What's the trouble with Turkey?

Denmark has had no majority government since 1982. Turkey, on the other hand, has been ruled by a tight single party majority since 2002. That is 33 years of debate and deal-making in Denmark and 13 years of parliamentary hegemony in Turkey. Life is so boring in Denmark, or so I tell myself. And anyway, a single-party government means political stability.

I only really thought about Helle Thorning Schmidt, the Danish Prime Minister, after her selfie with Barack Obama at Mandela?s memorial service. Remember the one that disturbed Michelle Obama? That, I call stability. The best prime minister is the most unknown, if you ask me. It shows that the person is doing his or her job perfectly, without any fuss. Just look at Turkey then, where our leaders call out to us every day in the headlines. It makes me long for the boredom of the Nordics. But why? What is the trouble with Turkey? Let me elaborate.

Denmark and Turkey are unitary states, which means that they have no sub-national governments. Yet, Denmark also manages to be very decentralized, meaning that state authority is dispersed to various bodies across the country, like municipalities or cities. Turkey is the exact opposite of Denmark in that sense, being the most centralized of all unitary states: 91 percent of all public employees answer directly to Ankara. In Denmark, 78 percent of all public sector workers are employed by local authorities. Let me emphasize that in Turkey?s case, that number is 9 percent. And think about the sizes of those countries. Think about which is bigger, more populated and has more diverse needs.

Decentralization is the Northern way. In Sweden, which is another unitary state, only 18 percent of all public sector employees work directly for Stockholm. In...