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Podcast: Global Dispatches -- World News That Matters
Episode: Why Turkey's Municipal Elections are of Global Significance
Description: When Reccep Tayyep Erdogan party, the AKP, won a landslide victory in Turkey's 2002 general elections he became a very different kind of Turkish leader from his predecessors. The AKP is a religious party in what was an avowedly secular political tradition. For a time, Erdogan presided over a booming economy and was hailed for being a modernizing muslim leader in a troubled region. His relations with Europe and the United States were strong, and he sought to play a stabilizing role in the middle east. But all the while, Erdogan was consolidating his power. It st...