This study examines Turkey’s transition from electoral conservatism to institutional authoritarianism during the rule of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan between 2002 and 2023. The central research question asks how Erdoğan’s government has reconstructed and consolidated its political legitimacy amid recurring political and security crises. The theoretical framework draws on constructivism and integrates insights from the literature on legitimacy, securitization, and competitive electoral authoritarianism. Methodologically, the article employs a descriptive-analytical approach based on discourse analysis of secondary sources, institutional transformations, and patterns of political coalition-building in contemporary Turkey.



The main hypothesis of the study posits that Erdoğan’s consolidation of authoritarian rule was not merely the product of personal charisma or repeated electoral victories, but rather the outcome of a strategic linkage between religious–national–Ottoman identity discourses, the securitization of crises, and the institutional reconfiguration of executive power. The findings demonstrate that Turkey’s authoritarian turn did not emerge as an abrupt rupture but as a gradual, crisis-driven, and discursively constructed process in which the basis of legitimacy shifted from economic performance and reformism to identity-based mobilization, securitization, and centralized executive authority. Accordingly, authoritarian neo-Ottomanism should not be understood solely as a foreign policy orientation, but as an integral component of a broader legitimacy architecture and governance strategy in contemporary Turkey.