According to Henri J. Barkey, a scholar who the Turkish government personally targeted during the failed 2016 coup attempt, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s political demise is now inevitable. In his May 2025 Foreign Affairs article, Barkey argues that Erdogan’s desperate arrest of Istanbul’s popular mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu, has backfired catastrophically, triggering Turkey’s largest anti-government demonstrations in over a decade. As someone who experienced firsthand the Turkish government’s persecution of academics and critics, Barkey provides a uniquely informed perspective on how Erdogan’s authoritarian overreach has finally undermined his once-formidable grip on power.
The March 2025 arrest of Ekrem Imamoglu marks a critical turning point in Turkey’s political landscape. What Erdogan intended as a show of strength has instead revealed profound weakness. The deployment of 200 police officers to raid Imamoglu’s home—on transparently fabricated charges—demonstrates not Erdogan’s power but his desperation. Having systematically dismantled democratic institutions since taking power in 2003, Erdogan now finds himself trapped by the very authoritarian system he constructed.
The persecution of academics and journalists critical of Erdogan’s regime is not an abstract concept for Henri J. Barkey. Following the failed 2016 coup attempt, Barkey found himself on a government blocklist, accused of being a CIA operative who allegedly helped orchestrate the coup. Turkish pro-government media published his photograph, labeled him a “terrorist,” and the government issued an arrest warrant, effectively exiling him from a country where he had conducted research for decades.
Erdogan’s playbook of political persecution is well-established. Following the 2016 coup attempt, he purged over 125,000 civil servants, military officers, teachers, judges, and prosecutors. Academics like Barkey, who had been critical of Erdogan’s policies, found themselves labeled as enemies of the state. This pattern of targeting intellectuals and critics has been a hallmark of Erdogan’s increasingly paranoid governance.
The Turkish president’s current predicament stems from his inability to tolerate any challenge to his authority. Polls showing 55% of Turks holding unfavorable views of Erdogan reflect a dramatic shift in public sentiment. His economic policies have failed to address Turkey’s spiraling inflation and currency devaluation. Following Imamoglu’s arrest, the Turkish lira hit record lows, and the central bank spent $46 billion in reserves attempting to prevent further devaluation.
Barkey’s targeting mirrors the broader pattern now being applied to Imamoglu and his associates. Just as Barkey was falsely accused of terrorism and conspiracy, Imamoglu faces “highly dubious charges,” including “baseless accusations of corruption and terrorism.” The parallels are striking and deliberate—Erdogan’s playbook remains consistent, even as its effectiveness wanes.
Erdogan now stands at a crossroads of his own making. His options are narrowing as public sentiment shifts decisively against him. Constitutional term limits mean his presidency will end in 2028, but his political demise may come sooner. As Barkey concludes, regardless of how Erdogan chooses to exit, his “long, eventful tenure in office will be remembered more simply as an era of autocracy.”