Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has announced a block on the use of Twitter in the country. Burcu Baykurt writes that while the actual ban on Twitter is largely unworkable from a technical standpoint, the move is aimed at stabilising Erdoğan’s political support base ahead of local elections. More importantly, the fact that the prime minister can implement such a controversial policy under his own initiative highlights the excessive power of the executive in Turkey, raising important questions about democratic legitimacy
