ÇAYLI, BARIŞ

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BARIŞ ÇAYLI – Doctoral Fellow                                                 Working paper No:216/2010 
Universita di Camerino Italy               
THE SIEGE OF DEMOCRACY IN THE ERA OF TWO AUTOCRATS; 
BERLUSCONI AND ERDOĞAN 
 
 In the last decade, political arena has witnessed two populist plays of the most similar 
political leaders from two significant Mediterranean countries; Italy and Turkey, that is to say, 
Berlusconi and Erdoğan. Their similarity firstly intersects on their power obsessive characters. 
Secondly, their correspondence has echoes in the past and present political spectrum of these 
two countries which is related with closing the gates to the politically active citizenship 
phenomenon. Thus, undoubtedly, the era for the hidden autocracy of the modern-democracy 
has been extensively observed and proved during their ruling periods. 
 
The danger of their autocracy lies behind the difficulty of being perceived as autocratic 
government since such a hidden autocracy takes its power from the tricks of indirect 
democracy. Further, these tricks of the democracy provide a certain level of legitimacy to 
these political figures through acquiring majority votes in the elections again by the tools of 
democracy. On the other hand, the other two indispensable qualifications of the modern 
democracy; rule of law and tolerance to the differences have widely been neglected and 
showed off limitedly by Berlusconi and Erdoğan. This is undoubtedly abnormal for a healthy 
and smoothly working democracy since these are two obligatory wheels of the democracy 
chair which guarantees justice, equality and harmony in the country. Whereas, both 
Berlusconi and Erdoğan are so much talented to drive crazy on the democracy chair whose 
two wheels have been damaged severely by the driver. There is no need to go back so far to 
comprehend this allegory because the last endeavors of Berlusconi and Erdoğan to dominate 
their power on institutions of democracy and media could be noted as sufficient examples for 
the approval of these arguments. 
 
Recently both Italian and Turkish popular opinion in these countries leaves no room 
for counter arguments except the proponent media in Italy and Turkey which has had very 
close relationship with two leaders traditionally. Certainly, there is much to be said that 
policies of the certain media groups hang on the lips of Berlusconi and Erdoğan. This is so 
observable from the phrase ‘Media Emperor’ which is popularly used for Berlusconi. 
Accordingly, Turkish panorama is not so different as well. Taking the control of the some 
leading channels by Erdoğan and his continuous long-established ties with a group of 
conservative newspapers are not the unknown facts in the public. Unfortunately, this is not the 
sole domination of the Turkish Prime Minister over media; he also threatened the biggest 
media group in the country, Doğan Media group, through using his administrative power and 
punished Doğan Medya with hefty tax penalty last year. Even this is another topic for 
discussion about the existence of such a wrongdoing by Doğan Media or not, majority of the 
people have already had the contentment that the huge amount of penalty is a tool to 
intimidate the newspaper’s opposition against the government.  
 
One of the main stereotypes of the obsessive power exercisers among the politicians is 
known as their adoring attitudes towards perfectionism. In this regard, both Berlusconi and 
Erdoğan have been doing a great job in using each opportunity to prove that they are the best 
alternative for their people so they enjoy as being the powerful and charismatic leaders of 
their countries so much so that they try to prove this belief through their performances by 
solving the most gangrenous problems of the two countries; the Mafia problem in Italy and 
Kurdish question in Turkey. On one hand, Berlusconi furiously rejected his already proved 
collusions with different Mafiosi, on the other hand, he stated capturing of the Mafiosi leaders 
in the last years as a great success when comparing to the other governments’ efforts in this 
BARIŞ ÇAYLI – Doctoral Fellow                                                 Working paper No:216/2010 
Universita di Camerino Italy               
field. In fact, the success of capturing Mafia leaders does not belong solely to him if we 
consider the existence of still courageous prosecutors and police chiefs in the country. 
Additionally, arresting of the some Mafia leaders do not lead that there is a great success in 
this combat against well-organized Mafia associations since there is not one type of Mafia 
group in the country. What is more, to eradicate the Mafia, we need such a leader who is not 
only strong but also has clean hands and background who has not become rich in a short time 
while coming from a middle income family. This fact has already been claimed by different 
scholars that this richness is another side-effect of the collusion between Mafiosi and 
Berlusconi. If we turn back to the case of Turkey, the ‘successful performance’ of Erdoğan 
again is not that much different from his counterpart. Notwithstanding, he is the first leader to 
initiate to give some cultural rights to the Kurdish background citizens of the country, the 
policy has not been managed and organized in a well mannered way and the sensitivity of the 
issue caused an indignation on the majority of the Turkish people. Apart from the 
government’s disorganized political initiative, Erdoğan has been trying to illustrate this 
struggle as his government’s thriving capacity to solve the most historical problems of the 
country. In contrast, the paradox appears when he fruitfully created another problem by 
dividing the societies and institutions into the blocks. Very recently, the ideological 
competition between the laic elite justice system and Erdoğan’s government became more 
apparent because of the trial of Ergenekon after judicial decisions have widely been opened to 
debate. Certainly, this competition has its negative effects mostly on the quality of the 
democracy, harmony between the institutions of the state and reliability of the justice system 
which are crucially essential for every citizen. But Erdoğan wants more and more to attain 
pure power whose main feature is being intolerant to any critics. Moreover, he is so decisive 
to remove any barriers to accomplish his targets. Thereby, Erdoğan has lately prioritized the 
policies which call for a change in the constitution to regulate the administrative body of the 
supreme justice nowadays by appointing deputies from the assembly to the supreme justice 
organ in order to make stronger his statue and to render its network power unbreakable among 
different institutions of the state. Similar to Erdoğan, the clash between the supreme justice 
system and Berlusconi had been observed many times so much so that Berlusconi, as being a 
prime minister of a country, implied that justice system’s intervention to the politics can not 
be tolerated. If we consider the importance of the independence of justice, there is definitely 
much to be said in the cases of both Berlusconi and Erdoğan because first and foremost 
independency of the justice system and its essential dimensions can not be under the heel of 
the politicians. Thus, violation of these concerns should not be perceived as de facto but these 
two last remarks are ‘must’ for an ideal democracy to provide true justice for all its citizens. 
 
The story of the contemporary politics in these two countries, as being the two pearls 
of the Mediterranean region, unfortunately is not shiny as much as a glorious pearl nowadays. 
Both in Italy and Turkey, marginalization of different political ideologies has been more 
sharpened, balance between the justice and politics has increased worries about working of 
the legal and democratic system functionally and corrupted governments continue making 
busy the newspapers’ headlines. The last but definitely not the least, the future of Italy and 
Turkey depends on the significant changes in passive political orientation of the majority of 
its people. The ordinary Italian and Turkish people in the street should make a choice either to 
be more active and give their voice for the ideal democracy or keep on closing their eyes to 
the virtues of ideal democracy which will lead to infinitive waiting period for re-emergence of 
a new Garibaldi or Atatürk who will never come back again. 
 
 


THE SIEGE OF DEMOCRACY IN THE ERA OF TWO AUTOCRATS; BERLUSCONI AND ERDOĞAN

http://ecum.unicam.it/220/1/THE_SIEGE_OF_DEMOCRACY_IN_THE_ERA_OF_TWO_AUTOCRATS_BarisCayli.pdf

THE SIEGE OF DEMOCRACY IN THE ERA OF TWO AUTOCRATS; BERLUSCONI AND ERDOĞAN

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