Part of the book's background chapters on the ECtHR's engagement in Turkey's Kurdish conflict, Chapter 2 seeks answers to the following puzzle: How is it that Turkey remains an authoritarian regime despite havig been part of the post-World War II international liberal democratic order? Arguing that the answer lies in the country's political history and sociological reality, it traces Turkey’s post-war tumultuous experience with electoral democracy, constitutionalism, human rights and minority protection against the backdrop of its engagement with international and European institutions, including the European Union and the Council of Europe. It argues that Turkey’s transition to polyarchy in 1950 has never translated into democratisation, which cannot be solely explained by frequent military interventions. Rather, authoritarianism has survived in Turkey due to unique social and political factors, including sustained electoral support for anti-democratic laws and policies, a tradition of a strong state immune to the internal checks of liberal democracy and the absence of a democratic culture.

Turkey is among the drafters of the European Convention on Human Rights, has been subject to the ECtHR's oversight for over three decades and is an EU accession country since 2005. Yet, it continues to engage in state violence and political repression against its Kurdish minority. Starting with a description of this puzzle, the chapter provides a review of the literature on supranational courts and legal mobilisation, highlighting the significant gap in scholarship concerning the ECtHR's failure to penetrate into Turkey's authoritarian politico-legal culture, despite decades of mobilisation by Kurdish lawyers. It explains that the book seeks to fill this gap through a process-oriented study of the ECtHR's engagement in Turkey's Kurdish conflict by drawing from methodological approaches in law, political science and sociology, and combining doctrinal legal research, semi-structured interviews, desk research and participant observation. The chapter concludes with a brief layout of the content and purpose of the remaining chapters.

Taking up from where Chapter 5 left off, this chapter shows the ECtHR’s response to Kurdish legal mobilisation against state violence in the emergency region. On the basis of a process-oriented analysis, it traces the evolution of the ECtHR’s jurisprudence on gross and systematic human rights violations in the Kurdish region and Turkey’s execution thereof. It shows how the ECtHR’s engagement in the Kurdish conflict has evolved with its acquisition of expertise on Turkey’s legal system and yet varied in response to emerging political and legal developments in Turkey and Europe. The chapter provides a detailed doctrinal analysis of each of the three phases in the ECtHR's oversight of gross violations in the Kurdish region, demonstrating that the Court's jurisprudence has been inconsistent and incoherent under the façade of judicial meticulousness and unduly deferential to the Turkish government's counterterrorism argument. It concludes that the ECtHR, even during the peak of its engagement in the Kurdish cases, refrained from making full use of its jurisprudential powers to hold Turkey accountable.

The primary indicator of authoritarianism in Turkey has been the treatment of the Kurdish minority. This chapter supports this argument with a historical overview of the evolution of the Kurdish conflict since the late Ottoman era. In response to administrative centralisation and forced cultural assimilation policies pursued by imperial and republican governments, the Kurds resorted to armed uprisings during the single-party era and to peaceful opposition following the transition to a multiparty system. The state responded with further repression in the form of forced displacement, states of exception and special criminal tribunals. This basic dynamic has remained despite the EU- and ECtHR-induced reforms. While Kurdish cultural and linguistic rights have been gradually expanded, the Kurds' political rights are still addressed in the realm of counterterrorism laws. At the same time, Turkey's Europeanisation process opened a new era in Kurdish political mobilisation, enabling the Kurds to lobby European institutions and petition the ECtHR to expand their political and cultural rights on the one hand and expand their electoral representation powers on the other.

This chapter examines the free assembly and free association case law, focusing on political parties and, to a lesser extent, trade unions. The case law on political parties shows a commitment to liberal democracy; there is a substantive democratic component as well which appears in the party dissolution cases. The chapter concludes by looking at how the free association rights support deliberative and participatory democracy especially in the context of trade unions.

This chapter discusses the scope of the right to free elections in the Convention. It explores how this is largely limited to legislatures but there are debates about the application to presidential elections and referendums. The chapters includes a discussion on globalisation and the development of the free elections case law in respect of the European Parliament.

This chapter discusses the protection of the right to vote in the Convention. It examines case law on restriction of the right to vote, in particular residence-based and nationality-based restrictions as well as the case law on voting rights of prisoners.

The European Convention on Human Rights 1950 (the Convention) has long been associated with the idea of democracy. Its preamble speaks of the importance of an ‘effective political democracy’ while several articles refer to the ideal of a ‘democratic society’.

This chapter discusses the Court's free expression jurisprudence. This supports a liberal democratic conception of democracy but there are other concepts discussed also. A substantive conception comes across in some of the earlier case law on obscenity and blasphemy and more recently a substantive commitment to pluralism, tolerance and broad-mindedness is emphasised. The case law on free expression during elections and political advertising suggests a more deliberative conception of democracy, while recently there is a stronger commitment to freedom of information, essential for a participatory democracy.

The conclusion summarises the Convention's commitment to a liberal, representative and substantive democracy and highlights how the Convention might be interpreted to support more deliberative, participatory and inclusive models of democracy,

This chapter discusses how the European Court of Human Rights interprets and applies the European Convention on Human Rights. It examines the Court's approach to interpretation which stresses the Convention receives an effective, evolving and autonomous interpretation. The key principles involved in deciding whether a right has been appropriately limited or restricted are presented: legality or lawfulness, legitimate aim and proportionality. The margin of appreciation and positive obligations doctrines are explained.

This chapter examines different theories of democracy, highlighting the relevance of liberal, representative and substantive democracy for the European Convention on Human Rights. It outlines deliberative, participatory and inclusive models of democracy that address limitations of liberal representative democracy.

This chapter reviews the historical context for the creation of the Council of Europe and the drafting of the European Convention on Human Rights, including the decision to enshrine a provision about free elections in a separate protocol.