regular use of the CRA and that resolutions are consistently pursued outside of presidential transitions. Given these patterns, we argue (contrary to existing accounts) that the CRA is not inherently deregulatory and routinely has utility as an instrument of position taking for legislators of both political parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Finance Letters / Maliye Finans Yazıları Dergisi is the property of Maliye Finans Yazilari Yayimcilik Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Turkey has experienced a radical political transformation within the last decade. The promising reforms of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in its early years have gradually given way to autocratic politics. The transition to a presidential regime has further widened the executive's control over the institutional checks and bureaucratic accountability mechanisms. Yet, the Court of Auditors – Turkey's supreme audit institution – has continued to publish audit reports on numerous institutions, including AKP-run municipalities and private companies owned by AKP supporters, and revealed corruption, waste and irregularities in public spending. This article argues when certain domestic conditions (censored public servants, co-opted mainstream media, and suppressed opposition) are met, bureaucracy can function in autocratizing regimes since it does not generate political power costs for the government, but instead provides legitimacy to the incumbents in the international institutions of the liberal democratic order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The troubled presidential transition of 2020–21 necessitates a renewed look at how rising partisanship has affected new administrations in the 21st century. Examining legislative output, confirmation votes, and executive orders during the first hundred days from 1953 to 2021, we show that there has been a decline in opposition party cooperation with newly elected presidents since the era of polarized parties and insecure majorities began. Our evidence suggests that strategic party behavior, as well as ideological polarization, has limited the ability of transition planning to foster early presidential success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the issue of Putin's presidential successor from a historical perspective of long-term political cycles. Contemporary Russia still shows considerable similarities to the polities, characteristic of old agrarian empires in Asia. Based on the thesis on the origins of the monocentric political system in Russia, our article analyses how the transition of presidential power takes place in Russia, who might be the next president of Russia and whether we will see a new 'time of troubles', or smuta , after Putin's departure. A generational change in Putin's elite cohort will require a specific candidate to ensure a successful transition as a long-term solution. This will involve balancing clashing interests between key informal power networks. In all likelihood, a repeat of a political cycle of empires will happen in Russia again, resulting in a continued consolidation of its monocentric political system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to analyze Turkey's recent authoritarian transformation from a critical political economy perspective and to examine the main determinants of, what we call, the 'authoritarian consolidation attempt' of the Justice and Development Party (AKP). For that purpose, first, we sought answers to the following question: why did the AKP engage in a more authoritarian political agenda in the 2010s? We critically review the literature on the contemporary dynamics of authoritarianism, particularly focusing on two explanatory frameworks, competitive authoritarianism, and authoritarian neoliberalism. We argue that the crisis of authoritarian neoliberalism did not end up with democratization in Turkey in the 2010s, rather the power bloc initiated a strategy of the authoritarian fix as a reaction to the multiple crises that were a combination of the state crisis and the crisis of capital accumulation regime. Second, we analyzed how authoritarianism in Turkey is en route to consolidation in the aftermath of the transition to the Turkish presidential system in 2018, and what the fundamental factors of this consolidation are. We investigated the main features of Turkish presidentialism following the three-dimensional framework of authoritarian consolidation, including infrastructural, despotic, and discursive power analyses. As a result, we suggest a critical political economy account to unfold contemporary dynamics of authoritarianism based on the Turkish case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With each presidential transition and subsequent rush of presidential appointments, the long-running debate about presidential preferences and senatorial advice and consent becomes front-page news. The political science literature has long examined the nomination and confirmation process, especially for cabinet and judicial appointments, and a growing quantitative literature evaluates political and personal factors shaping that process. Yet we lack a systematic understanding of how ex ante statutory requirements, in addition to the ex post confirmation process, affect presidential choices and how senators might seek to enforce compliance with those requirements. Using a new dataset that combines ambassadorial nominee qualifications provided by the State Department to the Senate with nomination and confirmation data, this article provides an initial glimpse of the competing perspectives of presidents and senators on the bounds Congress can set for ambassadorial appointees' characteristics. The evidence suggests that, instead of the interbranch competition set up by Article II's checks on presidential appointments, collusion to maintain the status quo on ambassadorial appointments is less costly and more beneficial for both presidents and senators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Turkish Journal of Social Research / Turkiye Sosyal Arastirmalar Dergisi is the property of Turkish Journal of Social Research and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The COVID-19 outbreak has had a huge impact on people's lives, families and communities after it was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization. The success or failure of governments in the fight against the global COVID-19 epidemic is discussed from different perspectives. Considering the results obtained through these discussions, it is seen that the determining dynamics of the success of crisis management are strong state capacity and implemented government policies. The purpose of this study is to examine Turkey's struggle and implementation of government policies in the first period of deadly Covid-19 pandemic occurred in December of 2019 in China and spread on a global level in a short time March 11th-June 1) in the terms of crisis management perspective. As a result, it has been observed that three important factors stand out in Turkey's successful management of the crisis. The first is the immunity of the country against crises due to the state and government facing many crises in the last 10 years. Second, it would be given special importance to the health sector and the health sector is one of Turkey's leading countries in the world have facilitated the struggle of Turkey's crisis. Thirdly, the change in the political system with the transition to the Presidential Government system facilitated the effective and rapid decision-making of the state in this process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Systems of government have been an issue that has occupied Turkish politics periodically since the transition to multi-party politics. Most political leaders from the right-wing spectrum have repeatedly advocated the transition to a presidential system, which they considered an instrument for a fast and powerful executive branch. Following the constitutional amendments in the 2017 referendum, parliamentarism was replaced with the presidential government system. However, this dispute has not been settled yet. The opposition parties claimed that the presidential system would lead to a more authoritarian political regime, while the leading political party saw the amendments as tools to prevent a coalition government and sustain political stability. Inspired by these opposing views, this study aims to reveal the authoritarian shift generated by the 2017 constitutional amendments. It focuses on empirical findings to transcend the rational interpretations of the amendments. It concludes that even the two-and-a-half-years experience of the Turkish presidential system offers tangible proof of further authoritarianism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]