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ABSTRACT
The results of the 2002 general election in Turkey came as a powerful shock to multifarious circles both within and outside the country. There were deep concerns that the ‘moderate’ Islamic-oriented Justice and Development Party (AKP) might try to dismantle the very bases of the secular state. Fifteen years of AKP rule have displayed four distinctively different periods: (1) Normalization and reinstitution of civil governance (2002–2007); (2) Methodological transition (2007–2009); (3) Consolidation of power-base (2009–2011); and (4) De-secularization, de-democratization, re-securitization and shift to authoritarianism (2011–2016). Drawing upon the ‘competitive authoritarianism’ literature and the concept of ‘instrumentalization of democracy,’ this article will elaborate the above points as well as the intrinsic Islamist mindset of the AKP. Use of foreign policy as an instrument of legitimation of Islamist policies and anti-secular transformation will also be examined.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Mustafa A. Sezal is a PhD candidate and Research Assistant at Ankara Yildirim Beyazit University. He holds a MScEcon degree from Aberystwyth University in Security Studies. His research interests include Turkish Foreign Policy, Critical Security Studies, Critical Theory, and Political Theory.
İhsan Sezal is Professor of Sociology and the Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Administrative Science at the TOBB University of Economics and Technology.
Notes
1. Among numerous sources, see İnsel, “The AKP”; Keyman, “Modernization”; Patton, “AKP Reform Fatigue”; Tocci, “Europeanization in Turkey”; Grigoriadis, “Islam and Democratization in Turkey”; Kirişçi, “Turkey’s ‘Demonstrative Effect’”; and Erisen and Kubicek, Democratic Consolidation.
2. For example, see Çınar, “The Electoral Success”; Çarkoğlu, “Turkey’s Local Elections”; Çarkoğlu, “Turkey’s 2011 General Elections”; Öniş, “The Triumph”; Öniş and Kutlay, “Rising Powers”; and Tür, “Economic Relations.”
3. Authors would like to thank Burak Bilgehan Özpek for his suggestion for the title of this period.
4. Polity IV is a dataset that comprises of regime authority spectrum on a 21-point scale ranging from −10 (hereditary monarchy) to +10 (consolidated democracy). It includes data from 167 countries within the period between 1800 and 2015. It is compiled by the Center for Systemic Peace in the United States.
5. Freedom House is a U.S.-based independent organization. It publishes “Freedom in the World” index annually based on political rights and civil liberties. The average of a country’s or territory’s political rights and civil liberties ratings is called the Freedom Rating, and it is this figure that determines the status of Free (1.0 to 2.5), Partly Free (3.0 to 5.0), or Not Free (5.5 to 7.0)
6. CGV refers to the dataset compiled by Cheibub, Gandhi, and Vreeland, “Democracy and Dictatorship Revisited.”
7. Levitsky and Way, “The Rise of Competitive Authoritarianism,” and Levitsky and Way, Competitive Authoritarianism.
8. Sartori, The Theory of Democracy Revisited, 206.
9. Przeworski et al., Democracy and Development, 19, and Diamond, Developing Democracy.
10. Haggard and Kaufman, Dictators and Democrats.
11. Levitsky and Way, “The Rise of Competitive Authoritarianism,” 53.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid., 57.
14. Ibid.
15. Haggard and Kaufman, Dictators and Democrats, 270–300.
16. Ibid.
17. Keyman and Gümüşçü, Democracy, Identity, and Foreign Policy, 44–50.
18. Öniş, “Domestic Politics,” 15.
19. “Çeşitli Kanunlarda Değişiklik,” August 9, 2002.
20. Supreme Election Council, 22nd Term Parliamentary General Elections Results.
21. Constitutional Court, Decision 2001/2.
22. Bali, “The Perils.”
23. Cagaptay, “The November 2002 Elections.”
24. Öniş, “Globalization.”
25. Davutoğlu, “Türkiye Merkez Ülke Olmalı.”
26. Cem, Turkey in the New Century; Cem, “Turkish Foreign Policy”; Cem, Türkiye, Avrupa, Avrasya Vol 1; Kirişçi, “The transformation”; Örmeci, “A Turkish Social Democrat”; Özel and Güvenç, “‘Turkey’,”; and Hale, Turkish Foreign Policy.
27. The original memorandum has been removed from the site, however, its contents can be reached from internet media sources. See, for example BBC, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6602775.stm
28. Supreme Election Council, 23rd Term Parliamentary General Elections Results.
29. Supreme Election Council, Constitutional Amendment Referendum (2007) Results.
30. Constitutional Court, Decision 2008/2.
31. Bali, “The Perils,” and Dağı, What Went Wrong.
32. Supreme Election Council, Constitutional Amendment Referendum (2010) Results.
33. Özpek, “Pseudo-transformation,” 6–8.
34. Levitsky and Way, “The Rise of Competitive Authoritarianism,” 57–8.
35. Özpek and Yavçan, “Follow the Money,” 72–3.
36. Çınar, “Explaining the Popular Appeal,” 50-51.
37. The genealogies of both writer’s utopias can be traced back to the late Ottoman (Pan) Islamists who had a very influential periodical called Sebilürreşad (the Righteous Path). The prominent writers of Sebilürreşad such as Eşref Edip, Musa Kazım, Mahmut Esad, Sait Halim, M. Şemseddin, in their writings argued vehemently that Islam was the sole remedy to cure fall of the Ottoman Empire and hence the Muslim World. See, Lewis, The Emergence and Safa, Türk İnkilabına Bakışlar.
38. Another deeply influential Islamist periodical in this respect had been Mavera, published in Ankara. The Islamist intellectuals were also affected by the Islamist movements abroad such as Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaat-e-Islami and the writers such as Sayyid Qutb, Hassan al-Banna, Abu Ala Maudidi, Khurshid Ahmad and others, not forgetting Ruhollah Khomeini and his Iranian Revolution.
39. Başkan’s article in this issue provides a comprehensive analysis of the Nursi movement.
40. Köse, Okumuş, and Duran, Stratejik Zihniyet; Özkan, “Turkey, Davutoğlu and the Idea of Pan-Islamism”; Kıvanç, Pan-İslamcının Macera Kılavuzu.
41. Davutoğlu, “Medeniyetlerin Ben-İdraki.”
42. Ardıç, “Modernite, Kimlik, Siyaset.”
43. Davutoğlu, “Medeniyetlerin Ben-İdraki,” 2–3.
44. Galtung, “On the Dialectic.”
45. Huntington, “Clash of Civilizations.”
46. Davutoğlu, “Medeniyetlerin Ben-İdraki,” 46.
47. Kalın, “Dünya Görüşü,” 23.
48. Ibid., 41–2.
49. Ibid., 52.
50. Davutoğlu, Stratejik Derinlik, 29–36.
51. Ibid., 254–5.
52. Özkan, “Turkey, Davutoğlu and the Idea.”
53. Hürriyet, September 5, 2012.
54. Kemal, “Inside Free Syrian.”
55. Hale, Turkish Foreign Policy, 256.
56. On Erdoğan, see Independent, November 24, 2015, The Nation, September 16, 2016, and Financial Times, September 28, 2017. See also Özkan, “Turkey, Davutoğlu and the Idea,” 131.
57. Diriliş Postası, April 6, 2015.
58. See reports in Radikal, February 15, 2015; Hürriyet, December 2, 2015, November 26, 2016, and January 19, 2017, Milliyet, March 22, 2017; NTV, March 31, 2017; Sabah, December 11, 2016; and Vatan, June 24, 2016
59. Suppressing any diverging voices within the party, including very close friends and two other founding fathers of the AKP, Abdullah Gül and Bülent Arınç.
60. “The Sacred March” became the motto of the Party, implying a long path and march on it towards the finale which, by implication, was nothing less than the Islamic Order.
61. Dağı, What Went Wrong.
62. Erdoğan, “Turkey: Divided We Stand.”
63. Özpek, “A Democracy without Opposition.”
64. See various articles in Hürriyet, March 31, 2014; Hürriyet, December 22, 2014; Milliyet, February 19, 2016; Sabah, June 23, 2016; Akşam, January 6, 2017.