The Alternative Debunk: Far-right populism, privilege and coming to terms with change

Britain, as a country, is depicted around the world as the very personification of privilege. We are tea-supping, tradition-adhering, aristocracy-adoring, wearers of bowler hats. There are people in this country who are proud of that depiction.

That isn't really a recognisable image of Britain today. Except for the privilege. At the core of British concept of liberty is privilege: middle class affluence, home ownership, private schools, inherited wealth, the older sort of social networks.

This privileged middle sort have done well out of globalism - well prepared and adapted for the rising demand for high skill, education and flexibility. But in Britain, globalisation has seen both winners and losers.

As the cushioned middle class have gained, the fragile lives of the working class have been threatened. The old dependable industries have gone, deemed to costly. With them has gone job security, in the name of chasing efficiency.

Pressure to be productive has risen, even as security and stability has declined. It shouldn't be a major surprise that since the 1990s a new era of civil rights movements has sprung up, working to unite people and push back.

There is a point of view that it has also forced working class people to be seduced by the hate-filled, divisive, rhetoric of the far right - to get on board with populist movements that scapegoat refugees and immigrants and minorities.

However, the facts don't support it.

The reality: the far right isn't a working class movement. It never has been. In fact, populism tends to be better supported by the petit bourgeosie and the rich - with the backing only of a violent minority of working class people. Far-right populism is, at it's core, reactionary politics. It is the establishment pushing back against reform. It is about the fear of losing status amidst crisis - it is the moderately well off frightened of losing their privilege.

Something held up against this view are the voters who backed the latest President of the United States into office. Their lack of a college education was presented as a fait accompli of poor, white, racist and ignorant, working class men. But the facts paint a more complex picture. It is true that 70% of Fourtyfive's supporters didn't have college degrees - but then 71% of Americans don't have college degrees. And most of his supporters earn over the median income $50,000 a year.

Now, the middle class base of far right populism doesn't mean appeals are not made for support from ordinary working people. In times of crisis, the populist narrative finds fertile soil among people whose interests it does less to serve. It must be tweaked to include the working class in a narrative of privilege, but it remains simple, emotive and effective.

For the far right, and the privileged few who drive it, the impact of neoliberalism must have been a dream come true: post-industrial Britain, Wales and The North, Labour and left-wing heartlands, excluded from the benefits of globalisation - even as it dismantled the basis for prosperity under the old order.

Huge numbers of people left without job security, sometimes even social security. Communities stripped of their resources, their high streets becoming abandoned. All that was left was to exploit their fears and give them scapegoats.

The story is not an original one: of a majority that are going to lose their status and money to a minority, or minorities, courtesy of a discredited establishment - itself painted as a minority that no longer represent this fearful majority. Legitimacy is questioned. Mandates undermined. A web of emotive propaganda aimed at dividing society, turning the affluent in fear against it's fringes, to the benefit of a reactionary few.

This is the core of the narrative that divided and felled the Second Spanish Republic, used to justify a military coup. The toppling of the Weimar Republic. The upholding of first slavery and then segregation in the Deep South by Dixiecrats.

There have been few places, even in these times of a 'far-right populist wave', where populists have secured a broad base of public support - broad enough to make a claim of significant support from working class people. The barrier that seemed to have some significance was 13% - the level of popular support the far-right in Western Europe have struggled to break through. But the rise of authoritarian governments in Eastern Europe, threaten to make the West less an anti-populist bloc than an enclave.

There are more exceptions. The Fortyfifth President in the United States, Jair Bolsonaro as President in Brazil, and the FPO in government in Austria, the electoral success of Lega and M5S in Italy - these are among the few to have made major electoral breakthroughs in the West. But we know Fortyfive's supporters were mostly affluent and middle class. Are the supporters of Bolsonaro, Heinz-Christian Strache, Salvini and Grillo, much different?

In Britain, rising inequality has started to bite even the privileged middle class. Fears about pensions and wellbeing in old age, stress and pressure at work - core fears of the working class - are worrying Middle England. That made them the dominant supporters of Brexit, some 60% of all Brexit voters - to just 17% of Brexiters who were working class. Populism succeeded, with Brexit, in pulling the middle class apart from the working class, and turning them against the liberal democratic political establishment.

Under pressure and fearful of change, it is the middle class who are the movers of the times. The statistics tell us that when the working class face these crises, they don't vote - their feelings of disenfranchisment become inaction.

Yet there is hope in this analysis. There is common cause to be found between the middle class and the working class. They have the same fears and face the same pressures - though one is far more insulated from them than the other, and felt them later. There is a common platform to be found. One that can unite people on what they have in common: a desire for social security, for wellbeing at work and in old age, for a functioning local community - and a desire for opportunity.

The question left for progressives is, what party or alliance will be the vehicle for such a programme? Whoever they are, they need to get to grips with a simple fact: change scares people. Our answer needs to be bring them together in solidarity.

Argentina midterms raise the question: What's so funny about compassionate realism?

Mauricio Macri's hold on La Casa Rosada lightly reinforced by small gains at the Argentina legislative midterms. Photograph: La Casa Rosada from Pixabay (License) (Cropped)

The midterm elections in Argentina did little to settle the future of Argentina. President Mauricio Macri's movement gained a few seats, just enough to keep his project rolling forward.

That Macri's project is essentially austerity in a more extreme context is important for progressives to consider. It presents the epitome of what the Centre-Right consider the justification for strong dose of 'realism', but raises the question of why that has to be delivered in the form of harsh measures?

The Midterms elections covered a third of the Senate and half of the lower House. It would have been hoped by Cambiemos to be an opportunity to reinforce Macri's presidency with a stronger legislative contingent - just 16 of 72 in the Senate, with just 86 Deputies out of 257 in the Chamber, to around 46 and 105 for various Justicialist groups combined, respectively.

The four biggest parties each had about half of seats their Chamber seats up for reelection, while most of the Senate seats were being defended by Justicialists (Peronists).

As it happened Cambiemos made gains, though they were few. The coalition took 19 seats, not enough reach a majority, while those were offset by the 25 seats gained by former President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, rallying voters from various populist parties to her particular faction.

Even if this result is more than Macri and Cambiemos might have feared, it is still less than they will have hoped. Part of the reason why may be that, after two years in office, Macri has yet to deliver a deep sea shift in the country's economic condition.

That shouldn't really be a massive surprise, because two years is nothing. But the public are restless and what Macri has asked for is a huge change in approach from the Kirchnerist-Peronist years.

Not least are the cuts to subsidies that help with the cost of living for low income families. This is the austerity programme familiar to many progressives around the world.

In Argentina this has particular significance. In reason years, at the least, the Kirchnerist-Peronist populists - especially under the presidency of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner - have tended to offer up big promises, comfortable lies to package harder truths and deeper crises.

Of relevance to all of those resisting austerity is the response of Centre-Right, Argentina as elsewhere: to serve up cold reality and a cold shoulder.

The Cambiemos coalition, that Macri has serving up a meagre helping, includes most of Argentina's Centre and Soft Left - social democrats and social liberals - and you have to wonder have these partners feel about their direction.

Macri has bet the house on austerity, in the meantime putting the poorest in some jeopardy, gambling that foreign private investors will step in and take a chance on Argentina. But it's yet to pan out that way.

The midterms buy Macri some space. Over that past year he has poured the blame for the present situation on the Kirchner "K" movement - calling it the "K Inheritance", probably fairly. But that approach will only work for so long.

Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner is already building for a comeback, taking seats at the midterms while Macri's approval ratings hover dangerously low at 41%/46% (approve/disapprove).

Macri has offered some consolation to his Cambiemos partners. Last year he announced what he called a 'Marshall Plan' - a reference to the huge public investment made by the US government in it's allies after World War II.

In reality, it was a public-private investment initiative foucsed on lowering the cost of business - in that conservative vein of reduced costs hopefully leading to reduced prices and reduced cost of living.

But these pledges are coming alongside efforts to force Trade Unions and dockworkers to accept pro-competition measures - and while cornered, they are far from convinced.

All of this leads back to the central question. Populists offer an unrealistic view smothered in giveaways and the Right demand a reaction steeped in a cold austere reality. The question is, why can't we address reality with warmth?

Why is it so difficult to imagine a compassionate realism? To pursue a course that does not abandon the most vulnerable to the mercy of corporate interests and charity, when righting a sinking ship.

Politics in Argentina is raising this question. Progressives and their allies the world over need to find a way to respond.

What to expect from President Trump? To see how an opportunist backed by the far right will fare in government, look no further than Italy's Silvio Berlusconi

Silvio Berlusconi, through controversies and legal battles, held the position of Prime Minister in Italy for nine years out of seventeen on the political frontline. Photograph: Silvio Berlusconi by paz.ca (License) (Cropped)

If progressives are going to start building a meaningful opposition to the global rise of far right populism, seen most recently in the Trump Presidential Campaign, they first need to understand what they will be standing against. What will the representatives of the far right pursue when actually in office?

When considering what to expect, its important to look to history. For Trump in particular, there are obvious comparisons to Ronald Reagan (Rich, 2016) - though, it seems, except for those who really buy into the Myth of Reagan but don't like Trump, and so want to distance the two as much as possible.

But perhaps a better guide for expectations, both for Trump and beyond, might be the rise of Silvio Berlusconi in Italy in the early 1990s, out of the wreckage of the Italian political system that imploded with the exposure of  huge corruption under the Mani Pulite investigation.

Amidst massive political disillusionment and a global downturn, a seeming outsider, with business credentials, and in alliance with parties of the far right, put themselves forward as the champion of the populist opposition to the corrupt old establishment - despite plenty of their own legal battles, to which their support seems immune.

Sound familiar? Trump's rise mirrors Berlusconi's own route to power. The media chief, and chairman of football club AC Milan, began his long relationship with political power in Italy at the head of his party Forza Italia - named for a popular football chant.

If that does not say enough, as a measure of the man consider that Berlusconi once claimed, with extravagant outrage, that one of his longest running political opponents, Romano Prodi, called him a drunk during a 2006 election debate - and offered him a "no, you are" in return (Popham, 2006). What Prodi had actually said was:

"He uses statistics like a drunk uses lamp-posts, more for support than illumination."

For those who want decency and reason in the political arena, this level of obfuscating outrage is infuriating. When a political candidate is willing to twist anything, to play whatever role happens to be convenient to the relevant situation, coherency be damned, it makes it impossible to get to grips with what that candidate actually believes - and so to have a meaningful political exchange.

But whether that was what he actually believes is besides the point. What that exchange presented was an opportunity. And the seizing of such opportunities defined Berlusconi's career - as it does Trump's as well.

Silvio Berlusconi rose to power on the back of a career as a media personality, a celebrity, just as much as he did on his career in business. His media company took on the establishment and broke through the state owned monopoly on broadcasting - though in part thanks to his connections in that very same government establishment.

And when that - again, very same - government establishment collapsed amidst one of the biggest political corruption scandals ever seen, Berlusconi took to the political field - despite his own connections and the spreading of investigations into his own businesses (The Economist, 2001).

Berlusconi promised to keep Italy pro-Western and pro-Market, create a million new jobs and protect the country from the communists - the Italian Communist Party successor, the Democrats of the Left, were virtually the last party standing in the Italian political system after the corruption scandal.

The coalition he put together to achieve those promises - with the separatist Lega Nord in the North and the post-fascist Alleanza Nazionale in the South - backed by a massive publicity campaign on his own TV channels, received the most votes and seats in the 1994 Italian general election.

His first government collapsed after only nine months, torn apart by its own internal contradictions. Yet, though often with only a tenuous grip, Berlusconi returned to power time after time, with rebuilt coalitions that pushed the same mix of social conservatism and economic neoliberalism.

And he was never far from controversy. Berlusconi was accused of being sexism in Italy's most powerful apologist, as his personal life often spilling over into the political and even sparking protests (Marshall, 2016). His legal troubles also followed him constantly.

The same kinds of fate are now being predicted for Trump's Administration, as he tries to marry his misogynist and nativist support with the Republican mainstream - itself a contradictory collections of libertarians and nativist Christian nationalists.

Just as legal scandals chased Berlusconi throughout his career, they're likely also to follow Trump. With numerous cases still outstanding against him, some commentators are even predicting that Trump may ultimately end up being impeached by the Republican-controlled Congress (Oppenheim, 2016).

The election of Trump answered one question to which the answer was already known: that negative campaigning is used because it works - even, it seems, in its most extreme forms. It also drew parallels between Trump and Berlusconi, that suggest that far right populism is unlikely to hurt the Reagan-esque tax-cutting, laissez-faire, pro-business establishment.

But what about about in Europe, where far right parties have pushed their way into the mainstream with fewer compromises and mainstream alliances? As with Trump, promises of social conservatism, anti-immigration and harsh law and order policies have abounded. Yet on economic policy, the stances of far right movements have been inconsistent.

Trump's one elaborated economic policy was for a massive tax cut. That matches up with UKIP's policies, which have historically leaned toward less compromising version of Conservative manifestos, with tax cuts, especially for those at the top and large amounts of deregulation.

Yet while Trump has hinted at protectionism, it has been more strongly pushed in Europe. For instance, Front National have travelled over time from aggressively, anti-welfare, 'parasite' opposing, Reagan neoliberals, to ardent advocates of state control and protectionism (Shields, 2007).

Other far right parties in Europe, such as the Freedom Party of Austria and the Party for Freedom of the Netherlands, or elements of the Five Star Movement in Italy, have expressed a kind of national liberalism, to which the French Front National seems aligned.

The parties are standing, ostensibly, to 'protect' their 'national values', which have over time extended to include liberal tolerance, particularly of native homosexual and Jewish communities; and attempted to reconcile what amounts to 'national welfare', claiming to expel outsiders from the system, with the neoliberal capitalist system.

These positions express profound contradictions: between the rousing of intolerance and promises of social protection, and between deep connections to the low tax, low regulation and big business neoliberal order and promises of economic protection.

Berlusconi showed that these contradictions can be maintained, though not without difficulty and obvious fragility, over a long political career. So whichever way these parties break, caught between intolerant, nationalist and statist demands and their neoliberal connections, progressives need to have a strong argument that counters the flaws of both. And that argument needs to bring together radicals and moderates, democrats and liberals.

Justice, Liberty and Progress; equality, cooperation and sustainability; these values drive progressives. The far right stands opposed to them, picking and choosing between them as it suits their cause. Progressives need to unite around them - whether against neoliberalism or nationalism, as both are disastrous.

Petty squabbles are the opportunities that the Berlusconis and Trumps exploit. They disillusion the public and open the doors to opportunists and extremists. That pattern needs to end, in the name supporting those made most vulnerable by the rise of such forces: women, minorities, refugees, immigrants and the impoverished.

High Court rejects Theresa May's interpretation that she could exclude Parliament because referendum result gave her executive authority to pursue Brexit

Today the High Court handed down a judgement that Parliament must have a vote on how and when to proceed with Article 50 (BBC, 2016). While the Government will appeal, the ruling is nonetheless a blow to Theresa May's approach so far: to interpret the 'Brexit' vote as a mandate to exclude Parliament and wield the executive prerogative.

If the ruling stands up on appeal, what might be the impact upon any future referendum in the UK? One thing at least seems clear: it would be hard for anyone to argue ever again that it was constitutional to take a referendum was a legal basis for executive action.

In the UK, certain powers are 'reserved' - that is to say, that it does not require the assent of Parliament for the Executive Body (the Prime Minister and the Cabinet) to wield them. These powers are referred to as the Royal Prerogative, thought they devolved to the Prime Minister.

On assuming office as Prime Minister, Theresa May made one particularly huge decision: to interpret the 'Brexit' result she had inherited from the referendum as a mandate to exclude Parliament and proceed with the process by exercising her executive prerogative.

That, of course, provoked a reaction from Parliament. Without pursuing the blocking of 'Brexit, some, including MPs, argued that proceeding without Parliament's involvement and consent would be a violation of Britain's constitutional process (Politics Home, 2016).

It should also raise concerns. Whatever the perception of the referendum, it was legally only advisory and non-binding. To interpret such a mandate - popular acclamation, without legal basis - as justification for wielding unscrutinised executive power, would be to set a very disturbing precedent.

As the High Court ruling itself explains, Parliament is sovereign, with the law and the constitution being assembled and drawing their authority from its Acts. The exception is where it had explicit handed over, or shared, sovereignty explicitly in the form of an Act.

Britain's relationship with the European Union is in fact defined by such Acts of Parliament. These Acts form a part of the UK's constitution - and further, they confer certain Rights and Protections extended to UK citizens by Britain's EU membership.

To try and undo a significant part of the constitution, and to take away these significant rights - including, not least, European citizenship - without following constitutional procedure, was a dangerous path for May to tread upon. So why attempt it?

Perhaps the simplest answer would be that it was the only way in which the result could not be potentially challenged, and so potentially defeated. That, however, confers upon the referendum, retroactively, powers it did not possess. The referendum was not legally binding, yet Theresa May decided to interpret it as being so.

Further, Theresa May decided to interpret the referendum result as extending to her, as Prime Minister, the executive power to alter the constitution and the rights of citizens, without the checks, scrutiny or consent of elected representatives.

If the High Court ruling stands, then that interpretation will be invalidated it what could be seen to be a significant precedent: popular acclamation is not accepted as sufficient grounds for the unscrutinised wielding of executive power.

Yet trouble lies ahead. The ruling puts the Judiciary and the 'Brexit' voters at direct odds in their interpretation of what the majority won by the Leave campaign means. The opinion of Brexiters towards the 48% who voted Remain is already low and suspicious.

And what if Parliament should reject the kind of deal Theresa May is pursuing? Even if only the deal and not the ultimate end of exiting the EU, it may well be taken as a direct affront. There may even have to be an election before such a vote could take place, as the MPs who sit in the Commons at present have no mandate whatsoever for a 'Brexit'.

The High Court ruling has begun a new chapter in the Brexit story. Parliament, with or without an election, must now weigh in on the negotiations - meaning the Government must come clean about its plan and priorities in the process of untangling the UK from the EU. But if the ruling against the appeal is successful? It would set precedents that do not bear thinking about.

Closed or Global - is that the only choice? South America's political tides hold an important lesson for Europe

Mauricio Macri, Argentina's new globalising President, casting his ballot in 2015. Photograph: Mauricio Macri vota by Mauricio Macri (License) (Cropped)

Europe, after nearly a decade of economic turmoil, seems to find itself on a precipice. Behind lie the shattered ruins of the social democratic consensus and the overbearing shadow of its failing replacement globalisation. Ahead in the darkness is sectarianism: populist, nationalist and authoritarian.

Populism in South America

While wrestling with this seemingly polarised and precarious position, Europe should look to South America. After its own struggles to shake off America imperialism, the Regan-Thatcher neoliberal doctrine, a crisis of poverty and, in parts, conservative authoritarianism, South America saw a popular electoral revolt in favour of populist parties offering social rights.

In obviously varying circumstances, but with some common discontents, from Hugo Chavez's Bolivarian Socialists in Venezuela 1998, to Nestor Kirchner's Peronist Justicialists in 2003, and Evo Morales' Campesino Socialists in 2005, and others in between, a so-called pink tide overturned the neoliberal status quo.

Despite the obvious allusions to socialism, the popular campaigns for social rights where fought within an increasingly closed state system, with overtly nationalist overtones - and frequently at the cost of political rights and transparency. Those who began as reformers faced accusations of endorsing narrow and unshakeable parties of power, with the "typical vices: personalism, clientelism, corruption, harassing of the press" (Bosoer & Finchelstein, 2015).

Populist-Globalist Revolving Door

As social conditions have undermined the globalist response to Europe's crisis, economic conditions have undermined South America's closed populist system. Weak exports have led to a continuing downturn (The World Bank, 2016) - exposing the fact that it is easier to maintain repression if social rights keep being extended along with the money to fund them.

As Europe is increasingly turning from globalism to find populism ahead, South America is doing the opposite. Mauricio Macri, for Republican Proposal party and Cambiemos coalition, presented Argentina with an open globalised alternative to the closed populist nationalist government of the Justicialists in 2015 and was elected President.

But there is little reason to believe that South America's new open global option is likely to meet any less dissatisfaction than it has in Europe, where the 2008 financial crisis, and the sovereign debt accrued in managing it, was seen as an opportunity by the globalised financial sector - ostensibly pressing the idea that governments are not above the law, in order to effectively claim rent on state debt.

Argentina itself already has long experience of wrangling with this system, that has used American courts to try and force state policy on repayment of national debts, accumulated through bond sales. The power of that global finance sector and its power to shape fiscal policy, in effect essentially shaping the economics of entire states, is all too familiar a subject of exasperation in Europe.

The Role of Social Democracy

While South America has struggled for stability between populism and globalism against a back drop of military juntas, in Europe, for a time, there was shelter to be found within social democracy. The social democratic project provided safeguards against either extreme, closed and global, while trying to include the benefits - like social rights and widespread access to capital and investment.

However, the 2008 crisis undermined social democracy. Its adherent parties have been severely weakened, perhaps fatally. Too many times, social democracy chose to back the alienating establishment instead of reforming it and the moderate left, in Europe and South America, found itself shackled to neoliberalism as part of a desperately defended mainstream.

South America's leaders responded to economic pressures by advancing a closed system. Leaders in Europe, after 2008, embraced the global system to overcome its problems. Now, with both under pressure, they seem ready to swap. But neither have proved to be a sound solution.

What is needed is a 'new' social democracy, a replacement for the old and worn out system. But a new balance has to be found. It isn't enough to be a part of the establishment, to be an insider, taking the edge off of its worst extremes. A consensus that recognises the demand for political liberties, civil rights and pluralism alongside social rights, that embraces an open society through internationalism rather than globalism.

Right now, the choice presented to the people of South America and Europe is between closed and global. But it doesn't have restricted to these exclusive polar positions. It is a false and exclusionary dilemma. A better consensus is possible.

Around the World: Turkey, off the Periphery

Istanbul, once known in Europe as Constantinople, is a symbol of the historic relationship between Turkey and Europe. Photograph: Genoese built Galata Tower in Istanbul from Pixabay (License) (Cropped)

Over a frantic night and day in Turkey an attempted coup looked at first to threaten the country's social fabric (Kingsley & Abdul-Ahad, 2016). Western leaders rushed to denounce undemocratic power grabs, calling for respect for Turkey's democratically elected government.

In hindsight, Western leaders may look back at that night as the starting point of an important shift in the balance of Middle East politics. A moment in which Turkey, under a popular authoritarian leader, stepped off of Europe's periphery to place itself instead at the centre of the Middle East.

The Coup of 15th July

Those behind the attempted coup announced their aim to be the protection of democracy and to reinstate "constitutional order, human rights and freedoms" (Beauchamp, 2016). Whatever the truth in this claim to legitimacy, its hard not to see what has followed the coup's defeat in that light. The harshness of the reaction that has followed is enough to make it seem like there were two, not one, attempted coups on 15th July, with one coming out victorious ahead of the other.

The government of Turkey, headed by President Recep Erdogan, swept away what turned out to be only a minor attempt by a small faction. But that was not where the reaction ended. A purge was under way almost immediately with arrests and expulsions in the thousands (BBC, 2016). Human Rights have been suppressed in a state of emergency (Shaheen & Bowcott, 2016). There has even been much criticised talk of bringing back the death penalty (Verhofstadt, 2016).

Erdogan's government swiftly claimed exiled former ally now opponent Fethullah Gulen to be the ring-leader demanding of the United States his extradition (BBC, 2016{2}). Gulen in turn suggested that the coup was a false flag operation, set up by Erdogan to justify his increasingly authoritarian stance and allowed for a witch hunt to follow (Fontanella-Khan, 2016; Plett Usher, 2016).

The US response to claims against Gulen, who lives in exile in Pennsylvania, has been unhurried and tempered. That seems only to antagonised the Erdogan government, which stepped up the rhetoric (Withnall & Osborne, 2016). Accusations flew that the West was harbouring terrorists and even that the West was supporting them.

In the last decade Turkey seemed to be heading ever more towards liberal democracy and membership of the European Union. Its future membership was a much discussed factor of the Brexit referendum. It was a key ally to both the EU and NATO. The steps taken in the last month suggest, sadly, that progress has been halted.

A Change of Step

Turkey has become a lesson in the fragility of liberal democracy. A symbol of how easily even a well settled constitutional order might be destabilised by economic and political tides, or even by the drive of ambition and grip of authoritarianism.

Recep Erdogan's Presidency had already seen the free press suppressed long before the coup (Shaheen, 2016) and was thought to be working towards changing the country's political system into a strong executive presidency (Finkel, 2016).

Whatever the purpose behind the attempted coup, and however the ramshackle attempt on power came about, it seems to have triggered - or afforded an opportunity for - Erdogan's party to clean house of political and intellectual opposition, inflaming Turkey and accelerating its embrace of popular authoritarianism (Tugal, 2016).

As power is centralised and the opposition suppressed, it is worth asking: What is it that Erdogan's party wants?

Even with stronger opposition at the last election, Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) won decisively - AKP took 50% of the vote, ahead of Secular Republican and Kurdish Nationalist opposition. It doesn't seem like the party has much trouble staying in power under constitutional and democratic conditions.

And Erdogan himself was Prime Minister for eleven years, before his subsequent election as President in 2014 - for a total of thirteen years at the peak of Turkish politics. During that time Erdogan and the AKP were thought to be prioritising ascension to the European Union as the country's primary objective.

Yet the party is also propelled by other ideas. A party of conservative democracy, and now increasingly a party of popular authoritarianism, Erdogan's AKP seek to create a 'New Turkey', based on a revival of cultural and traditional values from the Ottoman Empire and the rejection of pro-western modernisation (Cagaptay, 2016) - symbolised in three pillars of glorification of the Ottoman Empire, suspicion of the West and anti-Kemalism, that opposes the constitutional secularism of Kemal Ataturk, founder of the Turkish Republic.

Upon those pillars, Erdogan has strengthened central authority in Turkey even as chaos rages at the border - and pours over onto Turkish streets - with at the least Iraq, Syria and Lebanon engulfed in violence.

From Weakness, Opportunity

The strengthening of central authority in Turkey stands in stark contrast with its European neighbour. The crisis in the Middle East, the desperate mass of refugees - fleeing death at the hands of a paramilitary cult of mercenary terrorists - have exposed the weakness of the European federal project. European unity has been tested on foreign affairs, on refugees, and found wanting.

In Europe's weakness Erdogan may see the opportunity to implement his vision of Turkey. Erdogan certainly has the backing for such a move, stoked by resentment of Western interference. A deep ill-will towards the Western mandated break-up of Turkish power in the region a century ago and has long been a theme.

Seeing the region as it is now, mired by the fallout of a Western intervention that left a power vacuum - which was occupied by a terrorist cult that has even struck on Turkish streets - could easily seem like confirmation or justification of Pro-Ottoman, anti-Western sentiments. It certainly makes it easy to see why a change of policy, away from the periphery of the West to the central power of the Middle East, might seem to Erdogan like an opportunity.

With neighbours both East and West seemingly paralysed with crisis, a political vacuum has opened. It isn't a leap to imagine a popular authoritarian leader, espousing an Ottoman Revival, wants to pivot his country into the central role in the region, at a time when planning for the foundations of its future have to be at least starting.