Faulty Assumptions about Democratization in Turkey

Abstract

For most of the first decade of its rule, the AKP touted itself as an agent for democratization, receiving much support both inside and outside of Turkey. More recently, the AKP has taken a clear authoritarian turn, raising the issue of why many observers of Turkey, including myself, did not see this coming. This paper looks at some of the blinders that I, among others, wore as we assessed the AKP and prospects for democracy in Turkey. These included excessive faith in the European Union as an external force for democracy, a belief that the military and militant secularism were the primary obstacles to Turkish democracy, confidence that what the AKP represented was an archetype of an Islamic-oriented party that had been ‘moderated’ by political inclusion and its own ‘learning,’ and a belief in the democratic promise of modernization theory. The article’s objective is to open up a wider discussion of lessons learned from the AKP’s years in power and how scholars may wish to revise some of their assumptions about Turkey as well as the broader literature on democratization.

Key Words:

• AKP
• authoritarianism
• democratization
• Recep. T. Erdoğan
• Turkish politics

Acknowledgements

The author would like to acknowledge the helpful comments of M. Hakan Yavuz, Ahmet E. Ozturk, Eric Hooglund, and all the participants at the workshop, “The Clash of Authoritarianisms: Secularism versus Islamism in Turkey,” held at the University of Utah, and where I originally presented the paper out of which this article has developed.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Quoted in Güneş Tezcür (2010a) Muslim Reformers in Iran and Turkey: The Paradox of Moderation (Austin: University of Texas Press), p. 157.

2 Seyyed Vali Resa Nasr, (2005) The Rise of Muslim Democracy, Journal of Democracy 16(2), p. 23.

3 See, for example, Cengiz Erişen & Paul Kubicek (eds) (2016) Democratic Consolidation in Turkey: Micro and Macro Challenges (London: Routledge); Bahar Baser & Ahmet E. Ôztürk (eds) (2017) Authoritarian Politics in Turkey: Elections, Resistance and the AKP (London: I. B. Tauris); and Soner Cagaptay (2017) The New Sultan: Erdogan and the Crisis of Modern Turkey (London: I.B. Tauris).

4 See Paul Kubicek (2005b) Turkish Accession to the European Union: Challenges and Opportunities, World Affairs 168(2), p. 70.

5 Paul Kubicek (2015) Political Islam and Democracy in the Muslim World (Boulder CO: Lynne Rienner).

6 For examples see Ihsan Daği (2008) Turkey Between Democracy and Militarism: Post-Kemalist Perspectives (Ankara: Orion); M. Hakan Yavuz (2009) Secularism and Muslim Democracy in Turkey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); and William Hale & Ergun Ozbudun (2010) Islamism, Democracy, and Liberalism in Turkey: The Case of the AKP (London: Routledge).

7 See Angel Rasaba & F. Stephen Larrabee (2008) Political Islam in Turkey (Santa Monica CA: Rand Corporation); Binnaz Toprak (2009) Being Different in Turkey: Religion, Conservatism, and Otherization. (Istanbul: Boğaziçi University and Open Society Foundation); Nur B. Criss (2010) Dismantling Turkey: The Will of the People?, Turkish Studies 11(1), pp. 45-58; and Banu Eligur (2010) The Mobilization of Political Islam in Turkey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

8 The complete context here is that he added that human happiness and peace are the ultimate goals.

9 The Guardian (2019) From reformer to ‘New Sultan’: Erdoğan’s populist revolution, March 11.

10 Lisel Hintz (2018) Identity Politics Inside Out: National Identity Contestation and Foreign Policy in Turkey (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

11 Özlem Denli (2018) Liberal Thought and Islamic Politics in Turkey: Converging Paths (Baden Baden: Nomos), p. 205.

12 Hale & Ozbudun, Islamism, Democracy, and Liberalism, p. 21.

13 Güneş Tezcür (2010b) The Moderation Theory Revisited: The Case of Islamic Political Actors, Party Politics 16(1), p. 81.

14 Hale & Ozbudun, Islamism, Democracy, and Liberalism, p. 29.

15 Quoted in Criss, Dismantling Turkey, p. 46. See also Yalçın Akdoğan (2004) AK Parti ve Muhafazakar Demokrasi [AK Party and Conservative Democracy] (Istanbul: Alfa Yayınları), p. 50.

16 Akdoğan, AK Parti, p. 67.

17 The Guardian (2004) Turkey split by plan to criminalise adultery, September 5.

18 Hurriyet Daily News (2012) Debate over religion takes over politics in Ankara, February 2.

19 Nasr, The Rise of Muslim Democracy; Mohammed Ayoob (2007) The Many Faces of Political Islam: Religion and Politics in the Muslim World (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press); and Kubicek, Political Islam and Democracy.

20 Denli, Liberal Thought.

21 Ersin Kalaycioglu (2010) Justice and Development Party at the Helm: Resurgence of Islam o Restitution of the Right-of-Center Predominant Party? Turkish Studies 11(1), p. 43.

22 M. Hakan Yavuz (2013) Toward an Islamic Enlightenment: The Gülen Movement (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

23 Hale & Ozbudun, Islamism, Democracy, and Liberalism, p. 75.

24 M. Hakan Yavuz & Mujib R. Khan (2000) Turkey’s Fault Lines and the Crisis of Kemalism, Current History 99(6333), pp. 33-40; and Daği, Turkey Between Democracy and Militarism.

25 Denli, Liberal Thought.

26 See for example Kubicek, Turkish Accession.

27 The work of Dani Rodrik, whose father-in-law was charged as a mastermind of a coup plot, stands out as especially noteworthy. See Pinar Dogan & D.-ani Rodrik (2010) How Turkey Manufactured a Coup Plot, Foreign Policy, April 6, available at: https://foreignpolicy.com/2010/04/06/how-turkey-manufactured-a-coup-plot-2/, accessed May 29, 2019.

28 In 2014, amid his battles with Gülen, Erdoğan claimed rogue prosecutors duped him. See The New York Times (2014) Turkish Leader Disowns Trials That Helped Him Tame Military, February 27.

29 Hintz, Identity Politics.

30 Ersin Kalaycioglu (2005) Turkish Dynamics: Bridge Across Troubled Lands (New York: Palgrave Macmillan), pp. 185-86.

31 Nasr, The Rise of Muslim Democracy.

32 Paul Kubicek (2005a) The European Union and Grassroots Democratization in Turkey, Turkish Studies 6(3), pp. 361-377.

33 Jason Brownlee (2016) Why Turkey’s Authoritarian Descent Shakes Up Democratic Theory, The Washington Post, March 23. Prior to Turkey, the country with the highest GDP per capita to become authoritarian was Argentina in the 1970s.

34 Birol Yeşilada & Peter Noordijk (2016) Religiosity and political values in post-2000 Turkey, in Cengiz Erişen & Paul Kubicek (eds) Democratic Consolidation in Turkey: Micro and Macro Challenges (London: Routledge), pp. 21-37.

35 Cengiz Erişen (2016) Tolerance and democratization in Turkey, in Erişen & Kubicek, (eds) Democratic Consolidation in Turkey, pp. 38-64.

36 Yusuf Sarfati (2017) How Turkey’s Slide to Authoritarianism Defies Modernization Theory, Turkish Studies 18(3), pp. 395-415.

37 Reported in The Guardian, From reformer to ‘New Sultan’. This database is compiled by a group of scholars known as ‘Team Populism.’ For more, see https://populism.byu.edu/, accessed February 12, 2020.

38 Examples include Jillian Schwedler (2006) Faith in Moderation: Islamist Parties in Jordan and Yemen (New York: Cambridge University Press); and Michelle Browers (2009) Political Ideology in the Arab World: Accommodation and Transformation (New York: Cambridge University Press.)

39 See Gamze Cavdar (2006) Islamist New Thinking in Turkey: A Model for Political Learning, Political Science Quarterly 121(3), pp. 477-497; and Tezcür, Muslim Reformers.

40 Ahmet Yildiz (2008) Problematizing the Intellectual and Political Vestiges: From ‘Welfare’ to ‘Justice and Development, in Umit Cizre (ed) Secular and Islamic Politics in Turkey: The Making of the Justice and Development Party (London: Routledge), p. 57.

41 Ihsan Daği, (2013) Post-Islamism à la Turca, in Asef Bayet (ed.) Post-Islamism: The Changing Faces of Political Islam (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 71.

42 Jillian Schwedler (2011) Can Islamists Become Moderates? Rethinking the Inclusion-Moderation Hypothesis, World Politics 63(2), pp. 347-376.

43 Mehmet Gurses (2014) Islamists, democracy and Turkey: A test of the inclusion-moderation hypothesis, Party Politics 20(4), pp. 46-65; and Hintz, Identity politics.

44 Tezcür, The Moderation Theory Revisited; and Murat Somer (2014) Moderation of religious and secular politics, a country’s ‘centre,’ and democratization, Democratization 21(2), pp. 244-267.

45 For the latter, see Cuneyt Ülsever (2000) What Kind of Country Do We Want? Turkish Daily News, July 18, p. 6.

46 Ziya Öniş (2008) Turkey-EU Relations: Beyond the Current Stalemate, Insight Turkey 10(4), p. 39.

47 Kubicek, The European Union and Grassroots Democratization; Kubicek, (2011) Political Conditionality and the EU’s Cultivation of Democracy in Turkey, Democratization, 18(4), pp. 910-931; and Kubicek (2014) The European Union and political reform in Turkey: Moving beyond conditionality, in Firat Cengiz & Lars Hoffman (eds). Turkey and the European Union (London: Routledge), pp. 195-211.

48 Kalaycioglu, Turkish Dynamics, p. 198.

49 Öniş, Turkey-EU Relations.

50 European Commission (2011) Enlargement Strategy and Main Challenges, 2011-2012, COM (2011) 66 final, October 12, pp. 18-19.

51 Ash, T.G. (2002) A Bridge Too Far? The Guardian, November 14.

52 Kalypso Nicoaidis, (2006) Living with our differences, in Nikos Kotzias & Petros Liacouros (eds) EU-US Relations: Repairing the Transatlantic Rift (New York: Palgrave Macmillan), p. 97.

53 Quoted in Kubicek, Turkish Accession, p. 73.

54 Hintz, Identity Politics.