Jenny White, an anthropologist at Boston University and an expert on Turkey, argues that "those who think he has lost his cool and is reacting blindly may find that this crackdown is Erdogan's pragmatic strategy to shut down the protests once and for all .But can it work?
Noonan's move may pre-empt measures hinted at by the UK chancellor last month, when he announced a crackdown on technology firms' tax strategies at the Conservative party conference.
The periodic crackdowns have become the policing strategy of choice for a Chinese government lacking the reach and resources to provide more police officers who are both better armed and better trained.
According to FBI estimates cited by the Wall Street Journal, authorities have made more than a quarter of a billion arrests in the past 20 years -- a period that was marked by a surge in federal funding for local police departments and law enforcement priorities, like New York City's "broken windows" strategy, that encouraged crackdowns even on minor offenses.
Analysts said the ferocity of the latest crackdown would put the White House's strategy to its sternest test yet.
Two male political dissidents claim they were raped in Egyptian police custody in separate assaults that campaigners suspect are indicative of a wider strategy as the brutal crackdown on opposition continues.
He urged that, while the Chicago Public Department is working on a new, comprehensive anti-gang strategy akin to a crackdown targeted at the Maniac Latin Disciples last summer, crime is not solely a law enforcement concern.
But his strategy is all about crackdowns, not actual solutions.
Using what Çağaptay calls an "authoritarian underdog strategy", Erdoğan portrays his crackdowns on the opposition as legitimate responses to threats to remove him from power.
For much of the five years since President Felipe Calderón began his crackdown against drug cartels, the government's strategy has been to focus resources on their leaders and fracture the large organizations into smaller groups.
Mayoral hopefuls John Liu and Scott Stringer compared the crackdown, respectively, to the "shock and awe" strategy employed in Iraq and to Tiananmen Square.
