The AKP Generation: Political Party or Political Entrepreneurs?

In response to the Turkish Prime Minister's outburst at the 2009 World Economic Forum in Davos, AsIi Aydirv tasbas wrote "for us Turks, watching Erdogan lose it*... was nothing new. It was, rather, an Erdogan classic- charismatic yet boorish; ardent but intimidating." But as the man who was once imprisoned for saying u[t]he mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets, and the faithful our soldier" won his third term with a decisive mandate, the opposition remained dismayed at the regime's resilience and their own inability to counter the incredible popularity of the charismatic, boorish, ardent leader who has, in under a decade, triggered a wave of sociopolitical, economic, and cultural transformations in a manner unseen since the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.