A combination of economic and political threats to Ankara compel it to approach the pandemic differently from its peers.

In early April, as the coronavirus pandemic descended on Europe and the Middle East, Turkey looked like it had it made. It boasted the lowest case rate in the region and bragged about its rapid response to contain the virus’ spread. But those days are over. Turkey now has the ninth-fastestgrowing infection rate in the world, doubling about every six days.

Even so, Turkey has been hesitant to order a full shutdown, convinced that the economic risk of the virus is a greater danger than the public health risk. Ankara has thus sacrificed an effective medical response to protect a fragile economy. It has its reasons for doing so, but there are other concerns at play. In the eyes of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), the economic damage could provide the spark for a coup. The government will do everything in its power, then, to make sure that doesn’t happen.

Ill-Equipped

Turkey isn’t the only country with economic problems, of course, nor is it the only country struggling to manage the pandemic. But modern Turkish political culture is uniquely and curiously conducive to coups, especially those executed by the secular, historically empowered military.

Since the 1960s, officers from Turkey’s armed forces have intervened repeatedly in political affairs to “restore order” — a thinly veiled term to express concern over what they see as a departure from secular, Kemalist principles. Erdogan and the AKP are Islamists and as such are natural targets for secularist revolutionaries, having been the targets of a failed coup before, and are obsessed with staving off threats to their grip on power. The economic fallout of the coronavirus outbreak has made the obsession only worse.

Indeed, a coronavirus-induced recession would be the second hit to Turkey’s economy in two years. The Turkish economy is still reeling from the 2018 currency crisis, chronic low interest rates, currency depreciation and an accumulating central government budget deficit. The economy started to show signs of economic recovery only in the latter half of 2019, with small gains in GDP growth and employment. For an economy that relies so heavily on tourism (12% of GDP) and on seasonal migrant laborers (nearly 50%), the outbreak couldn’t have come at a worse time. Waves of foreign workers fled Turkey for their home countries as borders began to shut down, leaving Turkey’s construction and agriculture sectors scrambling for labour and struggling to meet deadlines without federal assistance. Economists believe there will be as many as 2 million unemployed workers by the end of the summer. (Opposition figures claim 2 million already have lost their jobs.) Government relief could cost as much as $8 billion.

If you think that’s a lot of money, consider this: In the first four months of 2020, the lira has depreciated 13.8% against the dollar as foreign exchange liabilities have swelled. Despite lower oil prices, which would otherwise benefit Turkey, the dip in foreign export demand and loss of revenue has led economists to believe Turkey’s GDP will contract by 7% by September.

Turkey’s crisis response has unmasked dissent among key opposition members, industrial moguls, minority communities and liberal constituents. Despite the government’s crackdown on dissent — it has arrested more than 400 people, including journalists and medical personnel — the public is angry that it has been forced to choose between its health and its economic well-being. Opposition figures, AKP allies and ordinary citizens alike have protested the government’s policies. Unions have begun to call for safer conditions, especially among construction workers, who accounted for 2.5 million jobs. Health care experts and opposition figures have called on Erdogan to recall measures put in place after the 2016 coup that shut down hospitals and purged thousands of health care workers. And a number of Turkish industry leaders have started a petition to beef up a $15.4 billion stimulus package they argue does not even scratch the surface of what is needed to manage the crisis. (The package is meant to deliver tax breaks and defer certain payments. Not only was the initiative lacking in social measures to incentivize shelter-in-place behaviour, but it was also under 2% of Turkish GDP, 3% short of what economists recommended countries spend on relief.) Nor does the package give money directly to citizens, who are calling for a stronger safety net. Turks have even criticized the government for how it is managing charity drives, reprimanding the AKP for barring opposition parties and municipal governments from setting up donation campaigns for afflicted families out of concern that they attempt to set up a “parallel state.”

Half-Funded, Half-Locked Down

Acknowledging that a recession is inevitable, the Turkish government has opted to try to wait out the virus, keeping companies in business as long as it can and withholding incentives for its workforce to stay home. For lack of better options, Turkey has resorted to other alternatives. Erdogan attempted to transfer economic responsibility onto the public’s shoulders by urging citizens (and reportedly coercing civil servants) to donate funds and salaries to the “National Solidarity Campaign” to provide financial compensation to afflicted individuals, weaving in narratives of Turkish charity and Muslim “zakat” (alms giving) that fit the AKP’s nationalist, Islamist platform.

The move has indirectly placed an undue burden on Turkey’s public health system, which, despite being considered the region’s best, was already behind the curve. Some 15,000 health care workers were purged after the 2016 coup attempt, so Turkey’s hospitals have fewer doctors per capita than all but two members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. A campaign to privatise hospitals has left the national health care system destitute, with many hospitals bereft of supplies, testing kits and medicine. Turkey also faces a challenge in meeting patient demand, as many Turkish hospitals (most of them military-run) are still closed from the failed coup.

All this is because AKP policymakers believe the economy cannot afford to implement stringent lockdown intervention strategies, such as nationwide school closures, home quarantines and social distancing. The government has therefore envisaged an immunity-building strategy — hoping that exposing a large portion of its population can build immunity and lessen the spread. Learning from mistakes made by the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, which outraged their respective publics when they announced the policies, Turkey has begun to implement a silent “herd immunity” policy without directly spelling it out, hoping to avert political backlash.

That’s not to say the government has done absolutely nothing. An April 3 announcement by Erdogan put in place what was called Turkey’s “nationwide confinement policy,” which may have sounded like a shelter-in-place policy but applied only to citizens under 20 years old and immunocompromised individuals over 65. The age limitation was intended to protect the fragile Turkish economy; the bulk of Turkey’s workforce — middle-aged individuals — stayed at work. Erdogan even backtracked two days later, exempting 18- to 20-year-olds employed in the public and private sector from the national confinement policy. And to compensate for not funding the unemployed, the government plans to ban employee layoffs for three months. It has also closed 31 Turkish cities to all but essential traffic, quarantining hundreds of residential areas across half of the country’s provinces, closing schools, shutting down half of its flights, banning mass gatherings, and making face masks mandatory in public, partly to appease critical voices yet keep the economy open. (The government has already eased lockdown measures in six of these cities.) Even so, the fact remains that Ankara is walking a fine line, refusing to give in to full lockdown measures for the sake of the economy and the maintenance of its own power.

Muscle-Flexing Abroad

For most countries, a lousy economy tempers foreign ambition by scrapping defence budgets to make way for stimulus packages and increased social spending. But the opposite is true in Turkey. Economic needs have justified Turkish adventurism and power plays in theatres in which Turkish objectives are as much financial as they are geopolitical. The three primary theatres for Turkish power displays — Syria, the Eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea, and Libya — have all seen growing Turkish activity.

Its ventures off the coast of Cyprus and Greece have been justified under its struggle to secure alternative sources of oil and gas. At home, Turkish citizens are struggling to keep the lights on, with oil and gas prices having skyrocketed since