President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has ruled Turkey for nearly two decades. An inventor of nativist populist politics in the twenty-first century, Erdogan knows how to polarize the electorate to boost his base, and how to wield oppressive tactics when polarization alone cannot win elections. But he faces a number of challenges. His dwindling support base at home, coupled with rising opposition, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, and Turkey’s weak economy appear to threaten his grip on power. How will he react? In this discussion of his newest book, A Sultan in Autumn, Soner Cagaptay offers insights on the next phase of Erdogan’s rule.

Soner Cagaptay is the Beyer Family fellow and director of the Turkish Research Program at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy in Washington, DC. A historian by training, he has written extensively on U.S.-Turkish relations, Turkish domestic politics, and Turkish nationalism, publishing in scholarly journals and major international print media, including the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New York Times, Foreign Affairs, and The Atlantic. He has been a regular columnist for Hürriyet Daily News, Turkey’s oldest and most influential English-language paper, and a contributor to CNN’s Global Public Square blog. He appears regularly on Fox News, CNN, NPR, BBC, and CNN-Turk. His latest book, A Sultan in Autumn, was published in 2021. His books have been translated into Turkish, Italian, Greek, and Croatian.