Turkish Civil-Military Relations: A Latin American Comparison

Abstract

This article compares civil-military relations in Turkey and Latin America. It finds that in both cases, military interruptions of democratic rule have been justified on grounds of military guardianship over national values and interests and feelings of professional superiority over civilians. It also finds that while the Turkish military ruled for brief periods, relying instead on extracting legal constitutional guarantees to maintain influence, Latin American militaries ruled for lengthier periods with less constitutional rewriting. In recent years, militaries in both places seem more willing to accept civilian policies even if they disagree with them.

Notes

Brian Loveman, For La Patria: Politics and the Armed Forces in Latin America (Wilmington, Delaware: SR Books, 1999), p. 59.

See William Hale, “The Turkish Republic and its Army, 1923–1960,” in this volume.

Tanel Demirel, “Soldiers and Civilians: The Dilemma of Turkish Democracy,” Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 40, Issue 1 (January 2004), p. 140.

Loveman, For La Patria, p. 69.

Brian Loveman and Thomas M. Davies Jr., The Politics of Anti-Politics: The Military in Latin America (Wilmington, Delaware: SR Books, 1997), p. 182.

See George S. Harris, “Military Coups and Turkish Democracy: 1960–1980,” in this volume.

Ümit Cizre Sakallıoğlu, “The Anatomy of the Turkish Military's Political Autonomy,” Comparative Politics, Vol. 29, Issue 2 (January 1997), p. 153.

Regardless of how successful military regimes may be at restoring order and economic growth to the nation, they cannot substitute effectively for the legitimate democratic alternative. If in fact, the military regime had discovered the correct remedies for the ills plaguing the nation, the citizenry might be grateful but at the same time impatient for a political change aimed at restoring much cherished rights and liberties. The paradox is that the more decisive the military regimes' economic successes were, the more persuasive the argument was that with its mission accomplished, it was now time to return to the barracks.

Metin Heper, “Civil-Military Relations in Turkey: Toward a Liberal Model?” in this volume.

See M. Şükrü Hanioğlu, “Civil-Military Relations in the Second Constitutional Period, 1908–1918, in this volume. On von der Goltz' influence in Latin America, see Frederick M. Nunn, Yesterday's Soldiers: European Military Professionalism in South America, 1890–1940 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983); Brian Loveman, For La Patria, p. 68.

Sakallıoğlu, “The Anatomy of the Turkish Military's Political Autonomy,” p. 156.

See David Pion-Berlin, Through Corridors of Power: Institutions and Civil-Military Relations in Argentina (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 1997), p. 52.

See Zeki Sarıgil, “Civil-Military Relations beyond Dichotomy: With Special Reference to Turkey,” in this volume.

Samuel Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), pp. 192–263; Pion-Berlin, Through Corridors, pp. 50–53.

Alfred Stepan, The Military in Politics: Changing Patterns in Brazil (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971).

These observations found in various reports by Latinobarómetro. For example, see Corporación Latinobarómetro, Latinobarómetro Report, 1995–2005: A Decade of Public Opinion, Santiago, Chile: 2005. http://www.latinobarometro.org/uploads/media/2005_02.pdf.

See Ersel Aydınlı, “Ergenekon, New Pacts, and the Decline of the Turkish Inner State,” in this volume.

On the historical, structural and rational choice reasons for disinterest in defense in Latin America, see David Pion-Berlin and Harold Trinkunas, “Attention Deficits: Why Politicians Ignore Defense Policy in Latin America,” Latin American Research Review, Vol. 42, Issue 3 (2007), pp. 76–100. On the institutional elements of civilian control, see David Pion-Berlin, “Defense Organization and Civil-Military Relations in Latin America,” Armed Forces & Society, Vol. 35, Issue 3 (April 2009), pp. 562–86.

See The Turkish General Staff, “Defense Organization,” http://www.tsk.tr/eng/genel_konular/savunmaorganizasyonu.htm.

Heper, ‘‘Civil-Military Relations in Turkey: Toward a Liberal Model?”

Thomas C. Bruneau and Richard B. Goetze, Jr., “Ministries of Defense and Democratic Control,” in Who Guards the Guardians and How: Democratic Civil-Military Relations, Thomas C. Bruneau and Scott D. Tollefson, eds. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006), p. 78.

See Heper, “Civil-Military Relations in Turkey.”