Abusive comparativism: ‘Pseudo-comparativist’ political discourse as a means to legitimizing constitutional change in Turkey

16 April 2017 marked a historical turning point in Turkish constitutionalism, as a slim majority of voters approved a set of constitutional amendments in a referendum vote, which, in essence, transforms the country’s parliamentary system into, well, something else — what could be termed a presidentialist system with visibly less checks and balances.

One could say there is almost consensus among legal scholars in Turkey and elsewhere that the amendments serve to consolidate power in the hands of a few actors, and even possibly a single actor, that is, the President. The amendments, then, appear to have dealt a severe blow to the notion of constitutionalism in its classical sense, rooted in the idea of dispersing power as a means to ensuring individual liberties — a blow whose exact ramifications remain to be seen in the upcoming years.

• Primary Source

ESO: Key Source: Turkish constitutional referendum, 2017 http://www.europeansources.info/record/turkish-constitutional-referendum-2017/

ESO: Background information: Debate on state of play in Turkey following constitutional referendum http://www.europeansources.info/record/debate-on-state-of-play-in-turkey-following-constitutional-referendum/

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