Senior Fellow, National Security and International Policy, Center for American Progress
Alan Makovsky is a senior fellow for national security and international policy at the Center for American Progress. From 2001-13, he served as a senior professional staff member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, where he covered the Middle East, Turkey, and other related issues.
Makovsky worked at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy from 1994 to 2001, where he wrote widely on various Middle Eastern and Turkish issues. He also founded and directed the Washington Institute’s Turkey Research Program.
Makovsky worked on issues including southern European and Middle Eastern affairs for the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research from 1983-94. He also served as the political advisor to Operation Provide Comfort in 1992 and as the special advisor to the White House’s special Middle East coordinator from 1993-94.
Opposition success in Turkey’s local elections is an unprecedented rebuke to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. While his constitutional power and dominance of the judiciary remain intact, Erdogan is probably in his final term and will find domestic and foreign initiatives somewhat more complicated.
On June 1, AGSIW and the Middle East Institute co-hosted a discussion on Turkey's presidential election results.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has proved he can win a national election without a successful economy; however, he cannot begin to achieve his vision of Turkish greatness without economic greatness as well.
Should he indeed clinch his third presidential term on May 28, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s detractors at home and in the West will have little choice but to place their hope in his pragmatic side.
