Special Issue on Civil-Military Relations in Turkey
The military as warlords played an important role in the founding of the Ottoman Empire (circa 1299), so much so that during the earlier centuries of that empire the central administration was referred to as “Askeri.” During the so-called period of decline that lasted from the late sixteenth to the end of the eighteenth century, the sultans began to play a relatively less significant role and the military, the civil bureaucracy, and the religious institution together constituted an oligarchy and those institutions more actively participated in the ruling of the empire. In the early nineteenth century, reforms concerning the military were initiated and the traditional Janissaries corps was replaced by the New Order (Nizam-ı Cedit) corps. By the end of that century, the military had turned into not only the object of change but also the subject of change, particularly as a consequence of the establishment of military institutions of higher learning. In the early twentieth century, the military supported the transition and maintenance of the constitutional monarchy and then during the Union and Progress Period (1912–1918) it became involved in day-to-day politics. Thus despite some efforts at the time to further reform the military, that institution could not be turned into a professional body.
The founders of the Republic, set up in 1923, kept the military out of politics, although they presented the military as the ultimate guardian of the Republican reforms, including secularism and civic nationalism. On the other hand, during the single-party years (1923–1945), professionalism on the part of the military deteriorated. However, during that period, as time passed by, officers began to be exposed to Westernized education. Consequently, in the late 1940s, younger officers gave their support to the Democratic Party (founded in 1946) because they were not satisfied with the single-party rule of more than two decades.
With Turkey's joining NATO in 1952, alongside the glimmers of politicization and political neutrality, at least among the lower ranks, on the part of the military, that institution also began to be a professional body. During the 1950s, while its professionalism increased, the military as a whole left behind its political neutrality and became an ardent proponent of secularism and civic nationalism. By now having believed in virtues of total Westernization and thus their pro-democracy worldview, they have been of the opinion that the last word belongs to civilians, but in principle. For they have perceived themselves responsible for safeguarding the country against serious internal as well as external threats. Thus, when they arrived at the conclusion that the country faced a serious internal threat they intervened in politics either directly in 1960, 1971, and 1980; in collaboration with other institutions in 1997; or by public declarations from 1960s onwards on several occasions.
At the same time from the early 1980s onwards, officers began to think whether or not their interventions could make their intended difference in politics, and from 2002 onwards they questioned the very wisdom of making interventions in politics. Added to such turn of the tide within the military itself, the European Union presented the Copenhagen criteria that obliged Turkey to democratize its civil-military relations if it still hoped to become a full member. Furthermore, the discovery of some evidence that a few high-ranking generals and middle-ranking officers had plotted to remove the Justice and Development Party from government by force sometime before 2006 must have adversely affected the prestige of the military in the eyes of the people. Consequently, by 2010 the military began to think that the “civilians have the right to be wrong” and the military became rather unwilling to intervene in politics. However, they still make public declarations when they conceive of an internal situation as very threatening, though this time around rather rarely.
The present volume is an elaboration on the 1912–2010 portion of the above story. The first four articles by M. Şükrü Hanioğlu, William Hale, George S. Harris, and Nilüfer Narlı in that order are chronological narratives of the developments from 1912 to 2002, covering the Ottoman period, the single-party era, the Democratic Party decade, and the three direct and one indirect interventions. The following two articles by Ersel Aydınlı and Metin Heper focus on the 2002–2010 period. The next two articles by Ali Karaosmanoğlu and Zeki Sarıgil are more essays on civil-military relations in Turkey, though again with an emphasis on the 2002–2010 period. The last two articles by Nil Şatana and David Pion-Berlin look at the civil-military relations in Turkey from a comparative perspective.
Professor Barry Rubin, Editor of this journal, kindly approved my proposal to have a special issue on civil-military relations in Turkey. Ms. Anna Melman, past Assistant Editor and Ms. Yeru Aharoni, Director of Publications/Chief Editor have been very helpful. I am also grateful to my colleagues who graciously accepted to make contributions to the special issue.