Never quite making it: Turkey’s repeated attempts at political democracy

ABSTRACT

The article addresses the question of impediments to the consolidation of democratic governance in Turkey. Historical path dependence (weight of history), cultural bifurcation emanating from Turkey’s modernization strategy, the legacy of the single party experience, the choice of particular economic development policies, and the role of individual leaders are examined with a view to how each may have contributed to a comprehensive set of difficulties Turkey has encountered in its efforts to evolve into a democratically governed society.

KEYWORDS:

• Turkish politics
• democratic consolidation
• cultural bifurcation
• single party rule
• military interventions

Acknowledgements

The author has benefited in important ways from the comments of anonymous reviewers as well as those of his dear colleague Boğaç Erozan.

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 Huntington, The Third Wave.

2 As an example, Turkey’s rank on the V-Dem index moved down to 147 in 2022 from 138 in 2017. But more significantly, Turkey was a democracy in 2006 with an index score of 0.69 but was classified as electoral authoritarian system with a score of 0.34 in 2016. See https://www.v-dem.net>democracy_reports, accessed on 18 September 2022.

3 Sunar and Sayarı, “Democracy in Turkey,” 166.

4 The minimum procedural definition of democracy comes from Collier and Levitsky, “Democracy with Adjectives,” 434.

5 Machiavelli, The Prince, ch. 4.

6 See Mumcu, Osmanlı Devletinde Siyaseten Katl, for an elaborate analysis of the practice of issuing and implementing death sentences for political reasons.

7 Turan, “Stages of Development,” 70.

8 Genç, Osmanlı İmparatorluğunda.

9 In employing the community-society distinction, I have been inspired by Mardin, “Opposition and Control,” 379–84.

10 Turan, “1972–1996 Döneminde,” 198. The constitution of 1961 in its original form may constitute a unique and evidently a temporary exception.

11 Boğaç Erozan has drawn my attention to the fact that Islam categorically places the interests of the ummah, i.e. the community of believers, against individualism, an orientation that reinforces the problem or possibly constitutes its origin.

12 Mardin, “Opposition and Control,” 380, argues that the idea of opposition is repugnant to Turkish culture. I will confine myself to noting the presence of a strong anxiety about divisiveness. In any case, nowadays the presence of opposition parties has acquired unquestionable legitimacy.

13 Ümit Cizre, referring to Mesut Yılmaz, observes that “He argued that Turkish politics was afflicted by a national security syndrome which only serves to frustrate the reforms necessary to democratize and integrate the Turkish political system into the European Union” (Cizre, “Demythologizing,” 213).

14 Özbudun, “The Development,” 33.

15 Boğaç Erozan has suggested to me that the conceptualization of the state with justice as its raison d’etre has led all to turn to the state as the primary agency in their search for the alleviation of “injustices.”

16 Berk Esen has rightfully pointed out that the founding single party, the CHP, was not a strong party. From the perspective of this analysis, however, what is important is that the party was well integrated with the state and constituted an instrument through which the state reached the local notables and through their intermediation, the masses. See Esen, “Nation Building.”

17 To take a closer look at these experiments see Tunçay, Türkiye Cumhuriyetinde; Koçak, Tek Parti Yönetiminde; and Demirel, Tek Partinin İktidarı.

18 For an analytical account of the transition also discussing its domestic components, see Turan, Turkey’s Difficult Journey, 61–85.

19 Turan, “The Rise,” 84.

20 Turan, “Stages of Political Development,” 71.

21 During the survey work we were doing in the Turkish Grand National Assembly in 1999, one of my interviewers overheard a conversation between two constituents who had just visited an MP. Apparently dissatisfied with the result, one complained to the other about the MP: “The idiot tells me that my request is not permitted by law. If it were, why should I waste my time and come to you for help!”

22 Nihal Kara reminds us that the term “national will” denoted the majority and was used as a shielding concept that totally excluded the minority. See Kara, “Türkiye’de Çok Partili Sisteme,” 287. Ümit Cizre Sakallıoğlu, on the other hand, identifies “national will” as the mythical concept that has constituted the backbone of majoritarianism in the Turkish right that works against limited government with respect for the rule of law, constitutionality, and civil society. See Cizre Sakallıoğlu, “Liberalism, Democracy and the Center Right,” 149.

23 This summary of the main elements of single party culture comes from Turan, “The Evolution,” 98.

24 Article 15, Political Parties Law no. 2820 dated 22 April 1983 stated that a person could serve as the head of a political party for no more than six consecutive two year terms.

25 For more elaboration on the causes of fragmentation see Turan, “Volatility in Politics,” 154–6.

26 The discussion on the oligarchy of party leadership has benefited significantly from ITuran, “Türk Siyasi Partilerinde Lider Oligarşisi.”

27 Berk Esen notes that the military’s guardian role was not only not clearly defined but there were differences among officers on political issues as well as ideology, and there were purges among the ranks. See his “Praetorian Army.” I will not debate his points, but simply point out that under certain conditions the military felt it could intervene in politics and the interventions were treated as “unsurprising” and often as being legitimate by various segments of the public.

28 Turan, “Unstable Stability,” 324.

29 These events are recounted well in McCullagh, The Fall of Abdulhamid.

30 Şerif Mardin is to be credited with laying the foundations of this mode of analysis in his seminal article “Center-Periphery Relations.” While path-breaking, the article was too schematic and did not accord sufficient recognition that the center and the periphery kept being redefined through socio-economic and political change. An article by Onur Bakiner presents a critical analysis of the concept and proposes that it may be better not to use it as an organzing concept. See Bakiner, “A Key to Turkish Politics?” Without using center-periphery framework, I have used cultural bifurcation as defining a basic cleavage in Turkish society cleavage that still constitutes an important perception among both some parties and voters, thereby influencing political outcomes.

31 I owe the idea to my distinguished colleague Binnaz Toprak. See Turan, “Religion and Political Culture,” 43.

32 Yalman, “Some Observations,” 152, quoted Kalaycıoğlu, Turkish Dynamics, 50–3.

33 Ağırdır, “Laik, Dindar, Kürt.”

34 There are many studies of populism. A concise but comprehensive guide is Müller, What Is Populism.

35 For example, see Esen and Gümüşçü, “Rising Competitive Authoritarianism.”

36 For a critical analysis see Eroğul, Demokrat Parti. A more moderate analysis may be found in Demirel, Türkiye’nin Uzun On Yılı.

37 Özbudun, “AKP at the Crossroads,” 155.

38 Examples of such an optimistic assessment include Hale and Özbudun, Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism; Öniş, “Conservative Globalism,” esp. 137; Öniş, “The Political Economy,” esp. 211; and David Ghanim, “Turkish Democracy,” esp. 76.

39 Esen and Gümüşçü, “Killing Competitive Authoritarianism.”

40 This letter was published in August 2012 by Haber 7 (see in https://haber7.com/siyaset/haber/912966-evrenin-darbe-yapacagim-dedigi-mektup). It is not an official source, although it appeared to be reliable reporting.

41 Zürcher, Turkey, 275–6, also asks why Ecevit and Demirel did not form a stable centrist coalition. Ergun Özbudun makes similar observations regarding both 1960 and 1980 in Özbudun, “The Development,” 43.

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Ilter Turan

Dr Ilter Turan is an Emeritus Professor of Political Science in the Department of International Relations of Istanbul Bilgi University and the past president of the International Political Science Association. Earlier, he worked at Istanbul and Koç Universities and held visiting appointments at several American and British universities. He has authored books and articles in English and Turkish on Turkish Politics and Turkish Foreign Policy. He has served as the President of Istanbul Bilgi University, the President of the Turkish Political Science Association and Vice President and Program Chair of the International Political Science Association. He is a columnist for the economics daily Dünya and serves on several corporate and foundation boards.