Analysis: Could Ahmet Davutoglu finally loosen the AKP’s grip and return Turkey to a path of democratic reform? Turkish media outlets are raising the question
Even if Davutoglu could garner a mass following, he is hardly the reformer he makes himself out to be.While Davutoglu was leading the foreign ministry, from 2009-2014, the West grew fascinated with Turkey as a “model” for the surrounding region and a potential leader in the Muslim world. But Davutoglu used his power to sideline career diplomats and to politicize the ministry.
The financial resources for ITS came from a trust the Turkish government established in 1982. For many years, the authorities in Ankara did not directly interfere with the institute’s board of governors—made up of almost solely of American academics—its programs or its grant-making. On the few occasions that a Turkish ambassador offeredThat changed in 2015.
Lacking enough donors to make up for the lost funding, the institute will close its doors in fall 2020. According to these sources, Davutoglu saw it as unacceptable that ITS was acting independently of Ankara. His decision, which was conveyed to the Institute’s leadership in the fall of 2015, also came after the board had rejected a request from the Turkish ambassador to consider an underqualified AKP supporter for the ITS board.
If it sounds like we have an axe to grind, we do. One of us has lost our job, and Turkish studies—a subject to which we have devoted much of our professional lives—has suffered a terrible blow in the United States. Without the institute’s even modest resources—over 37 years, it spent $3.5 million—it will be difficult to train future generations of Turkey experts.
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