Real political change in Turkey has been hard to come by in recent years. Establishment parties in Turkey have, time and again, proven unable to change the political system. Now a new hope for reform has emerged in Turkey from an unlikely source: the Kurds.

During most of the Cold War—and particularly during the 1980s and 1990s—Turkey had, for lack of a better word, a Kemalist consensus: The military played a major role behind the scenes, and those outside the consensus, especially the Islamists and the Kurds, were essentially excluded from politics. 

The first wave of democratization in the post-Cold War era in Turkey came from the Islamists—specifically, from the Justice and Development Party (AKP). In 2002, when the AKP came to power, it decided that accession to the European Union should be its main goal and that effort could serve as tool to undermine the political power of the Turkish military that still lurked behind the scenes. So, incredibly, an Islamist party, the AKP, decided to bring about a post-Kemalist system by pushing for membership in the EU’s essentially liberal, democratic project. This strategy explains why Turkish liberals supported the AKP and could hope that the Islamists would push the system in a liberal direction.

But then something tragic happened. The AKP became the establishment. After the military was essentially defeated as a political force, the AKP ceased to be an anti-establishment party. Rather, it became a party that started to use the privileges of power, and itself began its own networks of patronage clientelism, and became a victim of this entity called the state. The AKP became the state. 

Now we're in a situation where the second wave of democratization may also come from an anti-establishment party, this one mostly representing the Kurds. The most democratic, the most liberal, the most progressive narrative that you hear in Turkish politics today is coming from Selahattin Demirtaş of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP)—not the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), not the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), and not the AKP.

There is reason to think that, in Turkey, only anti-establishment parties can actually improve the system. The old AKP was an anti-establishment party. What gives me hope about the HDP is that, even when it enters the parliament—and even if a miracle happens and it enters a coalition government—it will never become the state. 

By definition, the HDP is a Kurdish political party. The Islamists could become the state, because Turkey is 99 percent Muslim, and people could establish basically a sense of supremacy based on Muslim identity. The Kurds will never be able to represent the majority. They will never be able to become the state. They have vested and permanent interest in the rule of law—indeed their very survival depends on it. Their survival depends on minority rights and on checks and balances. This stark fact gives me hope about the HDP and its agenda.

What’s wrong with the rest of the Turkish opposition?

The real puzzle is the failure of establishment political parties to challenge the system. It would have been wonderful for a center-right party or a center-left party to have taken Turkey to the post-Kemalist phase, to a post-military, pro-E.U., pro-progressive phase. But the mainstream political parties have failed. The establishment of Turkey has failed. The Kemalist order in Turkey has failed.

The agent of change was first the Islamists, and now the agent of change has become the Kurds. 

What is it that creates this mental block of establishment political parties? Why did it take so many years for the CHP to understand that it can become an agent of change, too? In the absence of a left-wing movement in Turkey, there will never be balance. We need a progressive left. We need something that can challenge the strong coalition on the right. The HDP alone cannot be there.

One thing that is not being discussed in Turkey is the possibility of a CHP-HDP coalition, yet this is the most natural coalition. The CHP, if it's a progressive political party, it should be able to get rid of its Kemalist, neo-nationalist baggage and embrace the progress of liberal, democratic agenda of the HDP. 

One reason that the CHP voters and the CHP itself are unable to really embrace the HDP is because the CHP, deep down, is still the party of Atatürk, still the party of Kemalism, still the party of nationalism. And what the Kurds want in Turkey—make no mistake—what the Kurds want in Turkey is autonomy. They want nothing short of autonomy.

The days when you could basically solve the Kurdish question with some cosmetic cultural reforms are over. They want democratic decentralization. And to me, that translates into autonomy. And this is a very difficult step to digest for the CHP. Add to this the fact that the disgruntled CHP voters are voting for the HDP, the fact that people who usually could vote for a central-left progressive party are so disillusioned with the CHP that they're gravitating to the HDP. Therefore, there is also a tactical obstacle, in terms of cooperation between the HDP and the CHP right now. 

But down the line, I think the best reconciliation between Turkish nationalism and Kurdish nationalism would come from a CHP-HDP coalition. Turkish nationalism needs to reconcile itself to the fact that the Kurdish genie is out of the bottle. The good old days of assimilating the Kurds are over. The Kurds want autonomy. They will probably get it, hopefully in a bloodless way.

Published version of the CSED October 2007 Working Paper

ABSTRACT

Background

In classical mathematical epidemiology, individuals do not adapt their contact behavior during epidemics. They do not endogenously engage, for example, in social distancing based on fear. Yet, adaptive behavior is well-documented in true epidemics. We explore the effect of including such behavior in models of epidemic dynamics.

Methodology/Principal Findings

Using both nonlinear dynamical systems and agent-based computation, we model two interacting contagion processes: one of disease and one of fear of the disease. Individuals can “contract” fear through contact with individuals who are infected with the disease (the sick), infected with fear only (the scared), and infected with both fear and disease (the sick and scared). Scared individuals–whether sick or not–may remove themselves from circulation with some probability, which affects the contact dynamic, and thus the disease epidemic proper. If we allow individuals to recover from fear and return to circulation, the coupled dynamics become quite rich, and can include multiple waves of infection. We also study flight as a behavioral response.

Conclusions/Significance

In a spatially extended setting, even relatively small levels of fear-inspired flight can have a dramatic impact on spatio-temporal epidemic dynamics. Self-isolation and spatial flight are only two of many possible actions that fear-infected individuals may take. Our main point is that behavioral adaptation of some sort must be considered.”

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Despite the attention on the mid-term races, few elections are competitive. Electoral competition, already low at the national level, is in decline in state and primary elections as well. Reformers, who point to gerrymandering and a host of other targets for change, argue that improving competition will produce voters who are more interested in elections, better-informed on issues, and more likely to turn out to the polls.

On October 27, the Brookings Institution—in conjunction with the Cato Institute and The Pew Research Center—presented a discussion and a groundbreaking survey exploring the attitudes and opinions of voters in competitive and noncompetitive congressional districts. The survey, part of Pew's regular polling on voter attitudes, was conducted through the weekend of October 21. A series of questions explored the public's perceptions, knowledge, and opinions about electoral competitiveness.

The discussion also explored a publication that addresses the startling lack of competition in our democratic system. The Marketplace of Democracy: Electoral Competition and American Politics (Brookings, 2006), considers the historical development, legal background, and political aspects of a system that is supposed to be responsive and accountable, yet for many is becoming stagnant, self-perpetuating, and tone-deaf. Michael McDonald, editor and Brookings visiting fellow, moderated a discussion among co-editor John Samples, director of the Center for Representative Government at the Cato Institute, and Andrew Kohut and Scott Keeter from The Pew Research Center, who also discussed the survey.

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Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s write-in candidacy for reelection makes her the latest to join a growing number of prominent politicians who have shed political affiliations in the hopes of winning public office.

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist is running as an independent for the Senate, former Sen. Lincoln Chafee is running as an independent for Rhode Island governor, Mayor Michael Bloomberg became an independent to run New York City, and, of course, Sen. Joe Lieberman lost the 2006 Democratic Senate primary — but won in the general as an independent.

The trend of moderate independent candidates who have forsworn party affiliations is not new to U.S. politics. Since the Civil War, when the modern Republican Party was established to compete against the Democratic Party, minor party or unaffiliated candidates have won election to the House or Senate a total of 697 times. Of these, 89 percent of elected minor party candidates had voting records ideologically between the two major parties.

Despite the recent polarization of U.S. politics, history tells us that moderates make winners. Consider the Wisconsin Progressive Party. Its development has a familiar ring to today’s politics. Extremist elements flourished in the Republican Party during the Great Depression, growing out of our nation’s economic anxieties. GOP moderates responded by creating this Wisconsin group, focused on issues of reform and pragmatic governance.

It started when Wisconsin Gov. Philip La Follette ran for reelection in 1932 as the GOP nominee. He was heckled throughout his speeches by Republican ‘Stalwarts’ on his political right. They “had their Phil” and were angered by his policies of perceived higher taxes to support government spending. La Follette lost the Republican primary to Stalwart-backed Walter Kohler amid then-record turnout. Kohler lost to the Democrat in the general election.

La Follette is a famous political name. Gov. Philip La Follette and Sen. Robert La Follette Jr. were sons of the leading GOP politician, Sen. Robert La Follette Sr. Republican progressives had supported him for the party’s presidential nomination in 1912 and 1916. He eventually ran for president in 1924 — on his own Independent Progressive Party ticket. But while the father’s exploits are well-known, his sons’ reactions to Wisconsin’s political climate are more relevant to today’s politics.

Frustrated by the GOP extremists, the La Follette brothers created the Wisconsin Progressive Party, and they ran as party candidates when successfully elected governor and senator in 1934. Today’s independent candidates share a similar frustration with the ideological purists on their right and left. The extremists in the Democratic and Republican primary electorates are rejecting centrist candidates who might be better positioned to win general elections.

Consider the words of Crist when he declared his Independent candidacy. “If you want somebody on the right or you want somebody on the left,” Crist said, “you have the former speaker, Rubio, or the congressman, Meek. If you want somebody who has common sense, who puts the will of the people first, who wants to fight for the people first, now you've got Charlie Crist. You have a choice.”

With all the attention paid to the successes of Tea Party activists during the GOP primaries, it is easy to forget that these are not like general elections. Primary voters tend to be more ideologically extreme. So these Republican primary voters may end up denying the party several general election victories.

For example, many political observers agree that Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.), a moderate, would have been a stronger candidate for Senate than the GOP primary victor, Christine O’Donnell, his tea party-backed opponent. General elections have traditionally been won in the center -- where most voters still reside.

Minor party successes usually arise when the two major political parties become ideologically polarized. Moderates can usually find a seat under a big tent, but when party activists are unable to tolerate dissent, moderates are shut out and left to their own devices. So it isn’t surprising that strong candidates holding moderate positions realize they are electorally viable by abandoning their party and appealing to the center in general elections.

History tells us that conditions now are favorable for moderates like Chafee, Crist, Lieberman, and Murkowski. They step into a political vacuum at the center that the major parties created by moving to the political extremes. With room left for further polarization, this may be just the beginning of the rise of moderate independent candidates.

History also tells us the political party that first figures out how to recapture the middle -- and bring these candidates and their supporters into the fold -- is the one most likely to emerge as dominant.

Now that the 2010 Census is concluded, states will begin the process of reapportionment—re-drawing voting district lines to account for population shifts. Nonresident Senior Fellow Michael McDonald says redistricting has been fraught with controversy and corruption since the nation’s early days, when the first “gerrymandered” district was drawn. Two states—Arizona and California—have instituted redistricting commissions intended to insulate the process from political shenanigans, but politicians everywhere will continue to work the system to gain electoral advantage and the best chance of re-election for themselves and their parties.

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The fiscal budget has become a casualty of political polarization and even functions that had enjoyed bipartisan support, like research and development (R&D), are becoming divisive issues on Capitol Hill. As a result, federal R&D is likely to grow pegged to inflation or worse, decline.

With the size of the pie fixed or shrinking, requests for R&D funding increases will trigger an inter-agency zero-sum game that will play out as pointless comparisons of agencies’ merit, or worse, as a contest to attract the favor of Congress or the White House. This insidious politics will be made even more so by the growing tendency of equating public accountability with the measurement of performance. Political polarization, tight budgets, and pressure for quantifiable results threaten to undermine the sustainability of public R&D. The situation begs the question: What can federal agencies do to deal with the changing politics of federal R&D?

In a new paper, Walter D. Valdivia and Benjamin Y. Clark apply punctuated equilibrium theory to examine the last four decades of federal R&D, both at the aggregate and the agency level. Valdivia and Clark observe a general upward trend driven by gradual increases. In turn, budget leaps or punctuations are few and far in between and do no appear to have lasting effects. As the politics of R&D are stirred up, federal departments and agencies are sure to find that proposing punctuations is becoming more costly and risky. Consequently, agencies will be well advised in securing stable growth in their R&D budgets in the long run rather than pushing for short term budget leaps.

While appropriations history would suggest the stability of R&D spending resulted from the character of the budget politics, in the future, stability will need the stewardship of R&D champions who work to institutionalize gradualism, this time, in spite of the politics.

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A 2010 publication of the U.S. Geological Survey caused major excitement in Cyprus, an island that at the time was suffering from the economic collapse of its neighbor and major trading partner, Greece. According to the publication, the seabed of the Eastern Mediterranean could contain up to 120 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of natural gas.3 Three years later, the Cypriot administration has high hopes that natural gas exports may get Cyprus—the third smallest European Union member state—back on its feet, after its own financial collapse in 2012. Unfortunately for the Cypriots, the reality on the ground is sobering, and it is currently unclear whether Cyprus will become a producer, or an exporter, of natural gas. Around Cyprus, other countries hope to benefit from the energy potential as well, including Israel, Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority. In the Israeli Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), in particular, substantial reserves of natural gas have been found, though the verdict is out whether these will in fact all be produced.

Exploration of Cyprus’s offshore concessions is at an early stage. Energy majors such as ENI and Total are among the first to explore possible gas (and oil) reserves and they expect results not before 2015. To date, only two test wells have been drilled by Houston-based Noble Energy. Proven reserves have been downgraded since and are currently estimated to be between 3 and 5 tcf. At this level of reserves, investing in a natural gas liquefaction terminal, which the Cypriot administration has supported, is not economically viable. A better alternative would be to construct a pipeline to Turkey, which has a large and rapidly growing market for natural gas.

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