AT THE CENTER

What’s Next After Turkey’s Elections?

With national elections taking place in Turkey, the stakes could hardly be higher as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his rival, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, battle for the presidency. The Center for the National Interest invited two leading foreign affairs analysts to discuss the elections on Sunday, May 14. —Henri Barkey is the Bernard L. and Bertha

“The threat to the liberal order comes not from political shifts within democratic societies from liberal to conservative parties; that’s the normal cycle of democratic politics. It comes from resurgent autocrats in Russia, China, North Korea and Iran who do not tolerate such political shifts. Authoritarianism, not nationalism, poses the real threat to the liberal order.”

-Jacob Heilbrunn

“The most important summits between leaders in Washington and Moscow—during the Nixon and Reagan administrations—took place precisely when the two governments recognized the dangers of inveterate mutual hostility and sought to limit them.”

-Paul J. Saunders