On Patterns of Constitutional Amendments: Democratic and Autocratic Transitions of Turkey After 1987

The modern Turkish Constitution of 1982 has been amended extensively. The amendments were provided 15 times through the legislative majority and 4 times by national referendum in the last 38 years. This paper will discuss the constitutional politics surrounding the constitutional amendments in Turkey since 1987. The paper will compare and contrast the democratic transition and autocratic transition patterns from the perspectives of exclusion-inclusion dichotomy, elite convergence, democratic legitimacy, and normative constitutionalism.