Making sense of Erdoğan’s victory

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s electoral victory in May 2023 bears witness to several features about contemporary strongman leaders in the non-western world – among others, Narendra Modi in India, Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. First, they are popular. Second, their popularity, at least in large part, builds on the successful manipulation