With the normalization of Turkish democracy following the AKP’s victory in 2002, restrictions on the recruitment, employment, and promotion of religious citizens in the upper echelons of the bureaucracy were eliminated – a process that especially benefited members of the Gülen movement, with its extensive education, media, and business networks. Gülen followers – who claimed to support liberal democracy and the tolerant, modern form of Islam embraced by the AKP – seemed like natural allies of Erdoğan’s government.