The European Union has helped enable authoritarian drift in countries including Turkey, where President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is accused of establishing one-man rule, by consistently putting migration control, security and regional stability ahead of democratic standards, according to a new academic study published Tuesday.
The paper, titled “The stabilitocracy trap. How the EU enables autocratization in its neighborhood,” was published April 21 in the European Politics and Society journal by Florian Bieber of the University of Graz and Cengiz Günay of the Austrian Institute for International Affairs.
The authors argue that the EU’s neighborhood policy has increasingly favored what they call “stabilitocracy,” a dynamic in which Brussels tolerates or even legitimizes authoritarian governments in exchange for what it considers stability.
The paper examines Serbia, Tunisia and Turkey. In Turkey’s case, the authors say the country’s slide toward authoritarian rule began gradually in the late 2000s and accelerated as EU institutions responded with little more than mild criticism while keeping ties focused on migration and security.
The 2015 refugee crisis and the 2016 EU-Turkey migration deal emerge as a turning point in the study. The authors say Brussels softened its criticism of Turkey’s democratic decline as it sought Ankara’s cooperation in stemming refugee flows to Europe.
They cite a leaked conversation involving President Erdoğan, then-European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker and then-European Council president Donald Tusk, saying it showed the commission delayed a critical Turkey report at Erdoğan’s request until after the November 2015 election.
In that exchange, the authors say, Juncker offered more refugee funding, new negotiating chapters and visa liberalization in return for a migration deal.
The authors also note that the 2016 migration agreement was reached without the approval of either the Turkish Parliament or the European Parliament, an example, they argue, of executive-level bargaining that bypassed democratic oversight.
As repression deepened following the 2013 Gezi Park protests and a failed coup in 2016, EU criticism remained muted, the paper says. It argues that while European Commission reports documented democratic and legal failings, they still helped preserve a “facade of democracy” by stopping short of openly describing Turkey as authoritarian.
The paper connects that pattern to the current crackdown in Turkey. The arrest of İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, Erdoğan’s main political rival, and the pressure on the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), represent the starkest illustration yet of the EU’s preference for stability over democracy, according to the authors. They warn that Turkey is now on the verge of crossing from a personalized authoritarian system into outright autocracy.
The authors stop short of blaming the EU for causing authoritarianism in Turkey, Serbia or Tunisia. Their argument, rather, is that by maintaining deep ties with governments sliding toward autocracy, Brussels granted them outside legitimacy while limiting its own long-term options as a result of relying on deals struck with powerful executives.
The study comes as similar criticism has been directed at the United States. Tom Barrack, the US ambassador to Turkey and special envoy for Syria, said at the Antalya Diplomacy Forum on April 17 that the only political systems that had worked in the Middle East were “powerful leadership regimes,” including monarchies and “monarchical republics.”
The remarks drew sharp backlash in Turkey, particularly from the CHP. Party leader Özgür Özel said Barrack was praising monarchy in a republic built on the ruins of Ottoman rule, called him “persona non grata for Turkish democracy” and demanded a retraction and apology.
The criticism centered on the perception that the US envoy had effectively endorsed Erdoğan’s model of centralized rule at a moment when Turkey’s opposition says democratic institutions are under severe strain.
In remarks to Fox News Digital, Barrack defended the comment as a “realistic assessment,” arguing that countries that tried to adopt Western-style democracy after the Arab Spring had largely failed, while Gulf monarchies delivered security, growth and modernization. He also cited Turkey as an example of strong centralized leadership that had produced stability and regional influence, though he acknowledged that critics describe it as a hybrid regime with authoritarian features.