
Turkey's political history
Turkey's political history is marked by significant transformations, starting with the fall of the Ottoman Empire after World War I. In 1923, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk founded the Republic of Turkey, implementing sweeping reforms to modernize the nation and separate religion from state. The decades that followed saw military coups in 1960, 1971, and 1980, as the military intervened to stabilize the political system. In recent years, the rise of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has shifted Turkey towards a more authoritarian governance style, characterized by increased centralization of power and restrictions on dissent.