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Making Sense of Turkish PoliticsSahin AlpayPublished online: 20 Aug 2008.

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Making Sense of Turkish Politics

Sahin Alpay

In more than one way Turkey can be viewed as a sui generis democracy with a very

peculiar political evolution. Turkey has been a multi-party democracy since 1950,

yet the military has intervened in the political process in different forms and on

several occasions since then. As of December 1999, Turkey is a candidate for

membership in the European Union (EU) and started accession negotiations

with the EU in October 2005. It has been governed by the post-Islamist Justice

and Development Party (AKP), which increased its share of the national vote from

the 34 percent it received in the 2002 national parliamentary elections to 47

percent in the elections held in July 2007. The July 2007 elections were also a

landmark election in which the Democratic Society Party (DTP) became the first

pro-Kurdish party to find representation in the national parliament, overcoming

the 10 percent threshold through independent candidates who were elected and

joined the party. However, in the last year, Turkey’s Chief Prosecutor filed two

closure cases before the Constitutional Court, one in November 2007 against the

DTP for allegedly having become ‘‘a focal point of activities against the sovereignty

of the state and the indivisible unity of the country and the nation’’, and the other

in March 2008 against the AKP for allegedly having become ‘‘a focal point of

activities against secularism’’. The AKP and DTP together represent over half the

national vote and nearly two-thirds of the seats in parliament. Together, the two

parties account for more than 90 percent of the vote in the Kurdish-majority

southeast region of the country.

The ‘‘judicial coup’’

The closure of political parties is very unusual in liberal democracies, although not

so in Turkey where the Constitutional Court has since its founding in 1961 banned

no less than 24 parties, mostly on grounds of alleged activities against the secular

nature of the regime or the ‘‘indivisibility of the state and the nation’’. But even in

Sahin Alpay is a Senior Lecturer in Political Science at Bahcesehir University, Istanbul, and a columnist forthe Istanbul Zaman and Today’s Zaman dailies. Email: sahinalpay@gmail.com

The International Spectator, Vol. 43, No. 3, September 2008, 5–12 ISSN 0393-2729 print/ISSN 1751-9721 online� 2008 Istituto Affari Internazionali DOI: 10.1080/03932720802280560

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Turkey a judicial initiative to close down a party that has been in power for the last

six years and has just won a landslide election victory, and a ban from politics of 71

of its members, including the country’s president and prime minister, is unheard

of, and therefore shocked the domestic public opinion as well as foreign, especially

EU observers.

The closure case against the ruling AKP not only gravely endangered political and

economic stability in the country, but also put at risk its EU membership prospect.

Judging from its past performance, the Constitutional Court seemed likely to decide

in favour of closing down both parties. Unexpectedly, the Constitutional Court

decided on 30 July 2008, by the slimmest of margins, not to ban the party but to

strip it of half of the state funding it received for the year. Six of the eleven justices,

that is just one short of the qualified majority necessary for a banning decision, voted

in favour of closure. The Chief Justice of the Court, in his statement announcing the

verdict, underlined that this was a ‘‘serious warning’’ to the government party not to

violate the Republic’s principles of secularism.

Turkey thus narrowly escaped perhaps the worst political crisis it has faced since

the military coup in September 1980. But what is the logic behind the closure

cases? How can one make sense of what the media had termed an impending

‘‘judicial coup’’? The answer to these questions lies in the state ideology of and

the nature of democracy in Turkey.

From the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic

The Republic of Turkey was founded in 1923 on the ruins of the multi-ethnic and

multi-religious Ottoman Empire that collapsed at the end of the First World War,

following victory against foreign invasion in the National Independence War.

The founding fathers of the republic, the military leaders of the War of

Independence, were divided between those who advocated the establishment of a

form of democracy and those who favoured an authoritarian regime deemed

necessary to implement the reforms required to continue to modernise and

Westernise the country. The latter faction, led by Mustafa Kemal Pasha (given

the surname Ataturk, ‘‘father of the Turks’’ in 1934) prevailed, and a single

party regime was instituted in 1925 following the Kurdish rebellion that year.

The major problem faced by the regime was to forge, in line with the notion of

modernity that prevailed at the time, a homogeneous and secular Turkish nation

out of the various Muslim ethnic and religious groups that were the legacy of the

empire. Two sets of policies were adopted for this purpose. One had to do with the

new nation’s identity, and was aimed at the assimilation of the various Muslim

ethnic and linguistic groups that made up the vast majority of the population into a

Turkish nation that spoke the Turkish language, shared the Turkish culture, and

adhered to the Sunni-Hanafi form of Islam represented and promoted by the

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Directorate of Religious Affairs (DRA), the state agency that monopolised all

religious matters. Turkey’s Kurds, who fought alongside the Turks and other

Muslims in the Independence War on the promise of recognition of cultural

autonomy after victory, have resisted assimilation ever since through rebellions

that stretch across the republic’s entire history.

The second set of policies was aimed at secularising society. Secularisation of the

legal system, which had begun in the nineteenth century Ottoman Empire, was

completed and religion was declared an entirely private affair. The republican

leadership, deeply influenced by Western materialistic and positivistic philosophy,

strongly believed that religious (and particularly Islamic) thinking had to be

replaced by scientific thinking if the new nation was to achieve modernisation

and progress. Since it was not possible to dis-establish Islam, and since its officially

sanctioned form was being used to homogenise society, it was put under state

control through the DRA, and restrictions on religious freedoms were introduced

primarily in the form of the prohibition of the traditional Sufi brotherhoods that

prevailed – and still prevail today – among the people. No religious minorities were

officially recognised other than the non-Muslim groups granted cultural rights in

accordance with the Lausanne Treaty concluded in 1923 with the victorious powers

of the First World War. Non-Muslims have, however, never been regarded as part of

the Turkish nation, and have been excluded from holding public office ever since.

Regarding authoritarian secularism a guarantee against Sunni domination, the

Alevis, the largest religious minority in the country, who adhere to a heterodox

form of Islam, only began to demand official recognition of their faith in the 1990s.

State elites and Kemalism

The identity and secularism policies briefly described above form the two basic

pillars of what has come to be referred to as Kemalism, the official ideology of the

Turkish state. Since the introduction of multi-party politics in 1950, and especially

since the EU integration process began in the 1990s, an understanding of

Kemalism as essentially a commitment to the ideals of modernisation and

Westernisation that will culminate in Turkey’s accession to the EU may be said

to have taken root among at least part of the business, professional and cultural

elites. A rigid and authoritarian understanding of Kemalism, however, prevails

among the state elites. The state elites, with the military in the lead, regard them-

selves as the guardians of Kemalism, and consider pro-Islamic and pro-Kurdish

politics as the main enemies of the Turkish state. The authoritarian form of

Kemalism is supported by a substantial part of society represented by the main

two opposition parties, the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the National

Action Party (MHP), who fear that further globalisation and democratisation will

lead to greater Islamisation and/or dismemberment of the country.

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The military in Turkey have an ambiguous attitude towards democratic politics.

Officers believe in the legitimacy of democratic government, but also regard the

intervention of the military as legitimate if and when the Turkish state or its

Kemalist principles are in danger. On these grounds, the military has intervened

in the democratic process on several occasions since the introduction of multi-party

politics. The political role of the military even acquired a constitutional basis in the

wake of the military intervention of 1960 when a military junta toppled the first

democratically-elected government. The Constitution of 1961, drawn up by the

military, institutionalised the National Security Council (NSC). Originally

designed to serve as a platform for the military to voice their opinion on matters

of national security, the NSC acquired broader powers over time, first through the

constitutional amendments of 1973 following the military intervention in 1971,

and later through the Constitution of 1982, drawn up by the military regime

in power between 1980 and 1983. Umit Cizre, the foremost scholar of military-

civilian relations in Turkey, in an article titled ‘‘The Anatomy of the Turkish

Military’s Autonomy’’ published in 1997 stated the following: ‘‘The Constitution

of 1982 entrenched the military’s veto power in the political system to such an

extent that it has made crude military intervention into politics redundant.’’1

Despite reforms adopted between 2001 and 2004 in the context of fulfillment of

the EU’s ‘‘Copenhagen political criteria’’, which significantly curbed their consti-

tutional and legal basis, the military have continued to play a strong political role.

A ‘‘post-modern’’ coup

In February 1997, in an intervention dubbed a ‘‘lite’’ or ‘‘post-modern’’ coup by

the media, the military launched a campaign supported by the mainstream media

and certain civil society groups to force the resignation of the coalition government

composed of the Islamist Welfare and centre-right True Path parties. A closure case

against the Welfare Party (RP) was initiated by the Chief Prosecutor, and the party

was banned by the Constitutional Court in 1998 for having become ‘‘a focal point

of activities against secularism’’, with some of its leading members, including party

chairman and former Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan, banned from politics for

five years. The ‘‘reformist’’ faction of the RP, led by Tayyip Erdogan and Abdullah

Gul, moved on to establish in August 2001 the AKP which, parting ways with

the RP platform, put forward a pro-democracy, pro-secularism, pro-market, and

pro-EU platform, and won the elections of November 2002 to form a single party

government.

Between 2002 and 2005, the single party government led by Erdogan pursued an

energetic reform policy aimed at fullfilling the Copenhagen political criteria and

1Cizre-Sakallioglu, ‘‘The Anatomy of the Turkish Military’s Autonomy’’.

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starting accession negotiations. The Turkish parliament adopted eight legislative

packages between February 2002 and May 2004, that substantially reformed the

constitutional and legal framework for human rights and democracy. Reforms were

undertaken most importantly to suppress human rights violations, expand the

freedoms of expression, assembly and association, decrease the influence of the

military in politics, and towards recognition of the Kurdish identity, allowing for

broadcasts and education in Kurdish. Accession negotiations with the EU started at

the end of 2005. The AKP government achieved macro-economic stability and the

Turkish economy displayed a 7 percent annual growth rate between 2002 and 2007

with per capita income increasing from around US $3200 to nearly 10,000 in the

same period.

When, in April 2007, the parliament voted to elect the AKP government’s Foreign

Minister Abdullah Gul (whose wife wears the headscarf, regarded as the symbol of

opposition to the secular, Kemalist nature of the Turkish state) as president, the

military reacted by placing an ultimatum on their website threatening to intervene if

Gul was to assume the presidency. The CHP appealed to the Constitutional Court to

declare Gul’s election unconstitutional on the grounds that less than two-thirds of

the members of parliament were present during the vote. The Court, heeding what

the media has called the military’s ‘‘e-memorandum’’, decided in favour of CHP’s

appeal, in flagrant violation of the constitutional rules regarding election of the

president which requires the presence of only one-third of MPs.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan responded immediately to the Constitutional

Court’s ruling by calling early elections in July which resulted in a landslide victory

for the AKP, and Gul was duly elected president in August. When the AKP, on the

suggestion and with the support of the far-right National Action Party (MHP),

moved in February 2008 to amend the constitution to lift the ban on headscarves

for university students rigorously implemented since 1998, the Chief Prosecutor

appealed to the Constitutional Court to close down the AKP and ban from politics

71 of its members, including President Gul and Prime Minister Erdogan. While

the Constitutional Court’s decision on the closure cases was still pending, in

response to an appeal by the CHP, it declared the constitutional amendments

lifting the headscarf ban for university students null and void in May 2008.

Post-Islamist AKP

Opponents of the AKP government often argue that the current political conflict in

Turkey is one between secularists who are committed to preserving the secular

nature of the republic at all costs, and Islamists who are intent on dismantling

secularism and Islamising society to remake Turkey into another Iran or Malaysia.

This argument is baseless since the regime is hardly secular, and Islamists are not at

all Islamist. In Turkey, secularism is true only for the legal system – the laws are

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indeed secular – but there is no separation of state and religion, the state does not

treat various religious beliefs equally, and there are significant restrictions on the

religious rights of all.

The fact that most of its leaders were once members of the Islamist RP is no

proof of AKP’s Islamism. Judged both on its discourse and performance, the AKP

is, as it calls itself, a ‘‘conservative democratic" party committed to conservative and

religious values in culture, but to democratic principles in politics. The AKP is the

party that has put forward the most liberal political and economic platform in the

history of the Turkish Republic. It has never advocated or taken legislative action

for the adoption of Islamic law (shariah) or tried to impose the covering of women.

The AKP governments have been the driving force behind the political reforms that

obtained negotiating candidate status for Turkey with the EU. The AKP govern-

ments have favoured not only better relations with all countries, including Muslim

ones, but also stood for close relations with the US and Israel.

The AKP is a post-Islamist party, whose leaders have realised not only that

Islamism has failed worldwide, but that the vast majority of Turkey’s population –

which adheres to Islamic values but is equally committed to a democratic and

secular regime – will never embrace Islamism. The various bans and repression

they have been subjected to have taught them the precious value of political freedom.

This is what makes the AKP the relatively, if not ideally, progressive party of Turkey

today. Turkey’s democracy, however deficient and imperfect, has enabled the

Islamists to learn from their mistakes and leave Islamism behind.

Power struggle

The political conflicts witnessed in Turkey since April 2007 are related not to a

fight over dismantling or protecting secularism, but to the power struggle between

old and new elites in the country. The transition in 1980 from a development

strategy of state-led import substitution to one of market-led export promotion

has had profound consequences on Turkey’s society, economy and politics. The

development of export industries and the spread of higher educational institutions

in Anatolia since the 1980s has given rise to a new business and professional elite

that is culturally conservative and religious, but committed to liberal economic and

political values. The AKP is the foremost representative of this new elite. The

reforms adopted by AKP governments have challenged the power and privileges

of the old elite, composed mainly of state elites and business groups that flourished

with state subsidies during the import-substitution period.

The current power struggle between the old and new elites in Turkey is perhaps

best described by Jenny White, one of the most eminent scholars studying

the social basis and ideological transformation of the Turkish Islamist movement,

in her book entitled Islamist Mobilization in Turkey. In a recent article,

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White makes the following observation:

What is most frightening to Turkey’s old elite is the AK Party’s increasing ability to

occupy the political center, where the interests of most Turkish voters lie. A popular

and centrist AK Party, devoted to liberal values, is a much greater threat to the

secularist, Westernized, but essentially illiberal establishment than an AK Party

harboring a secret Islamist agenda. . . . The establishment’s response to the AK

Party’s success has been to spread the fear that secularist lifestyles are in danger

and the nation is being undermined by foreign powers.2

Military and civilian bureaucratic elites in Turkey are using their self-appointed

role as guardians of the state ideology, Kemalism, to protect their commanding

positions and privileges which are threatened by the increasing democratisation

and liberalisation of the political system in the course of the country’s

Europeanisation. The rigid form of Kemalism that prevails among the state

elites can be said to be the mother of all Turkey’s problems. It equates all

manifestations of Islam to Islamism, and all manifestations of Kurdish identity

to separatism. It is the major obstacle to the consolidation of liberal democracy in

Turkey on EU norms. Authoritarian policies justified by a rigid form of Kemalism

that truly belongs to the past are the greatest threat to the political stability,

economic welfare, territorial integrity, and ‘‘soft power’’ (as a model for other

Muslim-majority countries) of Turkey today.

The EU’s ‘‘soft power’’ and Turkey

Many blame the AKP government itself for the current crisis. It is argued that

the opponents of Turkey’s further democratisation and Europeanisation were

encouraged to move against the AKP when it failed to continue the reform process

it had energetically pursued between 2002 and 2005, and sought instead consensus

with the status quo forces. It is true that the AKP has failed to pursue its promise of

adopting an entirely new and fully democratic constitution. It is also true that the

headscarf reform could have been tackled more effectively in the context of the new

constitution. These are surely indications of the limits of AKP’s reformism, but

also of the stiff opposition to reforms coming from both state elites and the

parliamentary opposition which has tried by all means to achieve a confrontation

between the state elites and the AKP government.

It has to be pointed out that the failure of European and American partners and

allies to provide support for democratisation in Turkey has played a role in the

current political crisis.

Washington, by punishing Ankara in various ways for having refused to become

a partner to the crime of invading Iraq, has also indirectly contributed to the

2White, ‘‘The Ebbing Power of Turkey’s Secularist Elite’’, 433.

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current crisis in Turkey. The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) based in northern

Iraq, for fear of losing ground among Turkey’s Kurds if the EU reforms were to

continue to democratise the country, escalated its attacks beginning in the summer

of 2004. Washington, by denying Ankara effective cooperation against the PKK,

has helped foment the xenophobic nationalist, anti-US and anti-West upsurge in

Turkey that accuses the AKP of collaborating with foreign interests. It is perhaps

the realisation of this that finally, in late 2007, convinced Washington to begin

effective cooperation with Ankara against the PKK.

The EU, which declared in 1999 that Turkey was ‘‘destined to become a member

of the Union on the same conditions as the other candidate countries’’, changed its

mind in 2005 and some member states began offering it ‘‘privileged partnership’’

instead of full membership, while France declared that Turkey has no place in

Europe.

Negative signals coming from the EU have drastically diminished if not entirely

extinguished the EU’s ‘‘soft power’’ over Turkey, that is its ability to attract

and persuade the country to adopt its norms and goals. Public support for EU

membership declined from above 70 percent in 2004 to below 50 percent in 2008.

As public support waned, the nationalist opposition to EU reforms festered. Those

who want to get rid of the AKP government by any means began to resort to

pressure and provocations well-described in the European Stability Initiative’s

report on ‘‘Turkey’s Dark Side’’.3

The attempted ‘‘judicial coup’’ against the ruling AKP has demonstrated that

Turkey’s continued democratisation and modernisation depend to an important

extent on the future of its relations with the EU. The narrowly avoided crisis will

hopefully contribute to increased awareness in Brussels that politics in Turkey

may take a very ugly turn if the EU fails to provide credible and strong

support for Turkish accession. The EU has provided that kind of support to the

accession of southern, central and eastern European countries, and thus helped

them consolidate their democracies. Why not to Turkey?

References

Cizre-Sakallioglu, U. ‘‘The Anatomy of the Turkish Military’s Autonomy’’. Comparative Politics 29,

no. 4 (1997): 151–65.

European Stability Initiative. Turkey’s Dark Side. Party Closures, Conspiracies and the Future of

Democracy, ESI Briefing. Berlin/Istanbul: ESI, 2 April 2008.

White, J. ‘‘The Ebbing Power of Turkey’s Secularist Elite’’. Current History 107, no. 704

(December 2007): 427–33.

White, J. Islamist Mobilization in Turkey. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2002.

3ESI, Turkey’s Dark Side.

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