"Islamist politics has been tried and failed. To be honest, I think Erdoğan's era is over."

In this week's podcast we are joined by Hannah Lucinda Smith, the author of 'Erdoğan Rising: The Battle for the Soul of Turkey'. Hannah is also The Times' political correspondent in Turkey, where she is also responsible for their coverage of the Balkans and the Middle East.

This episode is full of intriguing anecdotes from Hannah's experiences of almost a decade in the region. One cannot help but feel the tension of the attempted coup of 2016, hearing about how commandos stormed his hotel room, with orders to capture him dead or alive, just 30 minutes after he had fled.

In this episode we dive into the religious, political, and cultural traditions of Turkey's political culture and explore how Erdoğan's political coalition has evolved, and narrowed, over time. We also discuss Erdoğan's precarious and crumbling popularity, the political maneuvres he regularly uses to manufacture a bump in the polls, and what the future holds for Turkey, after Erdoğan has left the scene.