The decade that has passed since the July 15, 2016 coup attempt provides enough distance to reflect, from a broader perspective, on what happened that night and the reconstruction process that followed. This essay analyzes, with an eye on three complementary factors — leadership, democratic resilience, and the Turkish polity’s institutional capacity — why the coup attempt, carried out by the FETÖ contingent within the Turkish Armed Forces, failed after being set in motion.
This analysis examines, first, the concept of leadership — embodied by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan — through the lens of Weber’s theory of charismatic authority and bureaucracy; second, the anti-coup resistance mounted by Turkish society, political actors, and state institutions, understood through the concept of democratic resilience; and finally, the uninterrupted delivery of public services, understood through the concepts of infrastructural power and state capacity.
As a result of President Erdoğan’s struggle against tutelage, which spanned his entire political career and left its mark on public memory and political culture, the coup plotters failed to receive support from Turkish society on July 15 – unlike in the military coups and interventions of May 27, March 12, September 12, and February 28. President Erdoğan’s call for mass mobilization, combined with society-wide resistance and the uninterrupted functioning of state institutions — the security forces foremost among them — together prevented the plot from succeeding.
