Watching the state of affairs in Turkey, one cannot help but wonder whether the country weathered a coup attempt in July or fell victim to a successful one. This alarming question is fueled by three patterns of action the government has followed after the botched coup, using extraordinary powers made possible by its declared state of emergency.

The first is a purge of the opposition. The judicial and administrative clampdown after the July 15 coup attempt has had as a target not only the putschists, but increasingly the media, opposition groups and the Kurdish movement as well. It's now as clear as day. Writers and intellectuals of various stripes have landed behind bars on arbitrary and trivial grounds. Twenty-four Kurdish mayors have been removed from office and replaced with government-appointed public servants.

Reporters Without Borders ranks Turkey 151st among 180 countries on its 2016 press freedom index, down from 98th place in 2005. The number of journalists behind bars reached 107 at the end of September, with 155 media outlets and publishing houses closed, according to the Independent Communication Network, a Turkish activist news site. About a third of those represent leftist, Kurdish and other oppositional groups, unrelated to the movement of Fethullah Gulen, the accused perpetrator of the coup attempt.

Second, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has used the purge of the putschists as an opportunity to establish full hegemony over the state. The more than 100,000 civil servants discharged after the coup attempt include both Gulenists and other AKP opponents, and they are being replaced with party loyalists. In the most recent example, a move reminiscent of past military coups, an Oct. 29 legislative decree abolished the right of academics at public universities to elect their rectors and transferred this right to the state, namely President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. As the AKP pushes forward in its quest to monopolize state personnel and institutions, the norms of the rule of law, including checks and balances, are inevitably being destroyed.