Foreign Policy During 2011 Parliamentary Elections in Turkey: Both an Issue and Non-issue

Abstract

This article focuses on the foreign policy sections of 2011 election manifestos of the Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (Justice and Development Party) (AKP), the Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi (Republican People's Party) (CHP), the Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi (Nationalist Movement Party) MHP, and the Emek, Demokrasi ve Özgürlük Bloku (Labor, Democracy and Freedom Bloc) (EDÖB) the pre-election Barş ve Demokrasi Partisi (Peace and Democracy Party) (BDP). Foreign policy is both an issue and a non-issue for Turkish electorate because although foreign policy issues have almost no impact on voters choices, the parties still continue to devote space to foreign policy performances, promises, and projections in their election manifestos. The analysis of 2011 election manifestos reveals that the AKP primarily envisions a Turkey with more commonalities with the East than with the West, but yet ranked Turkey's relations with Europe and the West higher; for the MHP while Turkey's commonality with the East was defined in terms of common history and culture, the West was portrayed to have commonness only in terms of values; the CHP equated European values with universalism and prioritized Turkey's ties with Europe; finally, the EDÖB manifesto was an anti-thesis of all manifestos where foreign policy was instrumental for the ideological goals of the bloc and subsequently of the BDP.

Acknowledgements

The author thanks Zana Çıtak Aytürk, Paul Kubicek, and Nil Şatana for their comments and Şengül Apari for research assistance. This paper has received financial support from the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) (Project#109K240). Translations from Turkish belong to the author. The usual disclaimers apply.

Notes

Ali Çarkoğlu and Ersin Kalaycıoğlu, Turkish Democracy Today: Elections, Protest and Stability in an Islamic Society (London and New York: IB Tauris, 2007), Ch. 7.

Ali Çarkoğlu, “A New Electoral Victory for the ‘Pro-Islamists’ or the ‘New Centre-Right’? The Justice and Development Party Phenomenon in the July 2007 Parliamentary Elecitons in Turkey,” South European Society and Politics, Vol. 12, No. 4 (2007), p. 518. For others examining the role of economy in shaping voter behavior at the ballot box at particular times and also in general pleas see Ali T. Akarca and Aysit Tansel, “Economic Performance and Political Outcomes: An Analysis of the Turkish Parliamentary and Local Election Results between 1950 and 2004,” Public Choice, Vol. 129, No. 1/2 (2006), pp. 77–105; Ali T. Akarca and Aysit Tansel, “Social and Economic Determinants of Turkish Voter Choice in the 1995 Parliamentary Election,” Electoral Studies, Vol. 26, No. 3 (2007), pp. 633–647; Ali T. Akarca and Cem Başlevent, “Persistence in Regional Voting Patterns in Turkey During a Period of Major Political Realignment,” European Urban and Regional Studies, Vol. 18, No. 2 (2011), pp. 184–202; Cem Başlevent, Hasan Kırmanoğlu and Burhan Şenatalar, “Empirical Investigation of Party Preferences and Economic Voting in Turkey,” European Journal of Political Research, Vol. 44, No. 4 (2005), pp. 547–562; Cem Başlevent and Hasan Kırmanoğlu, “The Role of Basic Personal Values in the Voting Behavior of Turkish People,” SSRN eLibrary (2008) available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1307031 accessed on 2 October 2011; Cem Başlevent, Hasan Kırmanoğlu, and Burhan Şenatalar, “Party Preferences and Economic Voting in Turkey (Now That the Crisis is Over),” Party Politics, Vol. 15, No. 3 (2009), pp. 377–391.

Ersin Kalaycıoğlu, “Public Choice and Foreign Affairs: Democracy and International Relations,” New Perspectives on Turkey, No. 40 (2009), pp. 59–83.

“Seçim Sonrası İlk Seçim Anketi,” Milliyet, 2 July 2011.

In order to be able to evade the 10% electoral threshold set to win seats in the Turkish parliament, the BDP and various other smaller leftist parties and groups that did not have the chance to pass the ten percent electoral threshold formed a bloc in April 2011 named EDOB (Labor Democracy and Freedom Bloc). The bloc stated that they are representing different groups who are “repressed.” The bloc's candidates ran independently in the elections. After winning the elections, most of the bloc's candidates joined the BDP. See, “Emek, Demokrasi ve Özgürlük Bloğu Kuruldu” Evrensel.net, 6 April 2011, available at http://www.evrensel.net/news.php?id=3607 accessed on 2 October 2011. This being said, not all bloc members of Kurdish origin eventually joined the BDP. Some of them preferred to stay independent or form their own parties as in the case of Şerafettin Elçi. As a result, for the BDP, it will be the EDÖB's manifesto that will be under scrutiny.

See, for example, Erdoğan's campaign speeches delivered in Düzce and Ankara on May 7th and 29th, respectively. The Düzce speech is available at http://www.akparti.org.tr/site/haberler/neden-ak-parti-hedef-cunku/7498 and Ankara at http://www.akparti.org.tr/site/haberler/insallah-chp-ve-mhpyi-sandiga-gomuyoruz/8157, both accessed on 2 September 2011.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, “Hesaplaşma Değil, Hellaleşme Günüdür,” available at http://www.akparti.org.tr/site/haberler/hesaplasma-degil-helallesme-gunudur/8517 accessed on 3 October 2011.

David Campbell, Writing Security: United States Foreign Policy and the Politics of Identity (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998).

For an example of literature that developed both praising and critiquing the foreign policy of AKP and Davutoğlu, please see Gürkan Zengin, Hoca: Türk Dış Politikasında Davutoğlu Faktörü (İstanbul: Inkilap Kitabevi, 2011); Ahmet Sözen, “A Paradigm Shift in Turkish Foreign Policy: Transition and Challenges,” Turkish Studies, Vol. 11, No. 1 (2010), pp. 103–123; Bülent Aras, “Davutoğlu Era in Turkish Foreign Policy,” SETA Policy Brief, No. 32, May 2009, available at http://www.setav.org/ups/dosya/7710.pdf accessed on 2 October 2011; Nur Bilge Criss, “Parameters of Turkish Foreign Policy Under the AKP Governments,” UNISCI Discussion Papers, No. 23, May 2010, available at http://revistas.ucm.es/index.php/UNIS/article/view/UNIS1010230009A/26968 accessed on 2 October 2011; Ziya Öniş, “Multiple Faces of the New Turkish Foreign Policy: Underlying Dynamics and a Critique,” GLODEM Working Paper Series No. 04/201 available at http://glodem.ku.edu.tr/10_004.pdf accessed on 2 October 2011.

See Türkiye Hazır Hedef 2023:12 Haziran 2011 Genel Seçimleri Beyannamesi available at http://www.akparti.org.tr/beyanname2011.pdf accessed on 2 October 2011; Özgürlüğün ve Umudun Ülkesi, Herkesin Türkiye'si: CHP 2011 Seçim Bildirgesi available at http://www.chp.org.tr/wp-content/uploads/secim_bildirgesi-web.pdf accessed on 2 October 2011; and Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi 2011 Seçim Beyannamesi, 2023'e Doğru Yükselen Ülke Türkiye Sözleşmesi available at http://www.mhp.org.tr/kitaplar/MHP_2011_SecimBeyannamesi.pdf accessed on 2 October 2011. For another and more visual version of AKP's election manifesto please see http://www.akhedefler.com/vaadler.pdf. Accessing the election manifestos was another problem. The election manifestos of the AKP, CHP, and MHP were available in pdf format on their official websites with proper party name plus the regular org.tr extensions. Accessing the EDÖP, i.e. the pre-morphed BDP, manifesto online fully was slightly more difficult, as both during the election campaign and at the time of the writing of this article, what is now the official BDP website was and still is hosted at an open source blogger website at http://bdpblog.wordpress.com. Moreover, on that website, one could see the itemized list of the issues; and foreign policy was listed, not surprisingly, the last. Yet of this itemized list only first three items were explained in detail on EDÖB's election manifesto, namely democratization; economy, education, and health; and women. The rest of the manifesto that included foreign policy was and still not at the wordpress.com website at the time of the writing, another clear indication of what is and is not important for the bloc. However, luckily, the EDÖB's fully detailed election manifesto, including the bloc's foreign policy projections, was available on Ertuğrul Kürkçü's personal website, an EDÖB member, now a BDP member representing Mersin in the Parliament, giving the author of this article the chance to make a comparative analysis. For the copy of EDÖB's manifesto on Ertuğrul Kürkçü's website, please see Emek, Demokrasi ve Özgürlük Bloku Seçim Beyannamesi available at http://www.ertugrulkurkcu.org/duyurular/emek-demokrasi-ve-ozgurluk-bloku-secim-beyannamesi/ accessed on 2 October 2011.

Türkiye Hazır Hedef 2023:12 Haziran 2011 Genel Seçimleri Beyannamesi, p. 146, 147.

Ibid., p. 148.

Ibid., p. 150.

Ibid., p. 148.

Ibid.

Ibid., p. 150.

Ibid.

Emel Parlar Dal, “The Transformation of Turkey's Relations with the Middle East: Illusion or Awakening?” Turkish Studies, Vol. 13, No. 2 (2012), pp. 245–267.

Türkiye Hazır Hedef 2023:12 Haziran 2011 Genel Seçimleri Beyannamesi, p. 153.

Ibid., p. 153.

Ibid., p. 154.

Ibid., p. 157.

Ibid., p. 154.

Ibid., p. 155.

Ibid., p. 156.

Ibid., pp. 156–157.

Ibid., p. 158.

Özgürlüğün ve Umudun Ülkesi, Herkesin Türkiye'si: CHP 2011 Seçim Bildirgesi, p. 121.

Ibid., pp. 122–124.

Ibid., p. 124.

Ibid., p. 123.

See, for example, Eylem Yılmaz and Pınar Bilgin, “Constructing Turkey's ‘Western’ Identity During the Cold War,” International Journal, Vol. 61, No. 1 (2005–2006), pp. 39–59; Meltem Müftüler Baç, “The Never Ending Story: Turkey and the European Union,” Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 34, No. 4 (1998), p. 243.

Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi 2011 Seçim Beyannamesi, 2023'e Doğru Yükselen Ülke Türkiye Sözleşmesi, pp. 184–185.

Ibid., p. 184.

Ibid., p. 187.

Ibid., p. 189.

Emek, Demokrasi ve Özgürlük Bloku Seçim Beyannamesi available at http://www.ertugrulkurkcu.org/duyurular/emek-demokrasi-ve-ozgurluk-bloku-secim-beyannamesi/ accessed on 2 October 2011.

Hakan Yılmaz, “Euroscepticism in Turkey: Parties, Elites and Public Opinion,” South European Politics and Society, Vol. 16, No. 1 (2011), pp. 185–208. On CHP's “soft-Euroscepticism” please also see Seçkin Barış Gülmez, “The EU Policy of Republican People's Party: An Inquiry on the Opposition Party and Euro-Skepticism in Turkey,” Turkish Studies, Vol. 9, No. 3 (September 2008), pp. 423–436.

Yılmaz, “Euroscepticism in Turkey,” p. 205.