re: #139 Weaselone

1. Turkey is still technically a representative Republic.
2. The point I was making was does Turkey even take this path if the EU was more receptive to potential membership?

1. North Korea is still technically a Democratic People’s Republic…

2. There is a stick-and-carrot relationship going on here, but do not look on Europe’s rejection of Turkey as something that drove them to become more authoritarian. Erdogan seems more interested in consolidating power in Turkey than in moving toward membership in the EU.

…and really, regardless of the religious differences, and despite the fact that Turkey was long a secular state, there are enormous social differences between Turkey and the EU: the people and culture in Istanbul and Ankara are fairly modern by European standards, but the rural areas are still very backward.