What Makes a Deep State? Though the deep state is sometimes discussed as a shadowy conspiracy, it helps to think of it instead as a political conflict between a nation’s leader and its governing institutions. Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has battled the deep state by consolidating power for himself and, after a failed coup attempt last year, conducting vast purges. This came after months of worsening relations between Mr. Trump and the intelligence agencies, which he frequently criticized during his campaign. This risks entrenching a culture of bureaucratic warfare that is adversarial and dysfunctional by default — not quite a Turkish-style deep state, but not a healthy democracy either.

Source: New York Times February 17, 2017 02:31 UTC