Civil-Military Relations in Turkey: Toward a Liberal Model?

Abstract

In Republican Turkey, the military has always had respect for democracy. However, from 1960 onwards, the military intervened in politics on four occasions. This was because it felt responsible for dealing with internal as well external threats to the country. From 2002 onwards, however, the military began to openly question the very wisdom of intervening in politics. In the following years, the military seemed to have come close to thinking that the civilians “have the right to be wrong.”

Notes

Metin Heper and Aylin Güney, “The Military and Democracy in the Third Turkish Republic,” Armed Forces and Society, Vol. 22, No. 24 (Summer 1996), p. 623.

Ibid., p. 627.

Ibid., p. 630.

Metin Heper, “The Justice and Development Party Government and the Military in Turkey,” Turkish Studies, Vol. 6, No. 2 (June 2005), p. 217.

Ibid., pp. 215–31.

Ibid.

www.tsk.gov.tr (accessed on May 1, 2009).

Heper, “The Justice and Development Party Government and the Military in Turkey,” p. 217.

Ibid., p. 219.

Ibid., pp. 219–20.

Until very recently officers in Turkey used to think that laws are made by the representatives of the people; they act in accordance with those laws even when they intervene in politics; consequently, according to them, what they do may not be considered undemocratic. In a parallel manner, the military also feels that alongside the parliament, they too are responsible to the people; when they intervene in politics it is for the good of the people; thus, for this reason too, they cannot be accused of acting in an undemocratic manner.

Metin Heper, “The European Union, the Turkish Military, and Democracy,” South European Society and Politics, Vol. 10, Issue 1 (April 2005), p. 39.

www.tsk.gov.tr (accessed on May 1, 2009).

Heper, “The European Union, the Turkish Military, and Democracy,” p. 41.

For an elaboration on the Ergenekon case, see the article by Ersel Aydınlı in this special issue of the journal.

Hasan Celal Güzel, “Statüko Değişirken” (“As the Status Quo Goes through Change”), Radikal (Istanbul daily), December 29, 2009.

Fikret Bila, “Gül TSK'yı Korudu. Ölçüyü Kaçıranlar Var,” Milliyet (Istanbul daily), December 31, 2009.

Ersel Aydınlı, “A Paradigmatic Shift of the Turkish Generals and an End to the Coup Era in Turkey,” Middle East Journal, Vol. 63, No. 4 (2009), p. 594.

Fikret Bila, “Çankaya Mutabakatı” (“Çankaya Consensus”), Milliyet, February 26, 2010.

Samuel P. Huntington, Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981).

S. E. Finer, The Man on the Horseback: The Role of the Military in Politics (New York, NY: Praeger, 1962).

On professionalism of the military, see Nil Satana, “Transformation of the Turkish Military and the Path to Democracy,” Armed Forces and Society, Vol. 34, No. 3 (April 2008), pp. 369–71.

www.tsk.gov.tr (accessed on May 1, 2009).

Ibid.

Ibid.

George Harris, “The Role of the Military in Turkey: Guardians or Decision Makers?” in State, Democracy and the Military: Turkey in the 1980s, Metin Heper and Ahmet Evin, eds. (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1988).

Metin Heper, “Extremely ‘Strong State’ and Democracy: Turkey in Comparative and Historical Perspective” in Democracy and Modernity, S. N. Eisenstadt, ed. (Leiden: Brill, 1992).

Nilüfer Narlı, “Civil-Military Relations in Turkey,” Turkish Studies, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Spring 2000), pp. 119–20.

Internal Service Act of the Turkish Armed Forces, Article 35.

Internal Service Regulations of the Turkish Armed Forces, Article 85.

Metin Heper, “The Military-Civilian Relations in Post-1997 Turkey” in Globalization of Civil-Military Relations: Democratization, Reform and Society, Coordinators: George Cristian Maior and Larry Watts (Bucharest: Enciclopedica Publishing House, 2002), p. 57.

Morris Janowitz, The Professional Soldier: A Social and Political Portrait (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1960), p. 420.

Douglas L. Bland, “Patterns in Liberal Democratic Civil-Military Relations,” Armed Forces and Society, Vol. 27, No. 4 (Summer 2001), p. 529.

www.voltairenet.org/article163918.html.

www.tsk.gov.tr (accessed on May 1, 2009).

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

The phrase in inverted commas is from Peter Feaver, “Civil-Military Relations,” Annual Review of Political Science, No. 2 (1999), p. 216.