Islamism, democracy and liberalism in Turkey: the case of the AKP

Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey

The Justice and Development Party (AKP) was elected to power in 2002 and since then Turkish politics has undergone considerable change. This book is a comprehensive analysis of the AKP, in terms not just of its ideological agenda but also of its social basis and performance in office in the main theatres of public policy - political reform, and cultural, economic and foreign policies. Based on an extensive analysis of official and party documents, interviews, academic sources and media coverage, the book outlines the main features of the current global debate on the relationship between Islam, Islamism and democracy. While most top AKP leaders come from an Islamist background, the party has behaved as a moderate, centre-right, conservative democratic party who are fully committed to democracy, a free market economy and Turkey'S EU membership. The book explores and analyses these changes in Turkish politics, and provides coverage of the workings of the contemporary Turkish political systems, policy and ideological issues that go to the heart of Turkish identity. Filling a gap in the existing Turkish and English literature on the subject, this book will be an important contribution to Political Science, particularly in the areas of Turkish politics, Middle Eastern studies, Islamic studies and comparative politics. Ergun Ozbudun is Professor of Constitutional Law and Political Science at Bilkent University. William Hale is the former Professor of Turkish Politics in the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London. He is a specialist on the politics of the Middle East, especially Turkey, and has written a number of papers and books on modern Turkish politics and history.

Routledge Studies in Middle Eastern Politics

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2. Palestinian Refugee Repatriation Global Perspectives Edited by Michael Dumper 3. The International Politics of the Persian Gulf A Cultural Genealogy ArshilZ Adib-Moghaddam

4. Israeli Politics and the First Palestinian Intifada Political Opportunities, Framing Processes and Contentious Politics EitalZ Y. Alimi '\.

5. Democratization in Morocco The political elite and .struggles for power in the post-independence state Lise Storm

6. Secular and Islamic Politics in Turkey The Making of the Justice and Development Party Omit Cizre 7. The United States and Iran Sanctions, Wars and the Policy of Dual Containment SasalZ Fayazmaltesh

8. Civil Society in Algeria The Political Functions of Associational Life Alldrea Liveralli 9. Jordanian-Israeli Relations The Peace building Experience Mutayyam al O'rall

Routledge Studies in Middle Eastern Politics 10. Kemalism in Turkish Politics The Republican People's Party, Secularism and Nationalism Sillal! Ciddi 11. Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey The Case of the AKP William Hale alld Ergul! Ozbudull

1I1

Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey The case of the AKP William Hale and Ergun Ozbudun

LONDON AND NEW YORK

First published 2010 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Simulraneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, ~ew York, NY 10016 Routledge is all imprillt of the Taylor & Frallcis Group. all blfonlla busilless

© 2010 William Hale and Ergun Ozbudun Typeset in Times New Roman by Cadmus Communication Printed by the MPG Books Group in the UK All rights reserved. No pan of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguillg ill P;,blicatioll Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of COllgress Catalogillg ;', Publicatioll Data Hale, William M. Islamism, democracy, and liberaiism in Turkey: the case of the AKPlWilIiam Hale and Ergun Ozbudun p. em. - (Routledge studies in Middle Eastern polities; 11) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. AI< Patti (Turkey) 2. Turkey - politics and government - 19803. Islam and politics - Turkey. 4. Liberalism - Turkey. I. Ozbudun, Ergun. II. Title. JQ1809.A8A4372009 324.2561'04-dc22 2009004288 ISBN ISBN ISBN ISBN

10: 0-415-48470-7 (hbk) 10: 0-203-87335-1 (ebk) 13: 978-0-415-48470-1 (hbk) 13: 978-0-203-87335-9 (ebk)

r d

Contents

~~~~

~

Introduction

Xl

PART I

The AKP's history, ideology, social bases and organisation

1

1 The history of Islamist parties in Turkey: from the National Order Party to the 1ustice and Development Party (AKP)

3

2 The AKP's ideology:· Conservative democracy

20

3 The AKP's social bases: A new centre-right coalition?

30

4 Party organisation

44

PART II

The AKP in government

53

5 Democratising reforms and constitutional issues

55

6 Cultural policies: Creeping Islamisation or politics of avoidance?

68

7 The AKP government and the military

80

8 The AKP and the Turkish economy

99

9 Foreign policy and the AKP

Conclusions Notes Sources Bibliography Index

119

148 159 190 193 205

Tables

8.1

Gross Domestic Product, 2000-07

8.2 Wholesale and consumer price indices, 2001-08 (per cent change, year on year) 8.3

Consolidated central government finances, 2000-07, YTL billion

8.4 Summary balance of payments statistics, 2002-07 ($ billion) 8.5

Foreign merchandise trade, by country groups

106 108 109 111 113

~ II

Introduction Islam, democracy and the Turkish expenence

Since the" end of the cold war, two apparently contradictory trends have shaped global politics. On the one hand, the collapse of communism prompted the conclusion that democratic government is now 'the only game in town', even if its application has, at best, only been patchy in many parts of the world. On the other hand, the rise of political Islamism among Muslim communities accounting for around 23 per cent of the world's population" appears to have issued a crucial challenge to the apparent hegemony of what many Muslims see as alien values, primarily promoted by the United States, as the world's only superpower. For some, these two movements have been seen as causally related: that is to say that the demise of communism has arguably left Islamism as the major challenger to liberalism, in the new 'clash of civilisations' originally proposed by Samuel P. Huntington. In this divide, Turkey is seen as occupying a crucial position, having a foot in both camps. On the one hand, the big majority of its population consists of devout Muslims, mainly of the Sunni denomination. Historically, the Ottoman Empire, the predecessor to the present Turkish republic, was a leading (if not the leading) Muslim state between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries. On the other hand, since the 1920s Turkey has been a constitutionally secular republic - subsequently, a member of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and now a candidate .for membership of the European Union. Huntington's conclusion was that Turkey was a· 'torn society', divided between a political elite, which saw it as part of the West, while large 'elements in Turkish society' refused to accept this definition, seeing their country as part of the Muslim middle east.! These proposals have been widely criticised astoo sweeping and inconsistent with observable facts. The argument has been sharpened by the growth of Islamist parties and movements in Turkey since the 1970s, and the emergence from them of the Justice and Development Party [Adalet ve Kalklnma Partisi (AKP)], which has ruled Turkey since its victory in the general elections of 2002. For some, this story has been seen as a beacon of hope for the Muslim world, a clear sign that democratic government is perfectly possible in a Muslim society, even when the ruling party has faith-based roots. By others, the AKP is seen as no more than a facade, behind which radical

XII

lslamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey

Islamists hope to impose an authoritarian Islamist state. Against this background, the purpose of this book is to examine the AKP, not only in terms of its ideological agenda but also of its social basis and performance in office in the main theatres of public policy - 'political reform and cultural, economic and foreign policies. The hope is that the factual record of actual performance may help to answer some of the questions in the broader conceptual debate about Islam and democratic government. In doing this, our aim has been to keep the narrative and its analysis as straightforward as possible, so as to make them widely accessible. Generally, at present, there is a large and constantly growing literature on Islam, Islamism and politics, and on Turkey's political development over the last 50 years, of which this Introduction can offer no more than a brief summary. Its limited purpose is to provide readers who are new to the subject, with background information, which will help them to assess and understand what follows, besides putting the Turkish story into a broader perspective. The first section outlines the main features of the current global debate on the relationship between Islam, Islamism and democracy, especially where it has relevance for the Turkish experience. The second section summarises the evolution of secularism in Turkey, and of the centre-right parties, which have dominated Turkish politics following the country's sometimes faltering transition to democratic politics since the 1950s. It is argued that both of these have had significant effects on the ideas, policies and performance of the AKP. Islam, Islamism and democracy: the broader debate In the ongoing argument about the relationship betwee!! ~slll~.a!1.~ demo~ racy, one schQ9! of thought, categorised as Orientalist, argues that since ~has a totaliSi'characte,i' (a-'totirway"ofIlfe"rather than Just a ieligio1iT ~1V aI]..Jl6soli!tr~fgQi~i~ent:.collld&put~its-precep.ts_!nto practice. A forth~ right sta~ement of this viewpoint is given by Elie Kedourie, who argues that there is nothing in the political traditions of Islam which might make ideas of constitutional or representative government familiar or even intelligible. In his words The notion of a state as a specific territorial entity which is endowed with sovereignty, the notion of popular sovereignty as the foundation of governmental legitimacy, the idea of representation, of elections, of popular suffrage, of political institutions being regulated by laws laid down by a parliamentary assembly, of these laws being guarded and upheld by an independent judiciary, the ideas of the secularity of the state, of society being composed of a multitude of self-activating autonomous groups and associations - all these are profoundly alien to the Muslim political tradition. 2

Introduction

xiii

This assertion emphasises that, following the classical scholar al-Ghazali (1058-1111), Muslim tradition requires obedience to any ruler, however despotic, as being preferable to the suffering caused by rebellion or civil war: hence, it effectively demands the prohibition of all dissent. 3 Expanding this line of thought and carrying it through to the modern age, P.]. Vatikiotis maintains that 'the Islamic order is being put forward as the imperative total alternative to a pluralist system'.4 A younger generation of scholars, such as Patricia Crone and Daniel Pipes, who have been classified as neo-Orientalists, reach similar conclusions, but for quite different reasons. The orientalists stress the power of the state in Muslim societies and its abillly to gm.tmJ.$hat is assumed to be a ;'eak civil society, whereas the neo-ori~!~!i~!L~J:gue tb.1!!, Islam']'J~entral political proolem~,liJu~..e.n thatth;;ate has been too weak or that Isf~~ demands too much of it, rather than Jh.~tTr::h-;~ ,pe~n all-powerful. 'ISlaiiiic ·idearsaieTmpOssTbie'i:~'f~lfir;-he~~~:·Muslims are ultimately bound to reject the legitimacy of any actual state. This argument is enlarged by the proposal that, historically, Muslim society was both strong and essentially tribal. The state failed to draw strength from it and was doomed to be unstable. This allegedly obstructed the development of a modern civil society or democratic government. S These criticisms draw strength from the fact that many modern Islamist movements and some governments make no pretence of basing their proposals on anything other than a highly conservative interpretation of Islamic tradition and specifically reject any sort of accommodation with pluralist democracy. Some movements, such as the Egyptian-based Takfir w'al Hijra ('Denunciation and Emigration') or al-Qaeda, openly advocate the use of terrorism to attain their objectives. Others, such as the Lebanese Hezbollah or the Palestinian Hamas, are prepared to operate either as non-violent participants in multi-party systems or as terrorists when it suits them. They may embrace ballots but are not prepared to give up the use of bullets, according to their self-defined circumstances. On the latter account, they cannot be counted as democrats. 6 Moreover, those who do not resort to terrorism may also reject liberal democracy. A classic case is that of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini who, in lectures delivered to his students in the Iraqi-Shi'ite shrine city of Najaf ten years before the Iranian revolution, argued that his version of an Islamic government would be conditional rather than despotic, but in the sense that it would be obliged to adhere to Islamic law (shari'a) based on divine revelation, rather than that enacted by elected representatives of the people. God, not the electorate, was to be sovereign in the Islamic republic. 7 Similarly, the government of Saudi Arabia claims that it maintains a system of rule endowed with a higher legitimacy than that of democracy, since it is based on the Qur'an and hadith, or traditions of the prophet Muhammad. This is supported by the personal legitimacy of King 'Abd al-'Aziz, the founder of the Saudi state and some of his successors, as well as the ability

XIV

Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey

of the regime to deliver welfare benefits to the society, but not by democratic political structures. 8 Both the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Saudi kingdom can be said to have embraced what can be called the Islamist state project, even if they have somewhat different versions of it. This rests on the notion of the sovereig1)iY of God, ratber tban that of the people, and the supremacy oj shari'a rather ~han democratically enacted legislation. It rejects many democratic rights, by Iegitimising discrimination between its citizens on the basis of gender and religion, and imposing severe restrictions on freedoms of speech and association. In Iran, candidates for election are vetted by the regime, to make sure that basic opponents are· excluded. This is not to suggest that such restrictions are confined to avowedly Islamic states, since the Muslim middle east contains many other autocracies and dictatorships. The difference is that the . Islamist state project tries to legitimise autocracy in the name of Islam, rather than secular narratives, such as those of nationalism or socialism. Against this project, a substantial group of scholars, as well as many Islamist politicians, may be categorised as reformist§.,...r:ather than fundamentalists, since they argue for what they claim is a Muslim version of democracy. Like the fundamentalists, the reformists treat the assumeci"prac:-tice"lri°"ille- earliest phase of Islam, the 'era of felicity? of the prophet Muhammad and the first four Caliphs, as their benchmark, but claim that this can be interpreted as legitimising democratic rule. This assertion is backed up by arguments to the effect that either Wamic traditions correspond to democratic practices (even if these have not always been observed) or that received Muslim proposals should be revised, in the light of reinterpretation of the Islamic message. This school of thought can be hdd to include, for instance, the Egyptian reformist Rashid Rida, the 'young Ottoman' constitutionalist Namlk Kemal and the Austrian-Jewish convert to Islam Muhammad Asad. Reformist Islamists argue, among other things, that the tradition of shura (consultation), in which a Muslim ruler was supposed to consult leaders of the community before taking decisions, and of bai'a (the oath of allegiance which they were required to take to a newly appointed Caliph) implies Islamic legitimacy for the idea of an elected legislature and head of state. In the early Caliphate, it is claimed that the ruler was chosen by the members of the community rather than imposed by force, as had historically been the case in later Muslim states.9 It is also argued that while ultimate sovereignty is still vested in God, political power is vested in 'viceregents', defined as the whole Muslim community.lo Nonetheless, these proposals leave the reformers with, at best, varying and ambiguous answers to crucial questions. If the law is still based on shari'a, should this be divided into an untouchable core, clearly defined by God's word (nass) and flexible elements, which can be open to interpretation (ijtihad) as the reformists urge? If so, this still leaves a huge proportion of law outside the competence of an elected legislature. Does the principle of shura entitle the assembly to the normal powers vested in a democratic

Introduction

xv

legislature, of oversight and control, or can it merely express an opinion to the executive, with no guarantee that its advice will be heeded (as is the case in the Consultative Assembly, Mailis al-Shura, established in Saudi Arabia in 1992)? Who should be entitled to sit in it - democratically elected representatives or merely the leaders of the community, as was apparently the case in the early years of Islam? The same question can be posed about those who are entitled to elect the ruler. If political power is vested in the whole Muslim community, where does this leave non-Muslims?11 In some countries, what may be called reformist Islamist parties have, when allowed, competed in parliamentary elections as more or less legitimate participants - examples being those of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Jordan and, arguably, the National Salvation and Welfare parties in Turkey (see pp. 3-18). However, these unanswered questions leave many critics with severe doubts whether they would observe democratic principles if they were elected to power, or would step down if they suffered subsequent electoral defeat. 'One person, one vote, one time' could be the result of taking their democratic claims at face value. 12 Needless to say, this is far from exhausting the debate on the relationship between Islam, Islamism and democracy in modern Muslim societies. A large body of commentators accepts that democracy has been a feeble plant, especially in the middle east, but conclude that this is due to societal factors rather than the Muslim religion as such. The weakness of civil society in most middle-eastern countries, the co-option of the bourgeoisie by state elites and the rulers' capacity to develop successful survival strategies are held to be the main reasons for the persistence of authoritarian regimes in most of the region. 13 The observation that the Muslim faith itself is not the main cause of the lack of democracy in most Muslim societies leads into an important proposal by Bassam Tibi, who stresses the difference between Islam as a religion and Islamism as a political ideology. In his words, 'Islam and Islamism are ·two different issues. In re-thinking Islam, one can reach positive conclusions about the compatibility of democracy and Islam, but this cannot be achieved by Islamism' (italics added).14 This would evidently apply to both the fundamentalist and reformist Isla mist projects outlined earlier. Hence, Tibi joins Robert Hefner in calling for a 'civil Islam', which 'rejects the mirage of the "Islamic" state'.15 An important exposition of this proposal is that of the Iranian academic Abdol Karim Soroush, who originally supported the Iranian revolution in 1979, but whose ideas were later condemned by the regime. To summarise, Soroush argues, like Tibi, that a religious understanding will have to adapt to democracy, not the other way round; a religion 'that is oblivious to human rights •.• is not tenable in the modern world'. The 'heart of a religious society' is a freely chosen faith, not coercion and conformity. However, democracy does not require believers to abandon their convictions; Soroush suggests that, in fact, democracy cannot prosper without a commitment to moral principles, and religion is thus the best guarantor of democracy. 16

xvi

Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey

In essence, the contention of this third Jl~bQQI of thought is that Muslim societies, like those attached to othe!: r(!ligions, are p-erfecdr cap-able _gf adopting democratic systems of gover!1_!p~I1.J-,_p_rQyided they abandon IslamIsm as a pciliticalproject,eltli.er-ln-it~ fundamentalist or refor.-':l!i~_t.version~, aoortie- relIgious leadership is prepared to accept this. This does not mean thaFrhey have to abandon faith-based values; as in other societies, these will constitute a perfectly legitimate terrain of democratic debate. In Turkey, the AKP cannot be said to have accepted all of Soroush's proposals; for instance, he suggests that shari'a may still be a basis for modern legislation,17 whereas the AKP avoids any attempt to refer to divine revelation as the basis for legislation. This is not to suggest that there will be no conflict between the party and those attached to a rigid version of secularism, or who reject cultural values based on religion. As in other non-Muslim democratic societies, there are likely to be fierce conflicts over such topics as the role of religion (and what religion) in public education, controls over the sale of alcohol, the acceptance of homosexual relations between adults, and the censorship of books, plays and films judged offensive to religious beliefs ..Conflicts-over divorce,_abortion-and..m:tificial birth_conttoLhue been high on the polit~al ~gendas _~LseY~r..at Clg~!i~n countries.!....ald~_Q.l,!gh less so in most Muslim ~~9Cleties.-- On-the-other..hana,_ tlie_fexed~question-whether-Gitiz&ns-should- be _~~e.d __to_wear. .dr~_s_s..refleGting-their...religious_attachmentsjn..state..institu:"

¥~n~,~ec.ial.ly i(!!!~l_a~~~~ ~~?~?y.~e~, _~~~~~?V~~._~~~~~-f-__ ~~~~~_ip

ur ey, as It IS now m some western European countnes. Brmgmg these issues OritOthe- poliiicilagendacannor- be-~~i~(t~ be-~()I.itrary t~ democratic principles, since in the many societies - Christian and Jewish, as well as Muslim - where religious beliefs play an important role in shaping public attitudes, this is an inevitable as well as a legitimate part of democratic processes. Examining how the AKP, as a government, has dealt with these issues, as well as other areas of public policy less affected by cultural values, is the main purpose of this book.

Secularism, liberalism and conservatism in Turkey What makes the Turkish debate over religion and politics particularly acute

I is that, unlike any other Muslim country, Turkey is constitutionally a secular state. Between 1923 and his death in 1938, Kemal Atatiirk, the founder of , the Turkish republic, did not just sweep away the ruling institutions of the Ottoman Empire, but also the idea that the state's legitimacy rested on its attachment to Islam. In the words carved above the Speaker's chair in the Grand National Assembly - the Republic's parliament - 'Sovereignty belongs to the Nation' (by implication, not to God). Since 1937, Turkey has officially described itself as a secular republic. The unalterable Article 2 of the present constitution states that 'The Republic of Turkey is a democratic, secular and social state', whereas Article 24 stipulates that 'No one shall be allowed to exploit or abuse religion or religious feelings, or things held

Introduction

XVII

sacred by religion, in any manner whatsoever, for the purpose of personal or political influence, or for even partially basing the fundamental, social, economic, political and legal order of the state on religious tenets'.IS Article 87 of the Political Parties Law of 1983 repeats this formula, whereas Article 86 of the law makes it illegal for political parties to attempt to change the secular nature of the state or re-establish the Caliphate {the nominal leadership of the world's Muslim community, which was appropriated by the Ottoman Sultans, and abolished in 1924).19 Parties that are deemed to have broken these rules can be dissolved by order of the Constitutional Court - as the AKP nearly was in' 2008 (see pp. 74-5). When ending the Caliphate, the founders of the republic closed down all the previous religious colleges (medreses), and in 1926 replaced the previous Islamically based civil and other legal codes with new versions based strictly on western models. The religious brotherhoods (tarikats), which had long played an important role in Turkish Islam, and in practice still do, and the wearing of the fez, were both banned in 1925. In 1928, the Arabic script was compulsorily replaced with a version of the Latin alphabet. However, in taking these radical steps, the state did not entirely cut its links with Sunni Islam. In 1924, and as a replacement for the office of the Seyh Ul-jslam (the head of the Sunni religious establishment in the Ottoman Empire), the government established a 'Presidency of Religious Affairs' (Diyanet j§leri Ba§kanlzgt), attached to the Prime Minister's office. This put all Sunni religious functionaries and properties under state control {the heterodox Alevi minority, which may account for around 15 per cent of the population, was left out of the official picture, as it still is).20 In effect, the republic did not attempt to abolish Sunni Islam, but to control it. This control mechanism means that, whatever its secularist credentials, the state cannot simply leave organised religion to its own devices, as is the case in other secular republics such as the United States, but must constantly interact with it, at the risk of conflict. Atatiirk's modernist programme had sweeping successes: in fact, it seems safe to say that, without it, Turkey would be nowhere near the level of political, economical and cultural development, which it has reached today. Originally, his popular legitimacy rested on his role as Ghazi, the victor in a war of national resistance against the European (read, 'Christian') powers who tried,to divide up most of Turkey's territory among themselves after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918. He used this quite traditional type of legitimacy to launch a drive for anti-traditional change, but his status as a national hero has remained virtually unchallenged, even among those who do not take easily to some of his tenets. The Kemalist project adopted topdown methods, reinforcing legal fiats with a concerted programme of public education, designed to imbue the population with modernist, secular and nationalist values. The penetration of this cultural revolution was not complete. Among the ruling elite - the state bureaucrats, army officers and urban professionals of the new republic - attachment to Kemalism became an

XVlll

Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism ilt Turkey

article of faith. However, among the rural masses traditional values, some of them pre-Islamic and Muslim remained as powerful couni:er-attachments to Kemalist nationalist modernism. This divide, described by ~erif Mardin, in what has now become a classic definition, as the cleavage between the state-dominated centre and the periphery, has dominated most academic analysis of post-war Turkish politics. 21 It is not entirely cultural however. At the end of the Second World War, ismet inonii, Atatiirk's successor as President, allowed the formation of an opposition to the ruling Republican People's Party (CHP). This took shape as the Democrat Party (DP), led by Adnan Menderes, which won power in a sweeping election victory in 1950, and stayed in government until it was removed by a military coup d'etat in 1960. Essentially, the Democrats represented a coalition of disparate oppositional "fQrces, of which Muslim conservatives were only a minor part. The DP's leadership was mainly composed of free professionals, like laWyers, doctors and businessmen, together with some landowners (a group that included Menderes himself) who effectively constituted a counter-elite to the state-dominated coalition, which had ruled Turkey since 1923, and to a large extent before thatP In demanding an end to the authoritarian rule of the CHP, the DP stood not just for the establishment c,>f democratic government, but also an end to the dominating role of the state in the economy, which the CHP had established through a programme of state-led industrialisation and a greater emphasis on agricultural development, which the CHP had generally neglected. Building mainly on its rural electoral base and exploiting its control of state resources, the party established powerful networks of clientelist interdependencies that helped sustain it in power. With Turkey's front-line position in the cold war, it also made a clear option - not disputed by the CHP - for international alliance with the western powers. In this, the DP created the main building blocks of what can be called the liberal centre-right tradition in Turkish politics - that is, attachment to private enterprise (aided, on occasion, by the state), majoritarian democracy (with a tinge of cultural conservatism), clientelist populism and a westernoriented foreign policy. Unlike conservative parties in western Europe, parties in this tradition have had an anti-establishment bias, in that they have opposed the statist elite, which ruled Turkey until 1950, combining this with an important electoral base in the poorer sections of Turkish society, in town and village, as well as the non-state bourgeoisie. These elements remain major parts of the AKP's political persona. Although the DP could cou~t on the votes of many religiously oriented conservatives, it made limited concessions to them, and these mainly in its early years in power. These included acceptance that the Muslim call to prayer (adhan, or ezan in Turkish) should be delivered in Arabic rather than Turkish, the establishment of state schools to train Muslim chaplains and preachers (imam Hatip Okullart), an increase in the budget of the Presidency of Religious Affairs, and the building of many new mosques, although in many cases these were financed by private

bltroduction

XIX

foundations rather than the state. On the other hand, the DP government made no attempt to alter the secular civil and criminal legal codes in accordance with conservative Muslim beliefs or to withdraw the secular definition of the republic. It rigorously prosecuted members of the Ticani religious order who attacked statues of Atatiirk, passing a law punishing those convicted of 'Crimes against Atatiirk' in 1951. The opposition Nation Party (MP), which attracted the votes of staunchly religious conservatives, was closed down in 1953 (later, the more liberal elements of the party re-established it as the Republican Nation Party, or CMP).23 Among the many charges that were levelled against the DP leaders when they were put on trial by the subsequent military regime in 1960-61, resulting in the execution of Menderes and two of his cabinet colleagues, trying to destroy secularism was not included. The military returned to its barracks in November 1961, allowing the reestablishment of elected civilian government under a new and more liberal constitution. The junta had closed down the DP and tried to prevent its resuscitation. Nonetheless, the Justice Party (AP), which was recognised as its effective successor, quickly emerged as the major player on the centreright of Turkish politics. Siileyman Demirel, who took over the leadership of the party in 1964, led it to an election victory in 1965, and headed a successful administration until 1969, when he increased his party's majority in new elections. In 1971, however, he was forced to resign by another military intervention. In 1973, when full civilian government was restored, the AP lost its majority, although it became the lead partner in two unstable coalitions during 1975-77 and 1977-78, before forming a minority government in 1979. In September 1980, the AP government was again overthrown by a military coup, following a serious breakdown of law and order, and an economic collapse. Along with all the other pre-coup parties, it was closed down by the military government in October 1981. Effectively, the AP inherited the former DP's electoral mantle, and most of its policies - the main difference between the two being that Demirel initially sought an accommodation rather than confrontation with the military chiefs, although this later proved ineffective. 24 While the AP confirmed support for private enterprise against economic etatism, rapid changes in the Turkish economy since the 1950s - in particular, the growth of an e1ectorally important working class of ex-rural migrants who crowded into the squatter settlements, which now surrounded Turkey'S main cities - meant that it was more dependent on the urban vote than the DP had been. Hence, it promoted such policies as general health insurance and unemployment compensation, as well as subsidies for agricultural producers, claiming that it aimed to establish a 'social welfare state', even if this aim was not properly realised.li The son of a village family, Demirel is an observant Muslim, and his party drew some support from cultural conservatives, but, like Menderes, he never allowed their ideas much more than a subsidiary role in the AP's policies. The party proclaimed that it was 'attached to moral values and

xx Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey beliefs'. 'Civilisation' did not mean lack of religion (dinsizlik) - in fact, the most civilised nations were the most moral and religious ones, it daimed. 26 Like the DP, the AP promoted the spread of religious education through the imam Hatip schools and courses on the Qur'an for school pupils (Kuran kurslarz), but it never attempted to withdraw laws restricting the role of religion in politics or the secular legal codes. In Demirel's words, it was acceptable to 'serve Islam, but Islam cannot be pushed into the service of politics'.27 The importance of religion in the AP's persona was additionally reduced by the fact that, by the 1970s, it was being rivalled by Necmettin Erbakan's National Salvation Party (MSP), which drew away the support of the more ardently conservative Muslim voters (see pp. 3-4). Like their predecessors of 1960-61, the military chiefs who overthrew Demirel's government in 1980, eventually returned power to an elected parliament in 1983. Unlike them, however, they adopted what could be called a revisionist interpretation of secularism, in that they sought to promote a nationalised adaptation of Islam, as a replacement for the radical leftist ideology, which, they believed, had penetrated the minds of the young during the pre-coup period. This discourse, known as the 'Turkish-Islamic Synthesis' (Turk-islam Sentezi) tried to overcome the perceived gap between Kemalist nationalism and Islam by arguing that Turks had played the leading role in Muslim history, as warriors and rulers, and that being a Muslim was thus quite compatible with attachment to the Turkish national identity;28 More controversially - and much to the ire of ardent secularists within the Kemalist camp - they also inserted a provision into Article 24 of the new constitution, which they issued in 1982, stating that '[I]nstruction in religious culture and moral education shall be compulsory in the curricula of primary and secondary schools'. 29 Much of this approach, along with the ideological heritage of the DP and AP, was adopted by Turgut Ozal, the third in the succession of Turkish centre-right leaders. As the founder and chairman of the Motherland Party (ANAP), Ozal took over the premiership following general elections held in November 1983, and remained the dominant figure in Turkish politics until ANAP lost its overall majority in parliament in the elections of October 1991. Like his contemporaries, Ronald Reagan in the United States and Margaret Thatcher in Britain, Ozal was a firm believer in market economics, and reducing the role of the state, especially in the economy, to a minimum. Under his government, taxes and other controls on imports were drastically reduced, the Turkish Lira was made fully convertible, and bank interest rates, previously fixed by the government, were determined by the market. Until the late 1980s, this programme brought impressive results, including restored economic growth, a sharp increase in exports and increased investor confidence. As President between 1989 and his death in 2003, he gave vital support to the coalition powers in the Gulf War of 1991, and even made an unsuccessful application for Turkey to join the European Union (then the European Community).

Introduction

xxi

The ANAP government also made some concessions to religious conservatives although, as in the case of its centre-right predecessors, most of these avoided a head-on challenge to the secular state. Like Demirel, Turgut Ozal was a devout Muslim. In his earlier years, he had had close connections with the National Salvation Party, of which his brother Korkut was deputy chairman, and had himself unsuccessfully competed as a candidate for the party in the general elections of 1977. His personal commitment to the Muslim faith encouraged the view, expressed by a German observer in the late 1980s, that he was Turkey'S 'least Kemalist' Prime Minister,3o or even, in the view of Kenan Evren, the head of the military government during 1980-83, and President between 1982 and 1989, that he was a positive danger for Kemalism. 31 Under the ANAP government, the network of imam Hatip schools was again expanded, their curriculum changed to include inculcation of the 'Turkish Islamic Synthesis', and the mosque-building programme was continuedY Ozal's most controversial move was to attempt to lift the ban on the wearing of Islamic headscarves by women university students, although this was effectively stymied by a decision of the Constitutional Court in 1989.33 However, Ozal was far from being a dogmatic Muslim conservative. After his election to the presidency in 1989, a group within ANAP combining religious conservatives and hard-line nationalists, known as the 'Holy Alliance', tried to swing the party towards its views, but Ozal successfully opposed this, securing the election to the party chair of Mesut Yllmaz, now the leader of the liberal wing of the party.34 Before Ozal entered politics, his time as a student in the United States in the 1950s and his career at the World Bank during 1971-73 had brought him into close contact with western ideas, of which he had a good understanding. His sojourns in America also endowed him with a deep regard for American pluralism and the American understanding of secularism. In essence, he believed that Islam as a religion could be combined with modernity, within a liberal perspective. In the United States, people of different faiths had sought and found religious and political freedom. Their faith endowed Americans with a live morality. The state could be secular, but not individuals, who were left free to practise their religions. 3s Later, this attitude was closely mirrored by that of the AKP. In essence, Ozal continued the centre-right tradition inherited from the DP and AP, albeit with a greater emphasis on internationalism and a fuller commitment to the open economy. Against this, however, radical Islamism was gaining ground during the late 1980s and 1990s. The story of this more radical response is narrated in the following chapter.

Part I

The AKP's history, ideology, social bases and organis~tion

I

1

The history of Islamist parties in Turkey from the National Order Party to the Justice and Development Party (AKP)

The first Turkish political party with explicit Islamic references was the Milli Nizam Partisi (MNP-National Order Party) founded on 28 January 1970 under the leadership of Necmettin Erbakan, an independent deputy from Konya and a professor of engineering at the prestigious istanbul Technical University.1 Mehmet Zahit Kotku, the sheikh of the' iskender Pa§a community of the Nak§ibendi order (tarikat) strongly encouraged the formation of an Islamist party. Erbakan and some of the other founders of the MNP belonged to that community. But the party was also joined by some prominent members of another influential Islamic community, the Nurcus. 2 The MNP was closed down by the Constitutional Court in 1971 on account of its alleged anti-secular activities, pardy as a result of the political conjuncture created by the military intervention on 12 March 1971. A successor party was founded on 11 October 1972 under the name of the National Salvation Party (Mill! Selamet Partisi (MSP)). The first leader of the party was Siileyman Arif Emre, but he was soon replaced by Erbakan. The MSP contested the 1973 parliamentary elections and emerged as a medium-size party with 11.8 per cent of the votes and 48 assembly seats. Because no party had a majority of seats and the two major parties (the Republican People's Party, Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi (CHP) and the Justice Party, Adalet Partisi (AP) were reluctant to cooperate, the parliamentary arithmetics put the MSP in the position of the king-maker. Thus, the MSP first joined the coalition government of the left-of-centre Biilent Ecevit with Erbakan as the deputy prime minister. After the collapse of the CHP-MSP government in 1974, the MSP joined ranks with the other right-wing parties, namely AP, the Nationalist Action Party, Milliyet~i Hareket Partisi (MHP) and the Republican Reliance Party Cumhuriyet~i Giiven Partisi (CGP) in Siileyman Demirel's so-called Nationalist Front Government. The MSP's vote share fell to 8.6 per cent in the 1977 parliamentary elections and its Assembly contingent was halved to 24. One reason for this decline may be the desertion of the Nurcus on account of policy differences with Erhakan. However, the MSP was again a partner in Dernirel's new Nationalist Front government until the government fell as a result of the desertion of some AP deputies to support a CHP-dominated government formed by Ecevit.

4

/slamism, Democracy and Liberalism ill Turkey

The MSP was closed down together with all the other political parties by the military (National Security Council) government in 1981 and 'its leadership cadres were tried on account of their alleged anti-secular activities. At the end, they were acquitted, however, and when the National Security Council permitted the formation of new political parties in 1983 the Welfare Party (Refah Partisi (RP)), representing the same political line, was established under the leadership of Ahmet Tekdal. Erbakan and the leading cadres of the MSP, like those of the other pre-12 September 1980 political parties, were constitutionally banned from political activities for a period of ten years. Moreover, the National Security Council did not permit the RP to contend in the 1983 elections. The RP had a modest start in the 1984 local (provincial assemblies) elections in which all legally established parties could participate with 4.4 per cent of the votes; In the 1987 parliamentary elections, following the repeal of the constitutional ban on the political activities of former political leaders and the return of Erbakan to the RP leadership, the party polled 7.2 per cent of votes, but was unable to send any representatives to parliament because of the 10 per cent national threshold. The RP increased its votes to 9.8 in the 1989 local elections, and it contested the 1991 parliamentary elections in alliance with the MHP and the Reformist Democracy Party (IDP). The alliance received 16.9 per cent of the vote enabling the RP to be represented in the Assembly by some 40 deputies (after the MHP deputies resigned and returned to their fold). ~ The spectacular rise of the RP took place in the local elections of 1994 when it increased its votes to 19.1 per cent and captured the mayoralties of 29 provincial centres including I!>tanbul and Ankara, which came as a great shock to the secularist establishment. The RP further improved its showing in the parliamentary elections of 1995 with 21.4 per cent of the votes and 158 out of the 550 seats in parliament making it the strongest party. In the fragmented composition of the 1995 parliament, the RP was able to form a coalition government with the centre-right True Path Party (Dogru Yol Partisi (DYP)) in 1996 despite the efforts of the secular establishment to prevent the formation of an RP-dominated government. The RP-DYP government of Erbakan lasted for only eleven months and was forced to resign in 1997 under strong pressure by the military and most of the leading secular civil society organisations. The process leading to the fall of the Erbakan government is commonly called 'the 28 February process' in reference to the 28 February 1997 meeting of the National Security Council whose declaraJ tion was a not-too-subtle ultimatum to the government.3 The fall of the RP-DYP government was followed by the closing down of the RP in 1998 by the Constitutional Court on account of its anti-secular activities. The Court also banned Erbakan and six other leading members of the RP (including its two vice-presidents and three MPs) from political activities for a period of five years in accordance with Article 69 'of the Constitution. 4 The 28 February 1997 process also involved the introduction of a number of

The history of Islamist parties il1 Turkey

5

restrIctions on religious education and the activities of Islamist leaning business firms. The RP was immediately substituted by a new party, the Virtue Party (Fazilet Partisi (FP}) under the leadership of Recai Kutan, an old associate of Necmettin Erbakan. Although all RP deputies and most of its cadres joined the FP, the latter's discourse was much more moderate and circumspect than that of the forme.rJhe short life of the FP witnessed a growing confronta-tion between the so-called traditionalist (gelel1ekfiler) and the modernist (yenilikfiler) wings of the Islamist movement. The beginnings of this cleavage go back to the 1990s as will be analysed in greater detail later. But now the conflict came to the fore when at the FP Congress in 2000, Abdullah Giil, the candidate of the modernists, challenged Recai Kutan, the incumbent leader and the candidate of the traditionalists, for party leadership. Giil lost the race by a small margin (he got 521 votes against 633 for Kutan) in a competition unprecedented in the history of Turkish Islamist parties. 5 The Congress was the harbinger of the split between the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Felicity Party (Saadet Partisi (SP)) which was to take place a year later. The FP contested the 1999 parliamentary elections in which its percent"";. age of votes fell to 15.4 making it the third largest party in parliament. This rather significant decline may be because of the more moderate and conciliatory approach of the party, as well as because of the confusion in the Islamist voters' minds as a result of the closure of the RP. In any case, the FP's moderation could not save it from being closed down by the Constitutional Court in 2001 on account of its agitation for the repeal of the headscarfban on female university students. The banning of the FP finalised the split between the modernists and the I traditionalists. T\:e former founded the AKP under the leadership- of Recep . Tayyip Erdogan, while the latter were orga~~s~(:U!.l_d!~..sP_undeLtheJe_adership_oT~ecai kut_an. The AKP the 2002 parliamentary el~ctions with a landslide with 34.3 per cent of the vote and almost two-thirds of parliamentary seats, while the SP was reduced to an insignificant minor party with \ \ only 2.5 per cent of the votes.

I(

won

The 'national outlook' ideology The Islamist parties in Turkey from the MNP to SP have referred to their ideology as the 'national outlook' (mill; goru§) and maintained this ideological line consistently, with only slight variations, over time. The constitutional and legal bans on the anti-secular activities of political patties did not permit these parties to explicitly use the Islamic terms and symbols. There is no doubt, however, that what was meant by the 'national' outlook was an Islamic outlook. Similarly, their promise to enhance 'national and moral values' (mzlli ve manev; degerler) has to be understood as the promotion of Islamic values.

6 Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey The national outlook ideology posits a fundamental conflict between civilisation. The forWestern (i.e. Judeo-Christian) civilisation and mer is 'false' (batt!) in the sense -Of restiIiifiipoidOrc:e, while the latter is based on righteousness (hak). Western civilisation is described as materialist, oppresive and colonialist, and doomed to extinction. 6 This fundamental opposition to Western civilisation has led the national outlook parties to take an extremely negative view of Turkey'S Westernisation process. In their view, the once-glorious Ottoman Empire began to decline and disintegrate when it started to imitate the West. By the same token, they are strongly critical of the secularising republican reforms. Erbakan has argued that the long years of the CHP rule harboured a strong hostility towards Islam. 7 Therefore, the national outlook parties accuse all other Turkish parties of being blind imitators of the West, either of its exploitative capitalist version, or its materialist socialist version. 8 The national outlook parties' anti-Westernism is also strongly reflected in their foreign policy choices. They are vehemently against Turkey'S accession to the EU, the customs union with it, and critical of NATO. They describe the EU as a ~_Christian Club' and predict that Turkey'S membership would result in her complete loss of sovereignty and cultural identity, as well as in her economic exploitation. Erbaka~_has gone so far as suggesting that once Turkey becomes an EU membe~Jsra~would also join the organisation immediately, and thus Turkey and-Israel would be the same state. Turkey's application for membership is 'a treason against our history, concept of civilisation, culture and most important of all, our independence'.9 The national outlook parties envisage an Islamic world unified under Turkey's leadership. Turkey, because of her geographical position, large popula:tion and historical legacy,· is the Muslim country best qualified for such leadership. More specifically, they put forward the idea of an Islamic United Nations, an Islamic UNESCO, an Islamic NATO and an Islamic Common Market with Islamic dinar as its monetary unit. 10 Finally, the national outlook parties' foreign policy is strongly coloured by anti-Zionism, often bordering on anti-semitism. They view Israel as an iIIegmmate ana expansionist state whose ultimate aim is to create greater Israel by occupying, Syria, Egypt and Turkey. Even the United Nations Organisation was established in order to create an Israeli state. ll The following quotations by Erbakan are good examples of his anti-Zionism: 'Zionists are seeking to assimilate Turkey and pull us from our historical Islamic roots through integrating Turkey to the European Economic Community.' 'Whenever the UN talks about human rights, it means the rights of the Jews but nothing else.' 'Since the European Community is a single state, Turkey's membership means being a single state with Israel. The goal is to create a ' Greater Israel by integrating Turkey to the Community.'12 The national outlook parties' Islamism also contains a strong dose of Turkish natiQDalism. While the universal character of Islam is emphasised, the potential leadership role of Turkey in the Islamic world is also constantly alluded to. Thus, they praise the glories of the Ottoman past and declare the

IstamrC-

I

I

The history of IsIamist parties in Turkey

7

restoration of its former grandeur as one of their principal objectives. 13 Hence, their slogan 'Recreating Grand Turkey'. The national outlook parties' views on democracy and secularism were ambivalent at best. Although some radical Islamist groups categorically reject democracy as un-Islamic and blasphemous (kii(iir),14 the leaders of the national outlook parties prudently refrained from challenging the basic premises of democracy and declared elections as the only legitimate route to political power. Moreover, the MSP members did not take part in the violent political actions of the late 1970s. On the other hand, it is not clear whether they attribute only an instrumental value to democracy or see it as an end in itself. The statements by Erbakan and Tayyip Erdogan (at that time the mayor of Istanbul) lend support to the former view. They both stated that democracy was not an aim, but a means, a means to establish the 'order of happiness' (saadet nizami), apparently referring to the time of Prophet Muhammad, usually called the 'age of happiness' (asr-t saadet) in Islamic writings. 1s The RP's 1995 electoral campaign described the current political system of Turkey not as a democracy, but as a 'fraud', a 'guided democracy' and a 'dark-room regime,' and announced its intention to establish a 'real pluralistic democracy'. Apart from promises to enhance freedom of conscience and to make greater use of referenda and popular councils,16 real democracy was never defined. Erbakan and other RP spokesmen often emphasised that Turkey'S population was 99 per cent Muslim, and therefore there were only two groups of voters in Turkey: the RP supporters and the potential RP supporters, a notion hardly compatible with a truly pluralistic conception of society. Erbakan even said in October 1996 that soon the RP would have so many members that elections would no longer be necessary. They would just go to the notary public and get their victory registered. Thus, even a sympathetic observer argues that 'Erbakan's main concern was the politics not of pluralism but of authenticity. He believed that there is an authentic Muslim identity and voice that should govern day-to-day politics. Within the context of Erbakan's authenticity, there seemed to be limited room for pluralism and tolerance.'17 Ru§en <;aku; a journalist specialising in Islamist movements and parties in Turkey points out to this ambivalence, saying that 'the RP is neither pro-sharia nor democrat, because it is both pro-sharia and democrat in its own way.'18 While the RP leaders criticised Western democracy for its allegedly majoritarian character,19 the kind of democracy they envisage for Turkey seems at best majoritarian rather than pluralistic. Ambivalence also marks the national outlook parties' views on secularism. Although they never rejected secularism categorically, and did not openly called for the establishment of a regime based on the sharia, they described the current understanding of secularism in Turkey as anti-Islamic and oppressive towards devout Muslims. While they constantly emphasised the 'freedom of religion' aspect of secularism, they hardly ever mentioned [ the separation of religion and the state as the fundamental characteristic of secularism. In the RP's view, freedom of conscience implied the 'right to live according to one's beliefs', a concept which inevitably created frictions with

II

I

8

Is/amism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey

Turkey's secular legal system. In the 1990s, the RP went so far as suggesting the creation of multiple legal communities according to which each religious community would be entitled to be governed by it~ own legal system. The project reminds one of the 'Medina Covenant' that Prophet Muhammad concluded with the Jewish tribes of Medina. This proposal was among the major reasons behind the Constitutional Court's decision to ban the RP. On the economic front, the MSP, which emerged as a party of small Anatolian merchants and business people, advocated rapid heavy industrialisation, presumably as a means to restoring Turkey's former grandeur and full independence, the abolition of interest taking, and a more equitable distribution of income socially and regionally.20 As a result of the growing Islamic bourgeoisie in the 1980s and the 1990s, the RP seems to have moved away from statist, protectionist positions to views more in favour of a fre"e-market economy and Turkey's integration into the global economy.21 Indeed, 'since the 1980s, the Islamist sector in the economy has expanded with large-scale holding companies, chain stores, investment houses, banks and insurance companies: Particu~arl~ noteworth~ ar~ the joi~t businesses ~nd invest~ents that Islamlst orgamsatlOns have with mternatlonal compames based III the I \\ Gulf countries. '22 \ \. The RP in its 1991 election campaign proposed an economic model which it called the 'just order' (tidil diizen). Just order was presented as a third way, different from and superior to both capitalism and socialism. Among its principles was an interest-free economy. Although the RP claimed the just order was the 'true private enterprise regime', its implementation - even if it were possible at all- would have required heavy state control. 23 More generally, the RP denounced the current economic order as a 'slave system' based on the International Monetary Fund, interest payments, taxes, corruption and waste - a system maintained by a repressive guardian state that contravenes the history and beliefs of its own people. Some observers believe that the RP, starting from the mid-1990s, made an effort to approach to the political centre by moderating some of its more radical slogans. 24 The RP, during its brief tenure in government, 'was faced with the impossible task of reconciling the two irreconcilable aspects of its political identity. Its moves towards the center would alienate it from its support base, and its moves towards [the support base] would distance it from the center. The RP did not try to resolve this paradox; on the contrary, it perpetrated it. Consequently, the RP in government swung from one side to the other.'25 Also starting from the early 1990s, there appeared to be a slowly developing schism between those who are called the traditionalists (ge/enek~i/er) and those who are called the modernists (yenilik~iler). Recep Tayyip Erdogan, first as the chairman of the istanbul RP organisation, then as the mayor of istanbul, soon became the leading figure among the modernists. Initially, the differences seemed more concerned with party organisation and campaign techniques than with matters of ideology. Thus, Erdogan, in his campaigns,

il

I

I

The hist01-Y of Islamist parties i't Turkey

9

used methods highly unconventional for an Islamist politician, such as visiting pubs, bars and even brothels. 26 That does not mean, however, that at that time the modernists were ideologically more moderate or liberal than the traditionalists. In the 1990s, Erdogan was often quoted as firmly expressing his commitment to political Islam: 'My reference is to Islam'; 'democracy is not an aim, but a means'; 'the system we want to introduce cannot be contrary to God's commands'; 'human beings cannot be secular'; 'I banned alcohol, because I believe I am the doctor of this community'; 'in view of the future of our nation, I am against birth control'; 'we always say that we are not Atatiirkists, but we approve of his principles'; 'one cannot be both secular and Muslim'; 'they claim that secularism is being destroyed; of course, it will be destroyed if the nation so wishes; you cannot prevent it.'2i The modernists took a more liberal position only after the closure of the RP and its replacement by the FP, as will be analysed later. In view of these ideological characteristics, the~(~£!..cl its_"pr.ej;t~c:~s.:mr ~~ist ~ties') ideology can be desc~ibed as incoherent and eclectic. Hakan ! Yavuz argues that 'tneoverall ideology of the RP may be described as a rather / incoherent form of ~agmatic liberalis.!!h.~oci~.!£o.nserv~tisIl!,_~elf~ti.sm_and I capitalism. One may treat the RP ideology as an eclectic and amorphous mixture of competing lifestyles, ideas and politics based on different interpretations of Islam, nationalism and the state. The party did not see Islam as a fixed doctrine that would obviate the need for politics but searched for ways to integrate Islamic identity and symbols into the political sphere.'28 Whether the RP and its predecessors were systemic or anti-system parties is not easy to answer. Daniel Brumberg distinguishes between three types 2f Islamism. First, 'Radical or militant fundamentalism rejects the" use of gradualism and demands the forced impositioJ;l of an Islamic state, based on the all-encompassing Islamic laws, the Shari'a'. The second, reformist or moderate fundamentalists aim at establishing 'an Islamic state that involves a total reversal of the existing constitutional order. Yet, at the same time, these types of movements are moderate in their tactics, typically rejecting violence and trying to build popular support in an electoral framework by seeking alliances from other segments of society. These groups try to capitalise on the pluralistic political environment of liberal democracy but their all-encompassing political project is based on the replacement of secular constitutional norms. Islamic Law effectively dismantles any form of opposition and implies a natural collapse into an authoritarian state.' The third category, Islamic liberals or strategic modernists 'seek to extend religious freedoms in a broadly d~mocratic envrrorlinenf:"Thei"c"iili:lmate g03Tis not the creation of a~-Ysl~~icstai:e~--"bui co=-existence with other political projects in a secular, pluralistic order.'29 In this categorisation, moderate fundamentalist seems to be 'an apt description' of the RP, while the FP and most certainly the AKP belong to the Islamic liberals category.30 Indeed, the ideological differences between the RP and FP seem considerable. 3! In contrast to the RP, the FP emphasised democratisation, human

I

10 Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey rights, and the rule of law much more strongly. Although the emphasis on moral values and principles continued, the FP carefully refrained from explicit references to Islam and challenging statements against the secular system. 'Recai Kutan, the party chairman in the absence of Erbakan, explained that they would no longer use the old concepts of the "national view" tradition, arguing that concepts like "the national view" and "just order" were misunderstood, misrepresented and misinterpreted by some. '32 In the field of economic policy, it put 'much more emphasis on competition, the need to rely on market forces and privatization'.33 In general, it followed a much more conciliatory, moderate and subdued style of politics. :au...t.p.e.rMI!s the..mastimp.0r~t difference betwet:.n_th.eJU~. !_~ FP wasil! the ~E~~ of forejg!! poli~y. As opposed to the vehement anti-Westernism of its predecessor, the FP took a much more positive view of the West in general and the EU in particular. The FPsupported Turkey's integration in the EUanci'pushedtlie government to comply with the "Copenhagen criteria" .•. Kutan stressed the centrality of meeting the EU standards on democracy, demanding a civic constitution that would meet the Copenhagen criteria for individual rights and freedoms. '34 The reasons for this radical shift may be found in the sense of defeat and insecurity among Turkish Islamists created by the 28 February 1997 process and the closure of the RP by the_GQ.!!stitQtional COurt. This_may have led ITlailylslamistreaders-to-:rean~that they }!~e.~t~~ the protection of democratic righi:s-and-libeii[es-FerliapsmOr~hjlIlm9~i-q1:h~i.-_£oIiticaI groups in Tiii!<ey.-Iri-tne--saiiie--vein~ -they m~y_J!~ve_~~~_~ _~e__Europe~liUinan rights -standards an(frurl(eY~~LIp.embershipJn..the..EU-as-the....best..guarantee for _the enhanc-ement of religious freedomll- in Turkey aqd against .repressive....m~a~ sures fiji the secular establishment. Hakan Yavu_?;.gescribes the causes of this shiff as-follows: 'TIieCiosriie-ofihe RP, systematic oppression of Islamic presence in the public sphere, and the establishment of the FP created an opportunity for the MGH [national outlook movement] to redefine itself in terms of global discourses of human rights, democracy, the rule of law and become the main advocate of Turkey's integration with the EU ... (P)olitical conditions forced the FP to reconsider modernity, democracy and multiculturalism as universal values rather than to treat these values as an extension of European domination •.. In effect, the 1997 coup helped the MGH to rediscover Europe as a repository of democracy and human rights and to discard the long-held Islamist idea of Europe as a source of Kemalist authoritarianism ... The m~orimpact_~~_t~'?J~?Zfo.~P_W.!!~_!p'~!~~~_~~iscovery of EurQP...~_ as a space andaii 'idea to'protect human rights and die rule of law. In other words, many conservative Muslims recognised that Europe was more liberal than a Turkish society regulated by the rigid military doctrine.'3s Thus, one may conclude that 'the FP was significantly different from the reformist fundamentalist model of Refah, with its overall approach being much closer to a moderate stand based on Islamic liberalism'.36 However, this moderate stand could not save the FP from being banned by the Constitutional Court in 2001. With the closure of the FP, the conflict

The history of Islamist parties in Turkey

11

between the modernists and the traditionalists came into the open much more clearly. While the former opted for an even more explicit liberal and democratic discourse within the AKP, the latter were organised under the banner of the SP, strongly influenced by the behind-the-scenes moral leader\ " ship of Erbakan, and returned to the basic tenets of the RP.37 The SP spokes, men accuse the AKP of having ignored their national outlook mission and followed an opportunistic route based on calculations of realpolitik. Thus, Bahri Zengin, a leading member of the SP and, interestingly himself once an influential figure among the modernists, has argued that 'these powers [the military, the media "and the big industrialists] determine politics but our mission is not to follow them but to establish a new civilization ... (T)he establishment put pressure on the opposition ... They ignore you, or they identify you as fanatical and try to obstruct your development, or they accuse you, or they even threaten you. What are you going to do? Are you going to follow your cause or are you going to subordinate yourself to them? They [the AKP leaders] preferred the second and they used different arguments in order to justify their obedience.'38 The novel characteristics of the AKP's political discourse will be analysed in detail in the following chapters.

I\

Social bases of Islamist parties in Turkey In the absence of reliable survey data pertaining to the 1970s, the social bases of support for the MSP can only be deduced from ecological voting studies based on correlating party voters with socioeconomic characteristics of the constituencies. 39 Turkish election statistics allow us to differentiate between urban (defined here as all settlements with a population of more than 10,000) and rural votes. The MSP obtained 10.8 per cent of the urban and 12.4 per cent of the rural votes in the 1973 National Assembly elections (its national percentage of votes was 11.8). This does not support the view that the MSP did significantly better in the villages than in urban centres. The relatively narrow gap between the percentages of its rural and urban voters suggests that religious conservatism was not peculiar to rural areas. A second measure of 'the relationship between the type of settlement and the degree of support for the MSP is the correlation between the degree of provincial urbanisation (the percentage of provincial population living in communities with more than 10,000 inhabitants) and the percentage of the MSP vote; this correlation was found to be only very weakly negative (r = -0.158). When we further differentiate among the different sizes of urban communities, some interesting findings emerge. The MSP performed rather poorly in the three largest cities (population over 500,000) namely istanbul, Ankara and izmir. The party's average percentage of votes in these three major metropolitan centres was 8.1. On the other hand, the MSP showed its best performance in the category immediately below (cities with a population between 100,000 and 500,000) with an impressive 17.2 per cent of the total votes cast. One suspects, however, that what is involved here is a regional or

12

Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey

developmental phenomenon, rather than the impact of community size. In o.tber _W.Qrcl.~ _th~_MSP.'s par_ticula.r. strength in this categ<>.D'_ ~f!S__because ofitS~~_~re!l}~Iy'~ig~ p~rcentage of votes In-cert~i~ cltles~most of ~~~ch were in the less developed northeastern, southeastern and east central regions. Thus, the MSP obtained 43.5 per cent of the votes in the city of UCfa, 4TJ per cent of the votes in Kahramanmara~, 38.2 per cent in Sivas, 34.2 per cent in Erzurum, 31.8 per cent in Malatya, 26.6 per cent in Elazlg and 19.5 per cent in Diyarbaklr. The MSP strength in smaller cities and towns was closer to its overall urban strength, and no clear patterns emerged in these categories.40 What can one make out of the MSP's urban voting profile? The party's good showing in the medium-large cities of the less developed (i.e. less industrialised) regions seem to lend support to the view that the MSP supporters in urban areas came predominantly from the more traditional sectors of the urban middle classes, namely small businessmen, merchants and artisans. It stands to reason that these groups, being more traditional in their outlook and feeling insecure and threatened by industrialisation, responded in greater numbers to the MSP appeal. On the other hand, the party was not nearly as successful in the cities of the more highly developed regions, which suggests that it was unable to make deep inroads into more modern urban groups, namely industrial workers, white-collar workers and urban professionals. As for the relationship between the MSP vote and the indices of provincial socioeconomic development, such correlations were negative, but not strongly so. The strongest negative correlation obtained was with the rate of literacy (-0.342), ~n.9iclUing_thaLthe...MSP-receiv.ed-greateLs.Up-port frQ.IP les_s_.d.e'{~I<>,~~. __ p-f'Qyi£!~~s.h:L 19..1J..~2-, One wonders, however, whether the. greater MSP support in the less developed eastern regions was because of developmental variables·; or to the greater strength of certain §lI_fi orders (particularly the Nak~jhendLand_Nurcu.orders.) in these regions, or to the popuf~dtY· o{th~- MSP's less nationalistic and more Islamic appeal among the predominantly Kurdish population of these regions. The MSP's voting profile showed significant changes in the 1977 elections. Not only did the party lose about one quarter of its percentage ofthe national vote, which went down from 11.8 to 8.6 per cent, and exactly 50 per cent of its National Assembly seats (down from 48 to 24) but it also became a more pronouncedly regional party. The MSP's losses were mainly in western and central Turkey and in the Black Sea region. Thus, it lost its single seats in Afyon, Amasya, Bahkesir, Bolu, Bursa, Kayseri, Kocaeli, Manisa, Nev~ehir, Rize, Sakarya,Samsun, Tokat and Zonguldak; it also lost both of its seats in C;orum, two of its three seats in Sivas, and one of its two seats in Ankara; it did not gain any new seats in these regions. In the eastern and southeastern regions, on the other hand, it generally held its own (with such exceptions as Agn, Bigol, Elazlg, Erzurum, Gaziantep and Giimii~hane) or even gained a new seat (Bitlis, Mardin, Siirt, Van). As a result, more than 50 per cent (13 out of 24) of the MSP deputies elected in 1977 were from the eastern or southeastern provinces.

The history of Islamist parties in Turkey

13

The voter profile of the RP, at the peak of its popularity inthemick19..9.Qs,. shows's-ig~ific~rifcUJfirenc~s from tha.t of its p!."(!d~ce~~qr._For one thing, it hacCa strong~app.eaLt.o_a.Jnll<;.lLbLoAd~LS!:gmenLof TlJ[kislL'lOters. For

another, its cross-class character was much more evident compared with that of the MSP, which remained essentially a party of small traders and artisans in the less developed regions of Anatolia. Most observers agree that the RP coalition brought together small merchants and artisans in Anatolian towns, a good part of the rural population, the recently migrant urban slumdwellers, a growing group of Islamist professionals and intellectuals, and the rapidly rising Islamic bourgeoisieY Thus, the rapid rise of the RP seems to be associated with the cultural effects of globalisation. Such effects include the growth of ultranationalist and religious fundamentalist parties, increased demands for recognition of cultural differences, and the rise of identity politics as a reaction to the cui: ~~h~ ~or!!gg~r.!-.~iQg,ef.fu.c::~of ~~ob~l~tlQ.n. All of these trends are related to the weakening of the nation-state and more particularly to that of the welfare state, which has been under a two-front attack from the universalising and localising effects of globalisation. As elsewhere, in Turkey the economic processes associated with globalisation have created winners and losers. The RP seems to have brought together the elements of both, namely the Islamic bourgeoisie as the winners, and the manual workers, small traders and artisans, and a good part of the rural population as the losers.43 With the decline of the welfare state and the erosion of social rights, Turkish leftist parties have been unable to protect these groups, and the RP seems to have successfully filled the vacuum left by those parties. Indeed, the urban low-income neighbourhoods that heavily voted for the social democratic CHP in the 1970s became RP strongholds in the mid-1990s. Globalisation, however, is also associated with growing demands for the acceptance of diversity and recognition of local and traditional cultures, including religion: The cultural pluralism associated with the post-modern age also implies a radical shift in the direction of political activity away from the traditional left-right divide to issues surrounding individual idemity..._ In retrospect, the process of globalization occurring simultaneously in the economic and cultural spheres has been interacting and producing powerful impulses leading to the ris.e of identity Rolitics a§.!.h.e_12tim.l!!y.. tc?E.rp of .£.I?litical dis~ourse or;onflic~jn £~e ~.!:!!E~!1t .hlst2!:iCa!.c:~
-"

"."-':" .. :-

__ - ....._

- ."'-_..• ~~

14

Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey

2000s also witnessed the rise of other forms of identity politics: parties responding to the ultra-nationalist Turkish identity (MHP) and those representing the Kurdish nationalist identity (People's Labour Party (HEP), Democracy Party (DEP), People's Democracy Party (HADEP), Democratic People's Party (DEHAP), Democratic Society Party (DTP)).4sThe cross-class character of the RP also suggests the continuing importance of the old centre-periphery cleavage which played a vital role in the emergence of the Turkish multi-party system.46 Thus, the economically well-to-do components of the RP coalition (Islamist businessmen, professionals and intellectuals) share a feeling of having been 'excluded' by the strongly secularist state elites, with their economically more deprived co-religionists. Naturally, the latter provided a numerically much greater portion of the RP voters. In the mid-1990s, the RP vote correlated negatively with years of schooling. In terms of occupational categories, the RP support was higher than its national average among small farmers, blue-collar workers, small traders and artisans. Similarly, with respect to the class position of voters, the RP was overrepresented among the lower and lower-middle classes and underrepresented among the upper, upper-middle and middle c1asses.47 It would be wrong, however, to explain the RP support solely by theories of economic deprivation. 'Those who are in the forefront of these movements are usually either middleor upper-middle-class people.'48 A 1999 survey showed that the proportion of the FP voters who were not at all satisfied with their incomes was about the same as the proportion who were very satisfied. Likewise, no correlation was found between the level of subjective happiness and the FP vote. 49 If the common bond among the RP voters was a desire to assert their Islamic identity, one should probe deeper into their understanding of Islam. According to a 1995 survey; 61.3 per cent of the RP supporters favoured a sharia-based order compared with a minority among the supporters of other parties (31.3 per cent in MHP, 16.1 per cent in ANAP, 14.9 per cent in DYP, 8.3 per cent in Democratic Left Party (DSP) and 4.6 per cent in eHP). However, among the RP supporters, 23.7 per cent did not subscribe to an Islamic political order and 15 per cent had no opinion. Among all voters, 26.7 per cent were in favour of an Islamic political order, 58.1 per cent were opposed, and 15.2 per cent had no opinion. About 50 per cent of those in favour saw an Islamic political order as indispensable to their religious beliefs. There were strong correlations between adherence to political Islam and the class position of the respondents: 14.3 per cent of the upper and upper-middle class, 18.6 per cent of the middle class, 22.9 per cent of the lower-middle class and 27.9 per cent of the lower class favoured an Islamic political order.so Similarly, a December 1996 survey demonstrated that 60.6 per cent of RP voters favoured including some Islamic principles in the constitution. When the voters were asked why they voted for the RP, however, only about 50 per cent gave ideological reasons, such as the RP's defence of religious values (20.9 per cent), its promise of a 'just order' (13.4 per cent), and its respect for 'national and moral values' (12.5 per cent). Under a third (29.6 per cent)

The history of Islamist parties in Turkey

15

voted for the RP because they believed it was an honest and reliable party, and 79.3 per cent of them felt the RP was the most honest of all the parties. About 50 per cent of RP voters seemed to follow the party line on most ideological issues. For example, 56 per cent believed women's wearing of headscarves should be made obligatory or be encouraged by the government, 49 per cent favoured separate education for men and women, and 45 per cent were in favour of segregation in public transportation vehicles. Over half (59.5 per cent) of RP voters thought the organisation of Islamic Conference was the international organisation that best served Turkey's interests (as opposed to one-quarter for the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, the European Union and the UN).5t These findings suggest that much of the RP's appeal was indeed based on religious grounds. The same findings also demonstrate, however, that between one-third and one-half of RP voters voted for the party for nonideological reasons. The RP vote also correlated with the class variable as stated earlier. The party's call for a just order seems to have appealed to small farmers and the low-income groups in the cities, even though the substance of the just order was never made explicit. This appeal was particularly strong in an economic environment marked by high inflation, unemployment, rapid urban migration, deteriorating income distribution and widespread corruption. Thus, a substantial number of RP voters cited economic problems as Turkey's most important problem. About one-third (33.1 per cent) of RP voters saw their party as the party of the poor and oppressed, as opposed to 53.5 per cent who believed it appealed to all sectors of the society.52 The relations between the national outlook parties and various Islamic orders (tarikat) and communities (cemaat) were not one of automatic loyalty and support. It has been pointed out earlier that the iskender Pa§a community of the Nak§ibendi order was instrumental in the formation of the MNP, and that the party was also joined by some prominent Nurcu figures. However, the Nurcus broke with the party in the mid-1970s and, in general, supported the centre-right parties such as the AP Uustice Party) and the DYP (True Path Party). In fact, the Nur community is divided into more than ten sub-groups,s3 and most of them have traditionally supported the APIDYP line.54 One of the most influential and most liberal Nurcu Communities, the Fethullah Giilen community, generally supported ANAP in the 1980s and 1990s, and tried to maintain good relations with the secular state establishment. 55 Giilen even supported the 28 February 1997 crackdown against the Erbakan government,56 and in a TV interview in April 1997, he openly suggested that the Erbakan government led the country to a chaos and should resign.S7 Another influential Nurcu figure, Mehmet Kutluer, stated in September 1998 that he supported the DYP because it was the party most strongly committed to a liberal democratic system, and predicted that the FP would lose votes in the coming elections.58 Siileymancls generally voted for the AP in the 1970s when the community's leader Kemal Ka~ar was an AP deputy, and supported ANAP in the 1980s.59 In the 2002 elections, the

16

Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey

community's vote was divided between the AKP and ANAP, each of which nominated to parliament one of the two contending leaders of the community. The iskender Pa§a community of the Nak§ibendi order was instrumental in the formation of the MNP as stated above, and the community strongly supported the MSP and the RP in the 1970s and the 1980s. However, in 1990, the community's leader Mehmet Esat Co§an broke with the RP and unsuccessfully tried to establish his own party.60 Thus, it may be concluded that the national outlook "parties have never commanded the total and unquestioning loyalty of all Islamic groups and communities.

Party organisation As opposed to the MSP, a good deal has been written on the organisational tharacteristics of the RP. Organisationally, the RP is the only Turkish party that came close to the model of a mass party, or a party of social integration. 61 The Islamists in Turkey constitute the best organised sector of the societycomprising a large number of associations; foundations, newspapers, periodicals, publishing houses, radios, TV networks, Qur'an courses, student dormitories, university preparation courses, an Islamist trade union (HAK-i~), an Islamist businessmen's association (MDsiAD) and holding companies, as well as informal groups such as various Sufi orders and other religious communities. Even though most of these groups and organisations had no formal or direct link to the RP, they provided a comprehensive network that effectively encapsulated individual members and created a distinct political subculture. The RP was perceived by both its members and its opponents as the political representative of the Islamist segment of civil society. The RP conforms to the" mass party model both by the number of its members and by the nature of the relationship between the party and individual members. At the end of 1993; the RP had 1,101,000 registeredmembers.62 More importantly, however, the bond between the party and the member was much stronger than in any other Turkish party. A new member was immediately introduced to party work and was assigned to a women's, youth, or workers' committee or to the polling booth committee. The basic units of the party organisation were the neighbourhood (mahalle) and the polling booth district organisations, within which each street - sometimes even each apartment building - was assigned to a particular party member who, among other things, must get people out to vote on the election day.63 The party's organisational structure is commonly referred to as the tesbih (rosary) model in reference to the Muslim rosary which has 33 beads. Thus, the provincial party committees had 33 members. 'At the neighbourhood level ... was a Neighbourhood Management Commission (Mahalle ¥onetim Kurulu). Below the commission were the Head Observers (Ba§ Mii§ahitler). Each Head Observer was responsible for about 250 to 300 people in his neighbourhood, assigned according to voting districts, each district comprising about 300 people. In addition, every Head Observer had under him

The history of Islamist parties i11 Turkey

17

four Observers (Mii~ahitler). In effect, in every neighbourhood, for every voting district, there was at least one Observer for every seventy-five people. These were generally people who lived on the same street as the people they "observed" .'64 'None of the other Turkish political par.ti.es_was-er-gani-zecl-to C.QIDIIl..!Jnicate in this way withthe neighborh99ds thaq).QLiJic.ally_~utd_s...Qcially are the gr~s-sroots ·uni ts TurkIsh-Society. '65 The RP ine~her~ generally worked with- such an exemplary zeal that it would not be wrong to describe the RP as a 'devotees' party' in Duverger's sense. In contrast to the organisations of other Turkish political parties which are active only during the election periods, the RP organisations were alive and active all year round, leading Erbakan to cOmlnent that 'the other parties have voters. The RP has devotees.'66 'The RP representatives always took part in communal ceremonial activities such as funerals and weddings.'67 Interestingly, the RP members included hundreds of thousands of women activists, even though the RP never nominated any woman for parliament or important municipal positions. Women and youth branches of the party were always acti'Le.-1.en.ny_Wbjte observes that in Umraniye distrIct (alowincome neighbourhood of istan~'nea·aY·haffoTtiie-moieiliiidifty-thou­ sand registered-Wel.f-are-Pa-rty members ... were women ... Tlie --actlvists ·organized ftiiiOralsing actlvltTeS-ana-pOliriCa"ldemonstraiions,ran discussion groups in people's homes and regularly visited neighborhood women to offer assistance or simply company. They set up courses and conferences to educate other activists about the party's principles and activist techniques.'68 The mobilisational techniques of the RP have been described by White as 'vel:. nacular politics', which can be defined as 'a value-centered political process rooted In local culture, interpersonal relations and community networks, yet connected through civic organizations to national party politics.'69 The important elements of this technique are to build inter-personal trust through face-to-face contacts, participation in communal activities and the use of many local associations, foundations and informal community networks. Indeed, collaboration with such formal and informal organisations and networks was an essential part of the RP's mobilisation strategy, although they were not formally linked to the RP. Such collaboration served a variety of purposes. It provided a channel for social and welfare services, as will be discussed later. It reinforced the bonds of trust and solidarity among members and potential members. It encapsulated the members' lives in a broad network of Islamist organisations thereby strengthening their party loyalties. And it provided a powerful instrument of political mobilisation, as generally observed in totalitarian and social integration parties. 70 This style of vernacular politics allowed the RP to differentiate its discourse and appeal in accordance with the particularities of different regions. Thus, in East-Central Anatolia, it 'became an institutional expression of Sunni-Turkish identity vis-a-vis the Alevi identity'. In the Black Sea region, this discourse was more pragmatic and state-oriented. Among a substantial number of voters in the Southeast, the RP was percc;!ived 'as an alternative

b;Sic

of

18

Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey

to the state-imposed, secular, ethnolinguistic Turkish nationalism'. And in the Marmara region, the RP tried to present a social-democratic irriage.71 Consistent with this image, the RP organisation or its allied organisations often provided welfare services for its supporters. Reportedly, during one winter the RP mayor of a poor district of istanbul distributed 1,500 tons of coal and gave out packages of food (250 kilos each) to 3,500 families during the holy month of Ramadan.72 In fact, providing such welfare services is characteristic not only of the RP but also of Islamist or.ganisations in gen~Thus, Sencer Ayata has concluded:

Following the example of similar movements in other Islamic countries, the Sufi organizations have, in the past few years, tended to concentrate their efforts on w.elfare services, of which education is one. The economic reformist policies of the 1980s limited government expenditure on social services and on the welfare state in general. This in a country in which these services were only at a rudimentary state and at a time when the rapid rural-urban exodus created widespread poverty in cities. The religious organizations have jumped to organize relief for the poor, medical centers, and hospitals that offered treatment schemes and childcare programs.73 However, the RP differs from the standard model of mass party in its conspicuous absence of intra-party democracy. __ MembershiE, entailed obligations (such as taking part in party work) rathertiliilrTglus. Party policy was made from the top down by a small group of leaders (Erbakan and his close associates) who dominated the RP and its predecessors for more than a quarter of a century, with little input from the rank-and-file membership. Vll"tually no genuine intra-party debate or competition took place in the party congresses, which invariably endorsed the leadership with acclamation. In parliamentary votes, RP deputies displayed perfect discipline. Political education or indoctrination within the party was strongly emphasised and was carried out by party members called 'teachers'. Each district (ih;e) was assigned to a 'headmaster', and 'inspectors' at the provincial or regional level supervised such educational activities. 74 Erbakan often invited party members at political rallies to take an oath of allegiance (biat) to the party, reminiscent of an old historical tradition in Muslim countries.7s Indeed, the authoritarian nature of party leadership and the lack of intra-party democracy were the main complaints of the modernist wing in the 1990s. This conflict came into the open with the split between the AKP and the SP.

The emergence of the AKP Although some differences of opinion appeared within the RP in the 1990s, they concerned mostly organisational and tactical- rather than ideological matters, and they did not come out into the open under the iron discipline of- Necmettin Erbakan. Tayyip Erdogan, popular especially among the

The history of Islamist parties in Turkey

19

young members of the party and seen by many as a potential party leader, often repeated his loyalty to Erbakan. However, with the bann!!!K.9Lt.Q~ RP by the Constitutional Court and the formation of the FP, th,e spl.iLbetween the -'traditionalists>-(Erouan-Ioyiilisrs andihe modernists. led by.Erdogan be·c~me 'iriucli-moreapparerit:The~e -~ere even talks about resigning from the FP to·'I;rm a- new parry:-However, the start of the prohibition proceedings against the FP delayed these plans, and the modernists decided to try their luck at the coming FP Congress. 76 The 14 May 2000 FP congress was a first in the history of the Islamist parties in Turkey, because for the first time there was an open competition for party leadership. As Erdogan was banned from political activity on account of a conviction for allegedly inciting people to religious hatred, Abdullah Giil was the candidate of the modernists against the incumbent leader Recai Kutan, a moderate figure trusted and supported by Erbakan. When Giil declared his candidacy, this was met with a strong reaction by Erbakan and his supporters. Oguzhan Asiltiirk, a leading Erbakan lieutenant, reportedly put strong pressure on provincial chairmen to support a single candidate (i.e. Kutan) threatening that by supporting Giil they would endanger their afterlives. 77 Erbakan also asked the delegates and party deputies to cast not a single vote for GiiP8 Just a few days before the congress, the Council of the Founding Members, dominated by Erbakan loyalists, changed the party constitution to prevent the casting of mixed lists for the Central Executive Committee. 79 In his campaign, supported by Erdogan, Giil emphasised intra-party democracy and the need for competition. 80 Despite all these pressures and manipulations, Giil lost his bidding with a very small margin; he got 521 votes as opposed to 633 for Kutan. Such a close race was the harbinger of the inevitable split within the FP. I.!t~ convenient QPP-0r!llJJit}'..came_with.the..banning_of the FP by the Constitutional Court on 22 June 2001. While the traditionalists formed the I:~lit:!t:yJ~arty. (S~), the mOQernist~ i~e_di~t_~li-gi!rj~~fii~ ~O:~kIOr-a'new p..at:ty..The AKP was officially established_ou_14.August 2001. The··Couri:cil of Founding Members was composed of 74 members of whom 13 were women. Erdogan was among the founding members even though the Prosecutor General objected to his becoming a founding member because of his prior conviction. The Prosecutor General also objected to six women founding members because they wore headscarves. 81 As of 16 August, 51 deputies joined the AKP, as opposed to 48 who chose the SP.82 The Founding Members unanimously elected Erdogan as party leader and also elected the Central Executive Committee, while the parliamentary group unanimously elected Biilent Arm~, another leading figure of the modernists, as the chairman of the parliamentary group.83 In slightly more than one year between the formation of the AKP and its impressive victory in 3 November 2002 parliamentary elections, the pa'll: ~l:!:~d to project a new and more inclusive image, e~y.!t.?si!!.igg its differ_ences-w~aiiOnaG)jiaoiik :i:~a~ft(Qr~'fhese Ideological differences will be analysed in the next chapter.

r

2

The AKP's ideology Conservative democracy

The ideologica.l differences between the Adalet ve Kalkmma Partisi (AKP) and the predecessor Islamist parties are real and profound. The AKP rejects any continuity with the 'national outlook' parties and describes itself as a 'conservative democratic' party, even refraining from using the 'Muslim clem.9:cr~y"-,abeI -lilIact, thebegiririings"of -i:ne-"ideologiCaTmmsformation within the Islamist camp in Turkey can be traced back to the short-lived FP as was explained earlier. However, the AKP has carried this trend further to such an extent that it has become hardly distinguishable from the traditional Turkish centre-right parties. The AKP's programme and the 2002 and 2007 election platforms, as well as numerous statements by its leaders strongly emphasise such universal values as democracy, human rights, the rule of law, limited goverrunent, pluralism tolerance and respect for diversity. Thus, the AKP's Constitution describes the" Republic 'as the most important acquisition of the Turkish nation' and asserts that 'the will of the nation is the only determinant power'. The party 'considers the will of the nation, the rule of law, reason, science, experience, democracy, the fundamental rights and freedoms, and morality as the main references of its conception of goverrunent.' The AKP 'acknowledges and respects all the birthrights of people, such as having different " beliefs, ideas, races, languages, the right of expression, the right of association, and the right to live. It considers that diversity is not (a source of) differentiation, but our cultural richness that reinforces our solidarity.' The AKP believes that national will can be sovereign only when political rights are freely exercised, and in turn, free exercise of political rights can only be realised in a pluralist and participatory democratic society. The AKP emphasises freedom of expression for everybody and the right to live according to one's beliefs. The state should not favour or oppose any belief or thought, and the guarantees of this understanding are the constitutional principles regarding secularism and equality before the law. In the field of economy, the AKP aims at establishing a free-market economy with all its institutions and rules and recognises the role of the state in economy only in a regulatory and supervisory capacity.l

The AKP's ideology 21

Similarly, the AKP's programme called 'Development and Democracy Programme' strongly emphasises democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. Thus, it is asserted that 'freedoms constitute the foundation of democracy' and that respect for individual rights and freedoms is the basic condition for the establishment of social peace and well-being, as well as for. the acceptance of a democratic political regime by the people. It promises to bring the human rights standards in Turkey to the level envisaged by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the European Convention of Human Rights, Paris Charter, and Helsinki Final Act. It specifically mentions the freedom of thought and expression, the right to information, the right to seek justice and to a fair trial. The AKP's· notion of democracy is more pluralistic than majoritarian in contrast to that of the RP. The importance of tolerance, dialogue and respect for minority rights are constantly emphasised. Thus, it is stated that competition among different political choices is an indispensable condition of a healthy democratic system, and that the majority's will is not absolute. Majorities must, under no condition, interfere with the fundamental rights and freedoms, and must respect the rights and freedoms of those in minority; the constitutional protection of minority rights is an element that reinforces the pluralistic character of democracy. The AKP's programme makes frequent references to the need of strengthening civil society organisations and to enhancing their role in policy making at the central and local levels. 2 The party's 2002 election platform 'Her~ey Tiirkiye ifi:in' (Everything is for Turkey) also emphasises the universality of human rights, the Copenhagen criteria, freedom of thought and expression and freedom to economic enterprise. Its 2007 election platform, 'Nice Ak Ylllara' (To Many Bright Years) broadly reiterates the same values. l With regard to secularism, the AKP Programme supports it much more clearly than did the former Islamist parties. Thus, it is stated that while religion is one of the most important institutions of humanity, secularism is a sine qua non condition for democracy, and the guarantee for the freedom of religion and conscience. 'Secularism allows people of all religions and beliefs to practise their religion in peace, to express their religious convictions and to live accordingly, but also allows people with no religious beliefs to organize their lives in their own direction. Therefore, secularism is a principle of freedom and social peace.' The AKP is against the exploitation of religion and ethnicity for political purposes, and finds it unacceptable to use religion in order to obtain political, economic and other benefits, as well as using it as an instrument of pressure on people with different beliefs. On the other hand, the AKP regrets the attitudes and practices which hurt or discriminate against pious people on account of their religious choices and ways of life. Last but not least, the AKP regards Atatiirk's principles and reforms as the most important vehicle for raising Turkish society above the level of contemporary civilisation and considers them an element of social peace.4

22

Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey

To assess the AKP's attitude toward secularism, one must distinguish between the two conceptions of secularism prevalent in contemporary Turkey. One may be called 'assertive secularism' whose ultimate aim is to privatise and individualise religion and to ban or limit its visibility in the public space. The other, 'passive secularism' which is prevalent in most Western democracies, 'implies state neutrality towards various religions and allows the public visibility of religion ... Passive secularism opposes any established doctrine that defines the "good" for its citizens, either religious or nonreligious, whereas assertive secularism regards secularism itself as an established doctrine to be promoted.'s The first is rooted in the Kemalist revolution and advocated by the military, a large part of the judiciary, and currently the main opposition party, the Republican People's Party (Curnhuriyet Halk Partisi (CHP)), while the centre-right parties (Democrat Party (DP), AP, ANAP, DYP) have traditionally leaned towards the second. Perhaps the best expression of assertive secularism can be found in some decisions of the Constitutional Court. Thus, the Court stated, in its decision banning the RP that secularism is not separation of religion and state, but 'separation of religion and worldly affairs ... It means separation of social life, education, family, economics, law, manners, dress codes; etc. from religion.' It is beyond a political regime, it is 'Turkey's philosophy of life.'6 The wide gap between these two conceptions of secularism means that the , AKP's ideology is in conformity with passive secularism, but not with an Islamist world view which aims at Islamicising the society by using the coercive power of the state. 7 The AKP clearly rejects the latter. Erdogan has stated that the AKP, 'while attaching importance to religion as a social value, does not favour a (style of) politics based on religion, the transformation of the state on an ideological basis, and organization on the basis of religious symbols. Politics based on religion, using religion as an instrument, and pursuing an exclusionary policy in the name of religion will harm both social peace and political pluralism, as well as religion. There is a very serious difference between being a party which attaches importance to religion and to the pious people and accepts the social functions of religious values, and being a party which aims to transform the society by force with the aid of the state apparatus by transforming religion into an ideology.' Erdogan also rejects the notion of a political party as a 'political community which radicalizes politics', a clear reference to the practice of the older Islarnist parties. 8 However, th~ gap between the assertive and passive conceptions of secularism also explains the fears and suspicions of assertive secularists regarding the AKP. Such circles frequently claim that the AKP is an Islarnist party with a 'hidden agenda' of establishing an Islamist regime in Turkey. Now it is involved in a game of 'dissimulation' (takiyye) in order to gain a legitimate place in the political system and to consolidate its power. Such bitter and heated debates attest to the fact that Turkey is still very far from arriving at a consensus on the true meaning of secularism.

The AKP's ideology 23 As regards the reorganisation of the state, the AKP is in favour of preparing an entirely ne~ based on the notion of a 'social contract' between the state and SOCiety, in conformity with the principles of democracy and the rule of law and the standards of democratic countries. This constitution will not be an attempt at 'constitutional engineering', but will reflect people's will and demands on a democratic basis. The programme does not go into details about the outlines of the proposed constitution, except to say that the section on fundamental rights and freedoms will be in conformity with universal standards, the principle of the separation of powers will be strictly adhered to, and the possibility of appointing all ministers (with the exception of the Prime Minister) from outside the legislature will be explored. The programme also promises a new Law on Political Parties where party prohibitions will be regulated in conformity with the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights and the Guidelines of the Venice Commission, and party candidates will be nominated by way of primaries in which all registered party members can participate. The Party Programme and its 2002 election platform also emphasise decentralisation and the need to increase the powers and financial resources of local government units. The 2007 election platform is more specific about the party's promise for a new constitution. It describes the new constitution as 'civilian' and as a 'social contract'. It should protect fundamental rights and liberties in the most effective way in accordance with the standards of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights, while preserving the unamendable basic characteristic of the Republic such as the democratic, secular, and social state based on the rule of law. The platform promises to regulate the relations among different branches of government in line with the parliamentary model and to redefine the powers of the President accordingly. The new constitution should be based on the broadest possible 1\ consensus.9 The AKP started to work on the new constitution even before the \ 22 July 2007 elections, as will be described in Chapter 5. The programme's section on the economy declares the party's commitment to a functioning free-market economy with all its rules and institutions, and aims at limiting the state's role in the economy to a merely regulatory and supervisory function. The programme as well as the 2002 and 2007 election platforms support privatisation and the encouragement of foreign investments in Turkey, as well as a more equitable distribution of i i income. 1o Thus, the AKP's economic policy clearly differs from the 'Just ; : Order' concept of the RP. "\' \ On foreign policy, the programme emphasises the importance of Turkey's ties with the United States, European countries and the European Union, " NATO, and the Central Asian Turkic Republics. The AKP sees accession to the European Union 'as the natural outcome of our modernisation process'. The implementation of the economic and political criteria of the EU will be 'an important step in the modernisation of our state and society'. The AKP criticises the delay in the implementation of the EU criteria caused by the

24

Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism ill Turkey

ideological approaches of the anti-EU forces on the basis of such concepts as national sovereignty, national security, national interest, national and local culture. The AKP's programme also attributes a special importance to Turkey'S relations with Islamic countries. J J On the basis of its programme, the AKP seems hardly distinguishable from a conservative or liberal party of the Western type. With its emphasis on social justice, a more equitable distribution of income, human rights, and its commitment to multiculturalism, it may even be compared with a European-style social democratic party of the third way. J2 Although the party describes itself as 'conservative democrat', there is not much emphasis on conservative values in the programme, except for the passages supporting family values and emphasising the need to strengthen the family. The party's views on conservative democracy are more clearly elaborated in a document entitled 'The AKP and Conservative Democracy', written by Erdogan's advisor Yah;m Akdogan, and published and distributed by the central headquarters of the party. In his introduction to this document, Erdogan stated the AKP's opposition to the notion of a party in the form of a 'political community which radicalises politics', evidently referring to the practice of the older Islamist parties. Erdogan also criticises a second type of political party which he terms 'political corporations', namely parties that lack any political principles and aim at the distribution of public rent" among its supporters. Erdogan claims that the AKP has become 'the undisputable single force on the centre-right'. He also makes it clear that the AKP's understanding of conservatism is not against change, but it advocates change 'in the sense of development and progress'. 'The AKP emphasises a modern conservatism open to innovation, in place of the conservatism of the past which was built on the status quo. The AKP advocates a change based on an evolutionary, gradual, and natural societal transformation. The AKP's understanding of conservatism is not the preservation of the existing institutions and relationships, but the preservation of certain values and acquisitions. Such preservation does not mean being closed to change and progress, but means adaptation to development without losing the essence. '13 Throughout the 'Conservative Demoracy' manifesto, such democratic and liberal values as limited government, the rule of law, the centrality of the individual, free market economy, strong civil society, universal human rights, the importance of dialogue and toleration are constantly emphasised. 14 These values suggest more a liberal than a conservative ideology, IS although the AKP leaders do not like to use the liberal label,16 perhaps because in the Turkish popular parlance liberalism is sometimes associated with excessive permissiveness or lax behaviour. The AKP's conservatism can best be described as an attitude in favour of natural and evolutionary change, and a posture against social engineering. Erdogan makes this clear when he states that 'all efforts that impose or order certain principles and aim at a homogeneous society, or are based on social engineering are obstacles to a healthy democratic system ... Our

The AKP's ideology 25 identity as conservative democrats makes us oppose all kinds of social and political engineering. '17 In his speech at the First General Congress of the AKP on 12 October 2003 he also gave certain clues about the party's understanding of conservative democracy. Thus, he claimed that the AKP substituted a notion of politics based on compromise and reconciliation in place of a politics based on conflict, and describes the AKP's democratic conservatism. as representing the 'societal centre'. He sees democratic ,conservatism as a means to bridge the gap between the state and society, to unite the centre with the periphery. In his views, there is no conflict between republican and democratic values, and he points out to Kemal Atatiirk as the source of republican values, which should' remain 'as our firmest foundations'. Finally, he repudiates religious, ethnic, and regional nationalism as the 'red lines' of the AKP.18 The AKP's programme has given rise to different interpretations. Understandably, the hard-core secularists view the AKP's programme and other policy statements as an exercise in dissimulation. They see the AKP as ,a disguised Islamist party with the aim of slowly intrQducing a sharia-Ei.ased . government. But even when such excessive suspicions are discounted, there

Eill..mJlaiQ~Q..~!~~~Qrco:-nTu~~:w~~~miE2.ut~~.1lli£jl.~ One such criticism is the vagueness of the concept of conservatism. Indeed, conservatism does not have an ideological blueprint in the same sense as socialism or liberalism. Conservative values have been articulated in different ways in different historical contexts. Thus, while old conservatism is based on the support for monarchy, the church, the family, respect for· social hierarchy, reliance on traditions and experience rather than reason, and preference for a limited, orderly, and gradual change, the new conservatism of the American and British version combine liberal and conservative values. 19 Indeed the centre-right parties that have dominated most of the multi-party period in Turkey have also articulated a synthesis of conservative and liberal values. 20 The foregoing analysis suggest that the AKP's version of conservative democracy maintains this synthesis, perhaps with a somewhat l heavier emphasis on Islamic values. In this sense, one does not find a fundamental difference between the AKP's ideology and those of the older centre-right parties (DP, AP, and ANAP). Indeed there seems to be a strong element of continuity among the ideologies of the successive Turkish centre-right parties, from the DP to the AKP. The DP, AP, ANAP, and DYP were characterised by a combination of Turkish nationalism, sensitivity to traditional and Islamic values, a commitment to technological modernisation (developmentalism) while preserving conservative social values, and a constitutiency service-oriented conception of the party (as opposed to the tutelary approach of the CHP). In this sense, the conservatism of the Turkish centre-right has been 'cultural conservatism' rather than conservatism as a political ideology. The MSP-RP line was a deviation from this centre-right tradition. While this line preserved many of the components of the centre-right mentality, i.e. a combination of

26

Isiamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey

Islamism, nationalism and developmentalism, it differed from the rest by transforming and radical ising conservatism into an Islamic political ideology. ,Now the AKP appears to have returned to the old centre-right tradition with its de-emphasis on Islam as a political ideology.21 Critiques emphasising the vagueness of the AKP's ideology point out to the possibility of its becoming a catchall party without a clear-cut political ideology. Thus, it has been argued that one can hardly elicit from the party programme and other policy statements 'how the party would define this essence, which values are the ones to protect, who will select them, and how the party expects to pursue the selective transformation'.n A related criticism is that the party is engaged in a 'politics of avoidance' , by not addressing such sensitive Issues as the headscarf Issue directly. Such ambiguities in party policies, it is argued, 'precludes a debate on the possible ways in which Islam can be incorporated into the Turkish public sphere without being marginalised'.23 It may be argued, however, that such ambiguities as may exist in th~_AKP'sjdeolQgy l::).r.g~ly_derive from ti}e inherent vagJIeness-otrhe.. s:oi1serv~tive ideology itself. As pointed out above, conservatism developed in different ways in different historical and cultural contexts, without an authoritative blueprint. Besides, all centre-right parties in Turkey, from DP to ANAP, while attempting to combine liberal and conservative values, have never tried to develop a rigid and cohesive ideology. In this sense, the behaviour of the AKP is in line with Turkey's political traditions. Likewise, the criticism that the party kept silent on Islam and 'has established itself as a pro-Islamic party without any overt association to, or discussion of, Islam'24 does not seem to be well founded. To do otherwise would have been repeating the past mistakes of the predecessor Islamist parties. It could have caused a violent clash between the party and the secular establishment endangering the very survival of Turkish democracy. The AKP's defence of passive secularism is the only realistic policy that would avoid such a clash at the same time meeting the expectations of a great majority of Turks. This does not mean that the AKP 'will not bring religious issues to the political arena'. But it will do so 'as a matter of basic rights ... not as an issue of religion and religiosity' as seen in the case of its defence of the abolition of the ban on the wearing of headscarves in universitiesY A somewhat similar critical assessment describes the AKP's notion of conservative democracy as 'ambiguous' and 'con£used~ pointing out to the inconsistencies between repJiSentative and participa~;;;y principles, between commitment to individual rights and liberties and an organic view of society, between a concern for social justice and the relegation of the responsibility for its maintenance to civil society rather than the state, and between participatory principles and a technocratic approach to politics. Thus, it is concluded that the AKP represents a 'Third Way' not between neo-Iiberal andsocial-democraticpolitics,butbetweenneo-liberalandreligio-conservative values. 'This is especially so since in its attempt to forge a conservative democratic identity the party pays speciaLatt~~ti
The AKP's ideology 27

Islam - as asocial entity a_nd garLgf tradition, rather than an ideological approach:"" with democracy.'26 Evenlrinese-cfltlcisms are taken at their face value, it has to be pointed out that such doctrinal inconsistencies as may exist are also found in the .,policies of all Turkish centre-right parties from the DP, to the AP, ANAP, !and DYP and that they reflect the inherent inconsistencies in the values of a , majority of Turkish centre-right voters. The most that can be said is that the AKP's commitment to liberal and pluralist values seems stronger, and its sensibilities to religious values deeper than the past or present centre-right parties. On the other hand, its difference£ with the predecessor Islamist parties in the fields of democratic freedoms, pluralism, secularism, economy and foreign policy are much more pronounced as explained earlier. It may be concluded that the AKP was able to forge a new identity for itself which no longer can be called an 'Islamic' identity.27Thus, a Turkish political sci~ entist describes the AKP as 'Islamic in name, liberal in practice, democrat in attitude, and westernist in direction'. 28 If the ideological differences between the AKP and the predecessor Islamist parties are so profound, then our most important task will be to explain the causes of this transformation. It will be argued that this transformation is the outcome of the combination of several factors. The most frequently cited among them is the learning process that ensued from the 28 February events and its aftermath. The forcing of the Erbakan government out of office and the subsequent prohibition of the RP by the Constitutional Court was a turning point in the history of the Islamist movements in Turkey. As a result of this process, many former Islamist politicians seem to have reached the conclusion that challenging the secular state in Turkey is a dead-end street involving serious political, economic, and personal risks. This is seen in the much more moderate and circumspect discourse of the successor FP as analysed above. Furthermore, during the brief life span of the FP, the ideological conflict between the so-called modernists led by Erdogan and the so-called traditionalists led by Erbakan loyalist Recai Kutan was marked and profound. Even before the closure of the FP by the Constitutional Court and the founding of the AKP, the leaders of the modernist faction made their misgivings about the national outlook policies amply clear. For example, Bulent Arm~ (presently the Speaker of the Grand National Assembly) criticised the pre-1980 national outlook parties for having followed a 'religious and radical discourse' and pointed out to the lack of intra-party democracy within the RP.29 On another occasion he said that 'if we are to be realistic we should not come up against and clash with the military.'30 ~- Thus, the sudden pro-Western and pro-EU turn of Turkish Islamists 31 and their growing commitment to democracy and human rights can be considered a protective shield against the repressive actions of the secularist _establishment. In the words of a Turkish political scientist, 'Islamists r~~l~sed the legitimizinKP..QweL.aJ1_ _~L viJ:t!1!U:~.f democra~y_ ....o._.Ihey_.saWlhat they Could sUrvive-only in a country that is democratically oriented, respectsCi;n --,,--_ .• -.--.--~ ....-...--.-.-.--. - .... '. - ..-- .•. -.-~'--' -." _.- ................... ---.------,--'--

_._-------

28

lslamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey

and political rights, and moreovr::~i!.i_~~~~~~_ i!lW.. !.rre Wt:stern world, \ particufarlL!~C: European Union ... The shift from anti-Westernism -to i; "Europhllia is based. ::-onan-ooservation that the more Turkey was distanced 1\ from the West - and the EU in particular - the stronger would be the " dominance of the army that treated the Islamic groups as an anomaly and '\ threat. '32 A second, and related, consideration on the part of former Islamists might have been to safeguard their social and economic networks that suffered considerably during the 28 February process. Thus, it is argued that 'the threatened Islamists have become more interested in keeping Islam's social and economic structures intact as the bases for social "conservatism". Therefore, ideas for a "social" rather than a "political" Islam have gained ground ... The JDP, realising that the rise of political Islam was detrimental to Islam's social and economic influence in Turkey, defined itself as "conservative-democrat" in an attempt to escape from the self-defeating success of political Islam.>33 In addition to the learning process associated with the 28 February events, the transformation of Turkish political Islam can also be explained by the changes in Turkey's social and economic structure in the last decades. Ozal's neo-liberal economic policies as well as the effects of globalisation gave : rise to an increasingly powerful Anatolian Islamic bourgeoisie. Yavuz describes the ideology of this emerging bourgeoisie as 'socially Islamic' and i, 'economically liberal',34 and sees itas 'the prime agentofthis transformation. '35 :, Oni§ argues in the same vein that globalisation has created in Turkey, as " elsewhere, winners and losers. The secret of the success of the RP and now the AKP was their ability to forge a cross-class coalition that included both the winners (the emerging Islamic Anatolian bourgeoisie) and the losers (the working class, poor recent urban migrants). He continues to argue that 'the fact that the winners of globalisation are part of the broad electoral coalition also explains, in part, why Islamist politics in Turkey has been evolving in a moderate direction in recent years, because these groups, far more than the poor and underprivileged strata of society, have a lot to lose from open confrontation with the secular establishment and the state elites.'36 A good case in point is the increasingly strong support given by MUSiAD (the leading Islamist-Ieaning businessmen organisation) to the AKP government's reform and democratisation policies as well as its pro-EU efforts. The transformation of political Islam is observed not only at the political party level but also in the changing attitudes of Islamist intellectuals. While the old Islamists categorically rejected such notions as democracy, human rights, modernity, and progress as inherently Western and alien to Islam, now the saIl!e ~ple sp_~l< iI!.. terms of liberalism, democraf:Y.: and hUIJ!an rign~~~£A see..l~ J~~Y..~~~: s~i~;:r, Thus~'tor" exarnpie' Aii Buf~~,~al;~ing Islarnist intellectual, observes that since 1997 'the events that turned many people's life into a nightmare led the people see the EU as a saviour'. He furt,her argues that 'only EU membership provides the opportunities for

r

Tbe AKP's ideology 29 improving the state of human rights, democracy and the rule of law in Turkey' and criticises the Kemalist secular elite for resisting to the adoption and implementation of the Copenhagen criteriaY Our analysis so far has essentially relied upon the statute, programme, and other official documents of the AKP. It may well be argued that such documents are of limited value in understanding the true nature of the party, since it is always possible that they may hide its real intentions. Thus, some radical secularists in Turkey view the AKP with suspicion and suspect that the party's ultimate objective is to establish an Islamic Republic based on the sharia. However, the party's performance in government does not lend support to such gloomy predictions. The AKP government's performance in major policy areas will be analysed in the subsequent chapters. It suffices to say here, however, that on the basis of the foregoing analysis, it is difficult , to characterise the AKP as an Islamist, or even as a 'post-Isla mist,' 'new II Islamist', or 'moderate Islamist' party. Ideologically, it is much closer ·to the 1centre-right tradition in Turkey than to the previous 'national outlook' par.\\ ties, despite the Islamist pedigree of many of its top leaders. Its religiously 1inspired conservatism is more cultural and social than political or ideologiI cal. The AKP is clearly sensitive to religious beliefs and life-styles of its supporters and keen on to open up new opportunity spaces for them in social and public spheres. However, it does not seem to have the intention to use the state power to Islamise the society and politics. The eclectic nature of the AKP's ideology, even according to some observers its lack of an ideology, has led to criticisms both from the radical Islamist camp and from some liberal critics. However, given the particular features of Turkish politics, this may be the only realistic and the most politically rewarding option for the AKP. After all, ideological purity and consistency has never been a distinguishing mark of the Turkish centre right. Similarly, the criticism that the \ label 'conser~ative ·democrat' i~ a misnomer does. n~t seem to be convincing, f\ for the AKP IS both conservative and democrat In ItS own way. It has been III ~ightly a~gued t~at this label 'gi~es an identity ~o the par~ witho~t disturb!~ Ing the mternatlOnal commuruty and secularIst establIshment In Turkey ~!i while at the same time assuring its Islamist electorate that Islam continues 'I· to play an important role in the party's identity and policies'.38 -==::'~~.:-::!~

3

The AKP's social bases A new centre-right coalition?

This chapter will start with an analysis of the religio-conservative attitudes among Turkish voters from which the AKP draws its strength. This will be followed by an analysis of the dominant social cleavages in Turkish politics to shed light on the AKP's electoral base. Finally, an attempt will be made to describe the characteristics of the AKP voters on the basis of 2002 and 2007 parliamentary elections.

Religio-conservative attitudes among Turkish voters The great majority of Turkey's population consists of devout and practising Muslims. In a nationwide survey conducted in 1999, 96.9 per cent of the respondents described themselves as Muslims; only 3 per cent did not belong to any religion. Although 81.8 per cent described themselves as Sunni Muslims and 5.5 per cent as non-Sunnis, 9.9 per cent, a relatively high figure, did not know whether they were Sunnis or not (for the nonSunni, heterodox Alevi section, see later, pp.78-79) Similarly, very high percentages of the respondents stated that they worshipped regularly. Thus, 91 per cent reported that they fasted every day in the month of Ramadan. Of the male respondents, 84.2 per cent attended Friday prayers, and 91.9 per cent religious holiday prayers. However, the percentage of those who regularly pray five times a day is much lower at only 45.8 per cent. 1 A follow-up survey carried out in May 2006 by the same authors revealed that religiosity was on the rise. Thus, between 1999 and 2006 the percentage of people who consider themselves 'very religious' rose from 6 to 13 per cent. Similarly, the percentage of those who define their identity primarily as Muslims (as opposed to Turk, citizen of the Republic of Turkey, Kurd, Alevi or others) increased from 35.7 to 44·.6 per cent. The percentage of people who approved of religious parties also increased from 24.6 to 41.4 per cent. When asked to place themselves on a ten-point secular-Islamist scale, 20.3 per cent put themselves in the secular camp, 23.4 per cent in the middle and.48.5 per cent in the Islamist camp, although the percentage of extreme Islamists (scale value 10) was only 10.3.2

The AKP's social bases

31

Perhaps the acid test of political Islam is the degree of support for a shari'a-based government. The 1999 <;arkoglu-Toprak survey referred to earlier puts the percentage of shari'a supporters at 21.2.3 Their 2006 survey, however, puts this figure at 8.9 per cent. The latter survey shows that 76.2 per cent of the respondents were opposed to a shari'a-state, and 14.8 per cent did not answer or did not have an opinion. 4 Thus, interestingly, while religiosity seems to be on the rise, support for a shari'a-state has declin~E-.ili~J:pJy lIithe last decade. These fiilclings are supported by those of three· other surveys conducted 6y TOSES, a leading social democratic think tank. A 1996 TOSES survey showed that 26.7 per cent of the respondents wanted a shari'a-based government, while 58.1 per cent said no, and 15.2 per cent were undecided or did not have an opinion. In a 1998 survey by the same organisation, the percentage of pro-shari'a voters fell to 19.8 per cent, while 59.9 per cent were against and 20.2 per cent were undecided. Finally, in a 2002 survey, the percentage of pro-shari'a voters was only 9.9; those who were against constituted 60.7 per cent and the undecided respondents were 29.4 per cent. s Interestingly, the sharp fall in the percentage of the pro-shari'a voters did not correspond to a similar rise among the anti-shari'a voters, but there was a substantial rise in the undecided or no opinion category. This may be due to the confusion resulting from the prohibition of the Refah Partisi (RP) and the Fazilet Partisi (FP) by the Constitutional Court and to the different attitude of the AKP with regard to religion and secularism. The 2006 <;arkoglu-Toprak survey showed, however, that the percentage of antishari'a voters rose to a respectable 76.2, while the undecided category shrank to 14.8 per cent. This may have resulted from the AKP's refusal to engage in a religiously based politics. Furthermore, it may be argued that all pro-shari'a voters may not necessarily favour the literal application of all the shari'a rules. When asked about the more specific rules of the shari'a, the percentage of the pro-shari'a voters fell considerably. For example, while the 1999 <;arkoglu-Toprak survey showed the total of pro-shari'a voters as 21.2, only 10.7 per cent were in favour of polygamy, 13.9 per cent were in favour of divorce in accordance with Islamic rules, and 14.0 per cent favoured the application of Islamic rules in matters of inheritance. 6 These findings demonstrate that the hard-core or fundamentalist Islamists as measured by the support for shari'a currently constitute about 10 per cent of the total electorate. Interestingly, this figure is very close to that of those who placed themselves in the extreme Islamist box in the secular-Islamist self-identification scale. Furthermore, contrary to the perceptions of the hard-core secularists, this group is not getting bigger, but smaller. Thus, according to the 2006 <;arkoglu-Toprak survey, 61.3 per cent of the respondents did not believe that Islamic fundamentalism aiming at establishing an Islamist social and political order was on the rise, while 32.6 per cent perceive such a threat. Similarly, while 53.2 per cent believe that there has been a very big increase in the number of women who cover their heads, the same survey revealed that the percentage of covered women has, in fact, decreased

32

/sJamism, Democracy a11d Liberalism in Turkey

between 1999 and 2006, albeit slightly.7 These findings are interesting not only because they reveal the gap between perceptions and realities 'but also because they shed light on the degree of psychological polarisation between the secularists and Islamists. On the other hand, there are findings pointing to a reconciliation between political Islam and the secular state in Turkey. In 1999, although 42.4 per cent of the respondents thought that pious people were under repression in Turkey, this proportion fell to 17.0 per cent in 2006. Also, the percentage of those who believed that Muslims are not allowed to perform the requirements of Islam fell from 30.9 in 1999 to 14.3 per cent in 2006. 8 Another finding that lends itself to a more optimistic interpretation is the degree of support for democratic institutions and values. Thus, according to the 2006 ~arkoglu­ Toprak survey, 76.9 per cent of the respondents think that democracy is the best form of government, 79.9 per cent. support the freedom of expression, 76.6 per cent are against restrictions on the freedom to live according to one's religious beliefs, 76.1 per cent are against restrictions on the use of one's mother tongue, 73.2 per cent are categorically against torture, 61.8 per cent support the freedom of assembly and.demonstration for radical and extremist groups provided that they do not disturb public order. While these findings support the thesis that there is no incompatibility between Islam and democracy in Turkey, 26.8 per cent of the respondents rather disquietingly believe that Turkey'S problems can be solved not by elected governments but by a _ military regime. 9 . The same survey data also show that, contrary to some optimistic interpretations, Turkish Islam is neither fully supportive of tolerant attitudes nor entirely free of anti-liberal elements. The 1999 ~arkoglu-Toprak survey showed that 58.9 per cent of all respondents think. that all Muslim women should cover their heads, 57.1 per cent are against short skirts, 66.5 per cent are in favour of banning books which deny God or the Prophet, 70.5 per cent favour the banning of alcohol sales in the month of Ramadan, 62.6 per cent are against taking interest, and 66.4 per cent think that working hours should be arranged in accordance with Friday prayers. 10 The 2006 follow-up survey produced similar results. Thus, 66.2 per cent are against having a homosexual couple as their neighbours, 49.0 per cent are against an atheist family, 42.9 per cent against a Greek family, 42.0 per cent against an Armenian family, 39.1 per cent against a Jewish family and 28.2 per cent against a Kurdish family. About 69.8 per cent are against their daughter'S marriage with a non-Muslim, 66.6 per cent against their son's marriage with a non-Muslim and 50.5 per cent against their son or daughter'S marriage with a Muslim of a different section. Close to 50 per cent prefer to have a pious Muslim as his friend, to have a pious Muslim as his tenant, and to buy from a pious Muslim grocer. However, 72.2 per cent (down from 89.2 per cent in 1999) think that there may be good people among the believers of other religions. ll Such high percentages indicate that religiously inspired conservative values ~e quite-strong o~iy-a:mong the _____ '.__ .__ .. . . ··_-_··.··---0-........' ._., '.' _.. "' __ .......... _.......

not

--===-

The AKP's social bases 33 voters of Islamist partie~Q!Jtal~9~II19!!g_~h.
-W

34 Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey supporters identify themselves as primarily Muslims, as opposed to 20.9 per cent of the CHP supporters. Although close to 50 per cent of the CHP supporters believe that secularism is under threat, only 12 per cent of the AKP supporters think SO.16 These findings reveal a wide ideological gap between the AKP and its main rival CHP along the centre-periphery or secularistreligious dimension. On all these issues, the supporters of the minority centre-right parties (Nationalist Action Party - Milliyetc;i Hareket Partisi (MHP), True Path Party - Dogru Yol Partisi (DYP) and Motherland Party Anavatan Partisi (ANAP)) occupy an intermediate position. The superimposition of the class, centre-peri her and the secularistreligious c eavages has e to a particularly deep and a potentially explosive eiIvlSlon, a realCIiChotomy, in Turkish politics. As is well known, mutually reinforcing cleavages, as opposed to the cross-cutting ones, pose a partICUlarly serious challenge to democratic stability. This has become strikingly clear in the spring and summer of 2007 in the constitutional crisis over the election of a new President of the Republic, and even more so in early 2008 when the AKP majority in parliament, supported by the ultra-nationalist MHP, passed a constitutional amendment aimed at lifting the ban on wearing headscarves by female university students. While the AKP and its allies defended this amendment as a measure enhancing the freedom of religion and the right to education, its opponents branded it as the first step to destroy the secular regime and even as a counter-revolution. The present political configuration of Turkey ~ts the AKP against an alliance of the strongly secularist CHP, the armed forcesLili~fQrIJJ~LP..!'~sident Ahmei:" Necd~t Sezer (until 28 Augiist 2007), the Constitutional Court and a large part~ ~~~. Il@.~~i"~!Y"._3:!iga I!!a}
The AKP's social bases 35 Alternatively, some authors have characterised the basic cleavage in Turkish politics as essentially a Left-Right division. Indeed, there seems to be a strong correlation between the voters' self-identification on a Left-Right scale and their party preferences. Thus, Esmer argues that 'the left-right ideological position is one of the leading indicators - if not the most important one - of voter preference ... The differences are very substantial with the difference between the CHP voters on the far-left and the FP voters on the far-right of the scale being more than 1.7 standard deviations. In the face of these data, it is very hard to confirm the frequently expressed argument that, in the 1990s, the left and right have lost their meanings and have become devoid of their traditional contents:'18 It can be questioned, however, whether this correlation is more spurious than real, because it is not clear whether the voters prefer certain parties because of their selfidentification on a Left-Right scale, or because they identify themselves as such because of their identification with a certain party. Even if the correlation is not spurious, we still have to clarify the meanings of the terms left and right in Turkish politics, as they are very different from their meanings in Western democracies. Traditionally, in Western democracies, the Left-Right dimension in politics is associated with party positions on socioeconomic policies. Left parties support greater public ownership of the means of production, a stronger governmental role in economic planning, redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor, and the expansion of public social welfare programmes, while parties of the Right support the opposite. 19 Interestingly, studies emphasising the importance of the Left-Right division in Turkish politics mention none of these policy dimensions, but concentrate on cultural-religious issues. 2o Thus, Esmer reports that 'the CHP support was less than 1 percent among those who chose religious values over other alternatives and more than 18 percent among those who picked secularism as the most important value. The FP support was the highest among those who chose religious values and lowest among those who chose secularism. Nationalist values, not surprisingly, were the favourite among the MHP voters.'21 It appears that in the Turkish context, the Right refers to a commitment to religious, conservative and nationalist views, while the Left is defined primarily in terms of secularism. This observation is supported by the analyses of socioeconomic characteristics of party voters, as well as of parties' positions on socioeconomic issues. Survey research has consistently shown that the CHP vote over the years has been positively correlated with high SES and high levels of education (a paradoxical situation for a selfstyled 'leftist' party), while the vote for the Islamist parties correlated negatively with high SES and the years of schooling.22 Furthermore, it should be stressed that Turkish parties' positions on socioeconomic issues do not correspond to the standard Left-Right cleavage. The centre-right and Islamist parties in Turkey have always shown sensitivity to the plight of low-income groups and favoured a paternalistic

36

Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey

notion of the state. 2] At present, the AKP's ideology is not alien to a concern for social justice and social welfare state, as explained earlier, even though it is strongly committed to a market economy. A more recent analysis views the fundamental political cleavage in Turkey as one between conservative globalists (i.e. the pro-EU forces) and defensive nationalists (i.e. the anti-EU forces). Indeed, Turkey's accession to the EU has recently become one of the most divisive issues in Turkish politics. Thus, argues Oni§, 'a differentiation along the lines of "globalists" and "defensive nationalists" provides a more precise and meaningful distinction in understanding the recent realignments in Turkish politics.' While many groups within the defensive nationalist camp are broadly supportive of EU membership in principle, they 'tend to be uncomfortable with key elements of EU conditionality' which they see as leading to the erosion of national sovereignty and endangering the territorial integrity and/or unitary character of the Turkish state. The globalist (pro-EU) camp includes moderate Islamists (the AKP), secular liberals and Kurdish reformers, whereas the defensive nationalist coalition includes ultra-nationalists, hard-core Kemalists arid radical Islamists. 24 An interesting paradox·of Turkish politics is that a party with Islamist roots has become the leading supporter of accession to the EU and the reform process associated with it. An equally striking paradox is the increasing alienation of the CHP, the chief protagonist of Westernisation and a Western style of life in Turkey, from the objective of EU membership. This observation is supported by the findings of several surveys. The 2006 <;arkoglu-Toprak survey has established that 66 per cent of the voters believed that Turkey-EU relations improved during the AKP government. 25 Similarly, Hakan ytlmaz found in a 2006 survey that between May 2002 and January 2006 the percentage of the EU supporters among the AKP voters increased by 20 points, whereas it declined by 23 points among the CHP voters. 26 Somewhat paradoxically, however, Ali <;arkoglu has found, on the basis of his 2002 and 2004 surveys, that 'despite the clear pro-EU stand of the JDP after the election, it is clear that respondents who are supportive of Turkey'S EU membership are less likely to vote for the JDP compared with the RPP. Similarly, respondents intending to vote for the JDP are skeptical toward Western countries' and 'supportive of the building of better relationship with the Muslim countries.'27This finding indicates a significant degree of difference between the leadership and voters of both parties regarding the EU-orientedpolicies.

Social bases of the AKP: 2002 elections Analyses of the voter base of the AKP demonstrate that the party is not a direct descendant of any of the older parties; nor do the party leaders claim such lineage. A 2002 pre-election survey showed that only 27.4 per cent of the AKP voters ·had voted for the FP in 1999; a surprisingly high

The AKP's social bases 37 21.9 per cent had voted for the ultra-nationalist MHP, 9.2 per cent for the centre-right ANAP, 7.3 per cent for the centre-right DYP and 6.9 per cent for the centre-left Democratic Left Party (Demokratik Sol Parti (DSP)). Similarly, 57 per cent of former FP voters, 30.5 per cent of former MHP voters, 16.8 per cent of former DYP voters, 16.7 per cent of former ANAP voters and 10.8 per cent of former DSP voters expressed their intention to vote for the AKP in the 2002 elections.2s These findings are corroborated by those of two other survey research organisations, Ankara Sosyal Ara!itirmalar Merkezi, Ankara Centre for Social Research (ANAR) and Stratejik Ara!itirmalar Merkezi, Centre for Strategic Research (SAM), in surveys carried out in October 2002.29 Thus, the AKP seems to have received substantial support from the former voters of the two centre-right parties (ANAP and DYP) and those of the ultra-nationalist MHP, in addition to more than half of the former Islamist FP voters. The rest of the latter seem to have remained loyal to the Erbakan tradition now represented by the Felicity Party (Saadet Partisi (SP)), which received only 2.5 percent of the votes in the 2002 elections. Surprisingly, some 10 per cent of former voters of the leftist DSP also indicated their intention to vote for the AKP. On the basis of these findings, it may be concluded that the AKP appears to have successfully rebuilt the Ozal-ANAP coalition,_ bringing together former centre-right voters, modecife'-Islamists, moderate nationalists and even a certain segment of the former centre left. Indeed, ANAP maintained this coalition for two legislative term~,(12.83-91), when itformed a single-party government and played a vital iole'iii developing a free-market economy open to international competition and in normalising politics following a period (1980-83) of stern military rule. The ANAP coalition started to weaken in the 1990s for reasons beyond the scope of this work and currently the party is reduced to a clearly minor party status. The ideological similarity between the AKP and the centre right (DYP and ANAP) voters is also supported by <;arkoglu's analysis. Thus, according to the self-placement of voters on a Left-Right scale, the AKP voters were found to be closer to the centre-right (DYP and ANAP) than to far right (MHP and FP) in both the 2002 and 2004 surveys. Another supportive finding that emerges out of his work is that, parallel to the increase in the AKP votes between 2002 and 2004 (local elections), the percentages of centrist and centre-rightist voters have grown (from 31.9 to 39.1 and from 18.8 to 20.8, respectively) while those of extreme right have shrunk from 24.1 to 17.3. Thus; he concludes that 'looking at the comparison of those respondents who intend to vote for the ]DP [AKP] with those of for the NAPIFP [MHP/SP] we see that as leftright self-placement scores move to the right of the spectrum, the likelihood of voting for the]DP declines significantly ... The fact that]DP voters are very close MP [ANAP] and TPP [DYP] voters and considerably toward the centre compared with NAP [MHP] voters should be emphasised here. Ideologically speaking, the differences between the NAP and]DP voters are much larger than these found between]DP and MP as well as TPP voters.'30

38

Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey

Just as the AKP is a coalition of diverse political forces, it is also a coalition in the sociological sense. Most students of the AKP have described it as a 'cross-class' coalition encompassing a large part of the rural population, artisans and small traders in the cities, urban slum-dwellers and the rapidly rising Islamic bourgeoisie. 3! Yavuz sees the 'new emerging bOl!!:: geoisie rooted in Anatolia' as the driving force of this coalition.32 Similarly, InSel-aescr"lbes--ale-ARP""as 'the-poliiicarrepresentative new middle class' comprising provincial artisans and traders, small and mid-range entrepreneurs and young business executives, although he adds that the AKP also receives votes from a good portion of the working c1ass. 33 Oni§ sees a connection between the role of the new Islamic bourgeoisie within the AKP and the AKP's moderate policies in government: 'The fact that the winners of globalisation are part of the broad electoral coalition also explains, in part, why Islamist politics in Turkey has been evolving in a moderate direction in recent years, because these groups, far more than the poor and underprivileged strata of society, have a lot to lose from open confrontation with the secular establishment and the state elites.'34 At any rate, the AKP coalition seems to be a rather heterogeneous one, both socially and politically. Only as time goes by will it be seen whether the AKP will be able to maintain it in the long run, a formidable task which the ANAP failed to accomplish. As regards the attitudinal characteristics of the AKP voters, it appears that conservative-religious values are more prominent among them than among Turkish voters in general. A 2002 survey indicated that 30 per cent of all respondents think that all Muslim women should cover their heads, while 64 per cent think that this should be left to the individual. Among the AKP voters, these percentages are 45 (considerably higher than the national average) and about half, respectively. The same survey revealed that 65 per cent of the AKP voters were in favour of regulating adultery according to Islamic law; similar percentages are 52 for matters of inheritance, 57 for abortion, 51 for crimes and 72 for parent-children relations; 60 per cent of the AKP voters are against payment of interest.3s Similarly, <;arkoglu has found that the AKP voters are more religious than the CHP and the DYPI ANAP voters, but not different from the MHP/SP voters. 36 The AKP government's unsuccessful attempt to recriminalise adultery in autumn 2004 can be considered a gesture to its conservative voter base. A 2006 survey shows that issues related to Islam and secularism are still the most divisive issues in Turkish polities. For example, while slightly over half of the respondents see the AKP as a party that believes in democracy (53.7 per cent), a party that defends fundamental rights and freedoms more than other parties (50.8 per cent), and a party that protects the rights of people with an Islamic way of life more than other parties (53.3 per cent), a substantial portion of them see it as a party that intends to impose an Islamic way of life (50.3 per cent), that seeks EU membership to legitimise an Islamic political system (45.2 per cent), that did not soften the Islamist-secularist

orr-he

The AKP's social bases 39 conflict (44.4 per cent), that seeks to infiltrate the bureaucracy with Islamist cadres (43.8 per cent), and that intends to reverse the advances concerning women's rights (36.7 per cent). Despite this polarisation in voters' perceptions, some other findings of the same survey point out to a certain degree of softening and convergence on these issues. For example, while the proportion of those who believed that religious people were repressed was 42.4 per cent in 1999, this percentage fell to 17 in 2006. Similarly, while 30.9 per cent of respondents felt in 1999 that religious people were not allowed to perform the prayers required by Islam, the percentage of this group shrank to 14.3 in 2006.37 Given the fact that the Islamist-secularist cleavage is one of the most important obstacles to the consolidation of Turkish democracy, such convergence, albeit still limited, augurs well for the future.

Social bases of the AKP: 2007 elections The events leading to the early parliamentary elections of 22 July 2007 demonstrate the degree of polarisation in Turkish politics. The conflict between the AKP and its secularist opponents reached a crisis point in the spring of 2007 over the election of a new President of the Republic. Under the Constitution, the election required a two-thirds majority of the full membership of the Assembly on the first two rounds, but only an absolute majority on the third and the fourth rounds, a minimum of 367 and 276 votes, respectively. The Constitution specified no special quorum for the meeting of the Assembly concerning presidential elections, in which case the general rule in Article 96 should apply, i.e. the quorum should be one-third of the full membership (184 votes). The parliamentary arithmetic then gave the.majority AKP the power to elect its own candidate on the third or fourth rounds, but not on the first two rounds. Thus, there seemed to be no constitutional obstacle to the election of an AKP candidate. At this point, however the major opposition party, the CHP, and some jurists put forward an argument that the two-thirds majority was not only the decisional quorum but also the necessary quorum for the opening of the session. After the first round on which the two-thirds quorum was not obtained because of the boycotting by the opposition deputies, the CHP carried the case to the Constitutional Court. Just a few days ago before the Constitutional Court's ruling, on 27 April, the Chief of the General Staff office made public on its internet site the following stern declaration: 'In recent days, the problem that came to the fore in the presidential election process is focused on a debate concerning secularism. This situation is followed with concern by the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF). It should not be forgotten that the TAF is party in this debate and the firm defender of secularism. Furthermore, the TAF will express its position and attitudes openly and clearly whenever it is necessary. The TAF maintains its unswerving determination to fully perform its duties given to it by

40

Islamism, Democracy and Libel·a/ism in Turkey

laws to protect these features.' The army's memorandum was accompanied by a series of well attended mass meetings in major cities starting with the 14 April meeting in Ankara where the AKP government was strongly protested. Some participants of the mass meetings even called for a military intervention to 'save the secular Republic.' The Constitutional Court in an extremely controversial ruling rendered on 1 May 2007, endorsed the claim of unconstitutionality.38 The ruling put an end to the election process, and the ensuing deadlock obliged the parliament to call new parliamentary elections as required by the Constitution. However, before the elections scheduled for 22 July, the AKP deputies proposed a constitutional amendment package that involved changes in five articles and the addition of two provisional articles. The proposal involved the shortening of the legislative period from five to four years, the popular election of the President of the Republic for a maximum two five-year terms, and an amendment to Article 96, according to which the meeting quorum shall be one-third of the full membership for all businesses 'including elections.' The amendment package was designed with a view to prevent the re-occurrence of the parliamentary deadlock in the election of the President. The amendment was carried to the Constitutional Court by the outgoing President Ahmet Necdet Sezer and the CHP deputies. But this time the Court rejected the claim of unconstitutionality on 5 July 2007. 39 Meanwhile, President Sezer had already submitted the amen,dment to referendum as he was entitled to under Article 175 of the Constitution, and on October 21, the amendment was adopted with a 68.95 per cent majority with a turnout rate of 67.51 per cent. The reasons behind the deep political and constitutional crisis over the presidential elections, which is normally a routine business in most parliamentary republics are two-fold. One is related to the threat perceptions of the secularist state elites alluded to above. They considered the office of the presidency as a symbol and 'the last citadel' of the secular republic and reacted strongly to the election of a formerly Islamist politician. The second reason was the fact that the 1982 Constitution endowed the President with broad discretionary powers, especially in the fields of high-level judicial appointments and in the appointment of university administrators. Thus, it was feared that presidential powers may be used to infiltrate the judiciary, the universities and the public administration in general with Islamist elements.40 The parliamentary elections held on 22 July 2007 resulted in a landslide victory for the AKP which obtained 46.58 per cent of the votes with 341 seats. The CHP which contested the elections in collaboration with DSP finished second with 20.88 per cent of the votes and 112 seats and the MHP won 70 seats with 14.27 per cent of the votes. The independents, mostly members ofthe Kurdish Nationalist Democratic Society Party (Demokratik Toplum Partisi (DTP)) who ran as independents to overcome the 10 per cent national threshold for political parties, won 26 seats with 5 .24 per cent of

The AKP's social bases 41 the votes. 41 The AKP was the first party that increased its percentage of votes in its second term of office after the electoral victory of the Democratic Party (DP) in the 1954 elections. The election results were generally viewed as a popular endorsement of the AKP's policies, particularly in the economic field as the country experienced high rates of growth during its first term. The elections were held· under the shadow of the constitutional crisis over the presidency. The opponents of the AKP, encouraged by the high levels of attendance at the mass protest meetings, hoped to be able to oust the AKP from power and substitute a CHP-MHP coalition for it. In the words of a leading Turkish journalist, 'since April 2007 Turkey entered into an almost football game atmosphere. This was not an ordinary game, but a final that will determine the fate of the country. In a sense, the victor would become the sovereign of the country and the defeated team would lose its rights to speak.'42 Predictably, the el(!ction results came as a great shock to the state elites, this time accompanied by a sense of helplessness. After their last-ditch efforts to prevent the election of the.AKP candidate Abdullah Giil as the President of the Republic failed on August 28, the polarisation reached new heights when the AKP majority in parliament, supported by the ultra-nationalist MHP and the Kurdish nationalist DTP, adopted a constitutional amendment designed to lift the ban on the wearing of headscarves by female university ·students. These developments will be dealt with in greater detail in Chapter 6. As expected, voting studies displayed a high degree of polarisation in the 2007 election campaign, particularly between the AKP and the CHP. Thus, a post-election survey shows that for 55 per cent of the AKP voters, the CHP is a party they would never vote for, and 60 per cent of the CHPvoters would never vote for the AKP. The presidential crisis seems to have increased the polarisation, as 15 per cent of the voters reported that the question of the presidency was foremost in their minds during the election process; in fact, this issue ranked highest among all issues. 43 Pre- and post-election surveys broadly confirmed the observations made on the 2002 elections. Thus, the AKP voters are more religious, more rural, less educated and poorer than the eHP voters, MHP and other small parties generally occupying a middle ground. Thus, 59-60 per cent of the AKP voters pray more than once a week as opposed to 23-24 per cent of the CHP voters; those who never or almost never pray constitute 13-14 per cent of the CHP voters and only 2-3 per cent of the AKP voters. 44 Similarly, 59 per cent of the AKP voters·as opposed to 15 per cent of the CHP voters think that religious books are more important than scientific findings in understanding our world and the universe. Forty-seven per cent of the AKP voters as opposed to only 10 per cent of the CHP voters believe that religion and worldly affairs cannot be separated from each other. Eighty-three per cent of the AKP voters in contrast to 14 per cent of the CHP voters think that it is a sin for a woman to wear a bathing suit on a beach or at a poolY The AKP and the CHP voters also differ sharply from each other in terms of income, occupation and education. Thus, those with an educational level

42

Islamism. Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey

of middle school or lower constitute 76.7 per cent of the AKP and 49.1 per cent of the CHP voters; conversely, 20.3 per cent of the CHP voters are university graduates as opposed to only 4.7 per cent of the AKP voters. Occupationally, the AKP is relatively stronger among workers, farmers and housewives, while the CHP is relatively stronger among public employees, private sector employees, professionals, retired people and students. In terms of income, 62 per cent of the AKP voters are in the two lowest quintiles as opposed to 38.1 per cent of the CHP voters, and only 10 per cent of the AKP voters are in the two highest quintiles as opposed to 26.3 per cent of the CHP voters. The AKP seems to be a more rural party compared with the CHP. Thus, 36.3 per cent ofthe AKP voters reside in rural areas (45.7 per cent of all rural voters) while 23.8 per cent of the CHP voters live in such settlements (12.2 per cent of all rural voters).46 Regionally, the CHP vote is above its national average in the more developed Marmara and the Aegean regions, while the AKP is above its national average in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia, i.e. in the least developed regions. 47 Indeed, one of the most noteworthy characteristics of the 2007 elections was the particularly strong showing of the AKP in the largely Kurdish populated Eastern and Southeastern regions. Between 2002 and 2007, the AKP raised its votes from 17 to 63 per cent in Agn, from 31 to 71 in Bingol, from 17 to 58 in Bitlis, from 15 to 41 in Diyarbakl!, from 6 to 33 in Hakkari, from 17 to 41 in Kars, from 15 to 43 in Mardin, from 17 to 48 in Siirt, from 22 to 59 in ~anhurfa, from 25 to 53 in Van, from 20 to 46 in Batman, from 11 to 40 in Ardahan, from 6 to 28 in Igdlr, from 14 to 27 in ~lrnak and from 16 to 38 in Mu§. These gains were mostly at the expense of Kurdish nationalists, represented by DEHAP in 2002 and by independent candidates in 2007 who formed the parliamentary group of a new Kurdish nationalist party, the DTP, immediately after elections.48 Clearly, the AKP has become the only national party that can compete with Kurdish nationalists in these regions, where the two major opposition parties, CHP and MHP, are almost absent. Indeed, the AKP increased its votes substantially not only in the southeast but also in all the seven geographical regions of the country. This increase is from 29.3 per cent to 38.8 per cent in the Marmara region, from 27.7 to 40.8 in the Aegean, from 31.3 to 38.3 in the Mediterranean, from 39.3 to 51.8 in the Black Sea, from 44.2 to 55.6 in Central Anatolia, from 24.9 to 49.1 in Eastern Anatolia and from 25 to 52 in Southeastern Anatolia. It is also the first party in 63 out of a total of 81 provinces; the CHP is the first in five, MHP in two, and the independents (mostly Kurdish nationalist) in six provinces.49 The AKP's showing is much better in the poorer districts of the major cities than in the more well-to-do ones, while the picture for the CHP is completely the opposite.so Although these findings demonstrate that the bulk of the AKP voters come from the relatively lower strata of Turkish society,this does not change the fact that the AKP is a truly cross-class party wlill b-road support in every

The AKrs social bases 43 region and among many different social segments. It also does not negate the observation that the main driving force behind the AKP is the rising Anatolian conservative middle class. It is also worth noting that the AKP's candidate selection in the 2007 elections suggests a deliberate effort to move to the centre. It was reported that many deputies from the national outlook tradition were not renominated, and at present there were some 90 such deputies out of a total of 341, while it was estimated that some 100 deputies represent a liberal worldview. Nearly 70 deputies previously represented such centre-right parties as ANAP and DYP. The new'AKP parliamentary group even includes some prominent former leftists, such as Ertugrul GUnay who was a former secretary-general of the CHP and became the minister of culture and tourism in the new AKP cabinet.51 With the almost complete elimination of the DYP (renamed DP) and ANAP, the AKP seems to be solidly rooted in the centre-right to centre of -~----the political spectrum.

4

Party organisation

Party organisations under the Law on Political Parties The Turkish Political Parties Law, adopted in 1983 by the then-ruling military regime, is probably the most detailed one of its kind in the whole of Europe. It contains not only party prohibitions but also exceedingly detailed regulations on party organisation, registration, membership, nominations, discipline and party finance. Consequently, all Turkish parties have very similar organisational structures imposed upon them by the Law. Thus, at all levels, chairpersons and the executive committees are elected by their respective congresses composed of delegates chosen by registered members. The central organs are the Grand (General) Congress, party president (leader), the central executive committee and the central disciplinary committee. The Grand Congress is the highest decision-making body; it elects the party president, the central executive committee and the central disciplinary committee. Local organisations consist of province, sub-province (county) and municipality organisations (all settlements with a minimum of 2,000 inhabitants are entitled to have a municipal organisation). The law does not permit party organisation below the sub-province or municipality level. Thus, there are no legal organisational units at the village or urban neighbourhood level. However, parties usually get around this prohibition by appointing informal party representatives or even representative committees at the village or urban neighbourhood levels. At the province and sub-province levels, party chairpersons and the executive committees are elected, respectively, by the province and sub-province congresses. As regards the nomination of parliamentary candidates, Article 37 of the Law leaves the choice of the candidate selection method "to party statutes. However, if a party decides to hold pClmary elections to seiect its candidates, such elections are to be held under judicial supervision. The current practice in almost all parties is to have its candidates selected by its central executive committee, where the influence of the party leader is paramount. The Political Parties Law also contains certain provisions concerning the parties' parliamentary groups. Under Article 27 of the Law, pa~liamentary groups may take binding group decisions. Article 28 stipulates that the decisions

Party organisation 45 concerning a vote of confidence or no-confidence for a minister or the Council of Ministers can be taken only by the party's parliamentary group. Thus, although legally speaking, the parties' central executive committees does not have the power to take binding decisions on matters of vote of confidence, in practice both organs work together closely and both are dominated to a large extent by the party leader. The AKP is no exception in this regard.

The AKP's organisational structure The AKP's organisational structure closely conforms to this overall design.! The Party's highest decision-making body is the Grand Congress. The Grand Congress is composed of delegates chosen by provincial congresses and ex-officio delegates. The ex-officio delegates are composed of the Party Leader, members of the Central Decision-Making and Executive Committee, the Chairperson and members of the Central Disciplinary Committee, founding members, ministers and deputies who are party members (Statute, Article 62). The Congress is authorised to elect the Party Leader, the Central Decision-Making and Executive Committee, the Central Disciplinary Committee and the members of the Intra-Party Democracy Arbitration Committee. It also has the power to change the party's statute and programme, to take binding or non-binding decisions on public issues and party policies, and to decide on the dissolution of the party (Statute, Article (1). The Grand Congress meets not more often than every two years and at least every three years (Statute, Article 63). The Central Decision-Making and Executive Committee is the second highest authority in the party. It is composed of 50 members (and 25 substitutes) elected by the Grand Congress by secret vote. It is presided by the Party Leader and meets at least once every month (Statute, Article 73). It is authorised to make decisions on party policies and all organisational matters including decisions to form a government or to leave a coalition government (Statute, Article 148). However, as in all Turkish political parties, the party leader exercises a paramount influence within this Committee. As regards party leadership, the AKP's Statute introduces a novelty by limiting the tenure of the leader to four ordinary terms (i.e. 12 years at most) (Statute, Article 75). Within the Central Decision-Making and Executive Committee, a smaller body called the Central Executive Committee assures the daily functioning of the party. It is composed of the Party Leader, Vice Chairpersons (at present there are 11 Vice-Chairpersons), the Secretary General, the Chairperson and the Vice Chairpersons of the Party Parliamentary Group (Statute, Articles 79-82). It may be concluded that, together with the party leader, the Central Executive Committee is the most powerful body in the party. Theoretically speaking, one may expect to observe frictions between the Central Executive Committee and the Council of Ministers when the party is in power. There are no legal obstacles to ministers also

46

Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey

serving as members of the Central Executive Committee. In practice, however, these posts are generally separated. Bearing in mind the paramount influence of the Party Leader, the chances for such frictions developing between the two bodies are quite negligible. Another novelty of the AKP's Statute is the establishment of Intra-Party Democracy and Arbitration Committees at the central and provincial levels. These Committees are authorised to find friendly settlements to conflicts among party members or party organs arising out of their party functions (Statute, Articles 98-102). At the local level, the AKP's organisation consists of municipal, subprovincial and provincial congresses and executive committees. The smallest unit is the municipal organisation consisting of the municipal congress, the municipal chairperson and the municipal executive committee, all elected by the municipal congress (Statute, Articles 21-27). However, below the municipal level, party representatives or representative committees can be appointed at the urban neighbourhood, village and polling district levels. The polling district committees are composed of one chairperson and nine members, three of whom are from the main party organisation, three each from the women's and youth organisations. The polling district chairpersons also serve as election observers on the voting day. In addition, provincial executive committees may establish electoral committees to conduct electoral activities within the constituency (Statute, Article 19). The subprovincial and provincial party organisations are organised along the same lines consisting of a delegates' congress, a chairperson and an executive committee elected by the congress (Statute, Articles 28-60.). The AKP, like most of the other Turkish parties, also has youth and women's organisations at all organisational levels (Statute, Articles 83-87). Again, as most of the other Turkish political parties, the AKP has a highly centralised and hierarchical organisation. This is partly a function of the Political Parties Law, and partly one of Turkish political culture, which encourages strong central and personalistic leadership. Thus, although local organisations cannot be dismissed as mere appendages of limited usefulness, they are largely dominated by the central bodies. As was pointed out earlier, this organisational model, largely imposed by the Political Parties Law, is more or less standard for all Turkish political parties. What distinguishes a party from others is, therefore, not the formal organisational features, but the organisational culture. We had argued elsewhere that most Turkish political parties combine certain 'characteristics of cadre, catch-all and cartel parties, with strong c1ientelistic features. The only Turkish political party that deviated from 'this pattern and approached the characteristics of a mass party was the Welfare Party (RP), one of the predecessors of the AKP. What distinguished the RP from the others was the strong ideological and emotional attachment of the members (a devotee party in Duverger's terminology) and the party's intense efforts at indoctrination, mobilisation and intra-party' education.2 A pertinent question is

Party organisation 47 whether the AKP maintains the same organisational culture. The AKP's Vice-President, interviewed by one of the authors, indicated that this was not the case and that the AKP members do not have quite the same ideological and emotional motivations. At any rate, according to his estimate, only some 12-15 per cent of the AKP members were previously RP or FP members.3 If one criterion for a mass party is the number of members, the AKP can still be said to be approaching the mass party model. As of May 2008, the AKP reportedly had 3,688,761 members, of whom about 1,200,000 are women. (According to the party membership registers kept by the chief Public Prosecutor, this' figure is about 3,100,000; the ,difference is because the Prosecutor's Office requires citizenship numbers, and for some members, such information was not yet obtained.) Thus, the member/voter ratio is 22.7 according to the party figures and 19.1 according to official party registers. This is a very high-membership (members/voters) ratio compared with most European standards. Earlier research had shown, however, that membership ratio is generally high for all Turkish parties. Thus, a 1996 survey had evinced that 12.1 per cent of all voters were members of a political party.4 Such inflated figures may raise doubts about their accuracy. However, nowadays, party membership registers are also kept by the Prosecutor General of the Court of Cassation, which definitely should increase their reliability. Another explanation may lie in the clientelistic nature of Turkish political parties. A majority of party members see their membership as a means to obtain personal, sometimes quite small, sometimes highly substantial, benefits from their parties, particularly when they happen to be in the government. A good example is the Motherland Party (ANAP), which was the government party between 1983 and 1991, and still seems to have more than six million registered members, although it received only 5 per cent of the vote in the 2002 elections (about one fifth of the number of its registered members). A third factor is the efforts by the local party officials to register their friends and members of families to augment their delegate base. But, perhaps, a more convincing explanation is that most Turkish party members do not clearly distinguish between being a party member and being a mere supporter. Party membership in Turkey entails certain rights, but almost no obligations to the party, including paying membership dues. Thus, in all Turkish parties, only a very small portion of party income comes from membership dues, and the AKP is no exception in this regard. Still, the AKP's membership figure of more than 3 million does not seem to be unrealistic. Party officials state that about 300,000 of them perform some active party duty, such as being deputies, mayors, city councillors, members of the provincial general assemblies, members of the executive committees at the central, provincial, sub-provincial and municipal levels; village, neighbourhood and polling district representatives; members of the executive committees of women's and youth organisations at all levels, etc. This figure indicates a highly active and vibrant party life, and it does not include ordinary militants who have no official public or party positions.

48

Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey

Political education Probably one of the most important differences between a mass party and a cadre or catchall party is the emphasis given by the former to intra-party education and indoctrination. The AKP is far ahead of other Turkish politi"Cal parties in this regard. One of the party vice-presidents is in charge of 'research and development' (AR-GE) activities. It organises specialised training and education programmes for members of the local organisations, mayors and mayoral candidates, deputies and the party staff. Some of their main activities between 2003 and 2007 are as follows: (a) A provincial organisations training seminar was organised on 5-25 December 2003 in which 2081 provincial and sub-provincial leaders from all 81 provinces (provincial chairpersons, memb~rs of the provincial executive committees, chairpersons of the women's and youth organisations and chairpersons of sub-provincial organisations) attended. Courses were given on fundamental rights and political principles, the economy, public administration, social policies, foreign policy, party organisation, effective communication and body language. (b) A seminar was organised on 30 April-10 May 2004 for the newly elected AKP mayors. Courses were taught on conservative democracy, strategic planning, law on municipalities, city culture, public administration reform law and the draft law on local government. (c) A seminar was organised for the deputies between January and June 2004 on such subjects as leadership, effective communication and body language. (d) A provincial organisations seminar was org~nised between 30 April and 12 June 2005 in 12 different localities. Courses offered included those on economic and social policies, foreign policy, the AKP's political identity and party organisations. A total of 1,861 provincial leaders from all 81 provinces attended this two"day seminars. (e) Training seminars were organised between 23 July and 23 September 2004 for the staff members of the party's Central Office. (f) Another provincial organisations seminar was organised between 12 June and 8 August 2006, which 1,022 members attended. (g) On 16-22 September 2006, a seminar was organised to 'educate the educators' in which some 500 members took part. The aim was to employ them in their provinces and sub-provinces for local education seminars with the hope of eventually reaching at least 200,000 members. The educators were provided with books and CDs on economic and social policies, party political identity, foreign policy, elections and party organisations. (h) As a preparation for the forthcoming 2009 local elections, the AKP launched, in February 2008, the 'Political Academy-Local Government Programme' , to train prQspective candidates and other interested

Part)' orga7zisatiol1

49

persons for local government posts. The two-month programme offers c;:ourses on Turkey's political and administrative structure, local government, history of municipal government, legal regulations concerning local government, financial management "in municipalities, voting behaviour and political communications in local elections, problems of urbanisation, managerial ethics, public relations, city planning, environmental management, etc. The programme aims to reach a total of at least 12,000 persons. At the end of the first round of the programme, some 5,000 participants received their certificates, of whom about 30 per cent were women. The programme was paid and open to nonparty members as well.

Local organisations Local organisations of the AKP seem to be more active, more highly motivated and more elaborately organised than those of other Turkish political parties. To gain a better understanding of their workings, one of the present authors had a long interview with Mr. Cahit Altunay, the chairman of the Gaziosmanpasa sub-province (ilc;e) organis"ation.5 Gaziosmanpasa is one of the largest and most populous sub-provinces of Istanbul with more than one million inhabitants and 527,000 registered voters. It is a generally poor area of Istanbul, inhabited mostly by workers and small traders. It includes five municipalities, 29 neighbourhoods and 1,726 polling booth districts (each serving about 300 voters). The AKP received 45 per cent of the vote in the 2002 elections, and 55.38 per cent in the 2007 elections, both significantly higher than the party's national averages. The organisational structure is highly elaborate. Below the sub-province executive committee, there are three other organisational levels: municipalities, neighbourhoods and polling districts. The neighbourhood executive committee is composed of 11, and the polling district committee of nine members (three of whom come from the main party organisation, three from the women's and three from the youth organisations). This means that, within the sub-province, there are about 15,500 actively working members. Given that there are a total of about 85,000 registered members (and an additional 10,000 in the registration process) in the sub-province, these are quite impressive voters/members and ordinary members/active militants ratios. Polling booth district committees are the nerve ends of the organisation that reach the ordinary voters. Each committee member is responsible for some 30-35 voters. They aim to contact all voters regardless of their party sympathies, and in this, they also enlist the help of the ordinary AKP members. The polling district committees meet once or twice in a month. In addition to this general organisational pattern, there are also specialised auxiliary committees at the sub-province level, such as health, education, social affairs, economy, civil society organisations and disabled persons'

50

Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey

committees. A large part of the party organisation's activities consist of ~idingAnd infor.!!iiiig-vo-:-(~rs of tQ~;Vi!tiQ.!lS ~9:.~i~!~~p-[Qitamnies.J::..Wl=.._

ducted bYJh~,g;J1tr?Lg9.Y~rnm{:ruJSocial Solidarity Fund), the metropolitan ~unicipai government and local municipalities. Through such programmes, food, coal and cash aid and various other forms of assistance are provided to needy families, supposedly regardless of their party affiliations. Thus, the chairman reported that hot meals are provided to 2,500 families daily by the municipality, and 85,000 families were provided with green cards (free medical care). In all these activities, party organisation plays a guiding, informing, mediating and facilitating role. The fact that sub-province municipal government is also in the hands of the AKP obviously facilitates such coordination. The chairman of the sub-provincial party organisation is at the same-time the chairman of the AKP group in the municipal council, even though he is not legally a member of the latter. He is also a member of the Istanbul Provincial General Assembly. These personal contacts allow the party organisation to benefit from certain public services provided by the municipal and provincial administrations. The party organisation also maintains close contacts with the likeminded NGOs (associations, foundations, etc.) active in the sub-province. Just as at the national level, intra-party education is an important dimerision of local party activities. In addition to the courses given to party's poll-ing booth representatives on electoral matters, regular courses are provided for party activists to improve their communication skills with voters. The courses are also provided at the sub-province level organised by the vicepresident of the sub-province organisation responsible for political affairs. These courses that focus on the party philosophy and policies are given by university professors and high~level party functionaries, and attended by the members of the sub-province and neighbourhood committees and members of the municipal council. A sub-provincial consultative council comprising about 600 activists meets once every month to discuss organisational and other local matters. The chairman of the Gaziosmanpasa party organisation reported that in his sub-province about 30 per cent of all members previously served as members in the RP or the FP. The rest came from other centre-right parties (ANAP and DYP) or those without a prior party membership. The chairman, himself a former RP member, also commented on the difference between the organisational cultures of the RP and the AKP. In his view, the AKP organisation was less ideological and more service-oriented compared with that of the RP, and he explained this by the fact that the AKP is now the governing party and therefore has to be at equal distance to all voters. Communications between the central bodies and the local organisations seem to be highly effective. The party officials claim that the AKP is the party that uses computer facilities most efficiently in Turkey. For example, the chairman of the Gaziosmanpasa sub-province organisation reported that the results of the 22 July 2007 elections were instantly computerised

Party organisation 51 by 30 computer operators, and the final results were obtained by midnight. A good example of the use of computers, as well as of the AKP's efforts to maintain close contacts with its members and supporters, is the AKP Communication Centre (AKiM). This centre receives complaints and requests from members and non-members, processes them, transmits them to relevant authorities and informs the petitioners of the outcome. The fully computerised AKiM has been functioning for more than five years and has so far received 602,856 applications, 97 per cent of which were processed and answered (99 per cent of a total of 243,283 applications received since a new programme was introduced on 14 August 2006). AKiM centres are also established in all 81 provinces and in some of the major sub-provinces.

Competitive strategy and campaign politics The AKP's main competitiV:l!-strategy_se.e.ms._to.beJ~as_e9_ on capturing and maintaining the centre-right votes. The centre-right parties have always dorninatea-Tiirkis-lf-politiCs-sirice the transition to a multi-party system in 1946-1950. The erosion of the two once-powerful._ce.!J,tre.-rightparties (ANAP and DYP) for a number ofreasonsgav.ethe-AJ

52

/s/amism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey

Like all other parties, the AKP attributes a special importance to the organisation of electoral campaigIis. A booklet called 'Guide to Elections' prepared by the central office of the party is intended to inform all campaign workers of the intricacies of the highly detailed Turkish election laws. 6 Another guide-book prepared for the 2004 local elections gives more practical advices on how to organise the campaign. Thus, it is emphasised that only the standard campaign materials prepared by the central office of the party can be used by local organisations, hinting at the highly centralised character of the campaign. Campaign workers are also advised to wear proper attires, to display a warm and friendly attitude toward voters, to refrain from unnecessary debates with voters, to refrain from demeaning other parties or candidates, to employ different discourses for different categories of voters, and to maintain close contacts with the local NGOs. Campaign workers are warned against expressing their own personal opinions instead of those of the party. 7 In addition to the activities of local campaign workers, the party leadership, particularly Mr. Erdogan, was very active both in the 2002 and 2007 parliamentary and the 2004 local election campaigns.

Part II

The AKP in government

5

Democratising reforms and constitutional issues

The AKP government from its early days gave priority to the twin objectives of democratisation and the promotion of Turkey's membership in the European Union (EU). The prospects of such membership provided a strong stimulus for democratising reforms; however, these reforms were also a response to Turkish society's demands for a more liberal democracy and higher standards of human rights. Democratising reforms were accomplished at the constitutional and legislative levels.

Constitutional amendments Under the original text of Article 76 of the 1982 Constitution, those who have been convicted, inter alia, of involvement in 'ideological and anarchistic actions' were not eligible to become deputies. Parallel to this provision, the Electoral Law made conviction on account of Article 312 of the old criminal code an obstacle to eligibility for parliam~nt. This Article made hate speech on the basis of differences of social class, race, religion, sect or region a criminal offence, and Tayyip Erdogan had been convicted to a prison term in 1998 for having allegedly violated this provision by reciting a poem to incite people to hatred and hostility. Therefore, he was not eligible for membership of parliament in the 2002 elections. The constitutional amendment adopted on 26 December 2002 replaced the term 'ideological and anarchistic actions' with 'terror actions.' Thus, a more concrete and legally definable term was substituted for an extremely vague and broad term. This constitutional amendment, also supported by the major opposition party, the CHP, opened the way to Tayyip Erdogan to get elected to parliament in a bye-election and to assume the premiership. The constitutional amendments of 2004, also passed with the support of the CHP, were far more consequential and they involved ten articles. By these amendments, the death penalty was completely abolished. The death penalty had already been restricted to crimes committed during the war and the imminent threat of war, and terror crimes, by the constitutional amendments of 2001, and the terror crimes exception had been eliminated on 9 August 2002. Now, the total abolition of the death penalty removed the

56

Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey

constitutional obstacle to the ratification by Turkey of the 13th Additional Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights. By die same amendments, three other references to the death penalty in Articles 15, 17 and 87 of the Constitution were also deleted. . Another important amendment involved Article 90. It was stipulated that, in the case of a conflict between domestic laws and international agreements concerning fundamental rights and liberties, which were duly put into effect, international agreements shall take precedence. Previously, Article 90 had stipulated that international agreements, which were duly put into effect, had the same value as domestic laws. Although this had been a subject of heated academic debate in the constitutional and international law literature in Turkey, the dominant view was that, in the case of a conflict between domestic laws and international agreements, the rules 'lex posteriori derogat legi anteriori' (posterior law takes precedence over earlier laws) and 'lex specialis derogat legi genera Ii' (special law takes precedence over general laws) would apply. The present arrangement puts international agreements on fundamental rights and liberties somewhere in between constitutional norms and ordinary legislation, as in the case of France. With this reform, a much more effective application of the European Convention on Human Rights and other international human rights instruments by Turkish courts will be ensured. Also contributing to the supremacy of international law over domestic laws is the change made in the last paragraph of Article 38. While the original text of the Article stated that no citizen shall be extradited to a foreign country on account of an offence, now an exception to this rule was made concerning the obligations stemming from being a party to the International Criminal Court. Thus, the constitutional obstacle was removed for Turkey to sign this Convention. Another important reform introduced by the 2004 constitutional amendment was the abolition of the controversial State Security Courts. These courts, first created in 1973 and then reincorporated into the 1982 Constitution, were mixed courts composed of civilian and military judges and public prosecutors, designed to deal with crimes against the security of the state. The European Court of Human Rights had consisten~ly found Tukey in violation of Article 6 of the Convention in cases involving the State Security Courts, since the military judges and public prosecutors did not have the same kind of tenure guarantees as their civilian counterparts. Consequently, Article 143 ofthe Constitution was amended on 18 June 1999 to eliminate military judges and public prosecutors from these courts. The constitutional amendment of 2004 totally abolished them. Two of the changes introduced by the 2004 amendments involved the civil-military relations. Under the original text of the 1982 Constitution, the military had been exempted from the control of the Court of Accounts. This privilege was eliminated first by the Seventh Harmonisation Package adopted on 30 July 2003, and then by the constitutional amendment of 2004.

Democratising reforms and c012stitutional issues 57 The 2004 amendments also removed the military representative from the Board of Higher Education. These two adjustments, together with other more comprehensive reforms introduced by the Harmonisation Packages as will be spelled out below, were steps towards achieving a more democratic balance between civilian and military authorities. Furthermore, Article 10 was amended to reinforce the equality between sexes, already adopted by the original text of the Constitution. The amended Article states that 'women and men have equal rights. The sta~e is obliged to put this equality into effect.' The new provision opens the way for affirmative action or positive discrimination in favour of women, measures which had already been adopted in some areas in social life, such as social security legislation. Finally, by a constitutional amendment adopted on 13 October 2006 (Law no. 5551), Article 76 of the Constitution was changed to reduce the age of eligibility for parliaJ;Ilent from 30 to 25.

Harmonisation packages After the European Council gave Turkey the candidate status at its Helsinki meeting at the end of 1999, Turkey entered in a process of comprehensive democratising reforms to fulfil the Copenhagen political criteria. In addition to the radical constitutional revisions of 2001 and 2004, nine harmonisation packages were adopttid between February 2002 and July 2004. The reason they were commonly called 'packages' was that each one of them involved changes in a number of laws. The purpose was to harmonise Turkish legislation with the constitutional amendments of 2001 and 2004, as well as with the EU's 'acquis communautaires' as part of Turkey's efforts to become a full member of the EU. While some of these changes were simple acts of harmonisation with constitutional amendments, others were quite important reforms with far-reaching consequences. Three of the packages were adopted during the DSP-MHP-ANAP coalition, and six during the AKP government. The adoption dates are as follows: First Package (Law No. 4744) - 6 February 2002; Second Package (Law No. 4748) - 26 March 2002; Third Package (Law No. 4771) - 3 August 2002; Fourth Package (Law No. 4783) - 2 January 2003;" Fifth Package (Law No. 4793)23 January 2003; Sixth Package (Law No. 4928) - 15 July 2003; Seventh Package (Law No. 4963) - 30 July 2003; Eighth Package (Law No. 5101) - 3 March 2004; Ninth Package (Law No. 5218) - 14 July 2004. The most important changes made by the harmonisation packages will be dealt with below in a thematic rather than a chronologie order.!

Freedom of expression The progress reports by the EU Commission have constantly underlined the limitations on freedom of expression in Turkey. The first harmonisation package introduced relatively minor amendments to the controversial

58

Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey

articles 159 and 312 of the old Turkish Criminal Code. Article 159 on insulting the state and its institutions was amended to reduce the upper limit of punishment from six years to three years, and fines were eliminated. Article 312, which punished inciting people to hostility and hatred on the basis of differences of social class, race, religion, sect and region, was also amended. With the amendment, such expressions would constitute a criminal offence only if they might create a danger for public order. The new Criminal Code that entered into force on 1 April 2005 (Article 216) further limited the scope of this offence by using the term 'clear and present danger for public safety.' Article 159 was amended again by the Third Package adding a paragraph stating that 'those written, oral or visual expressions of thought made with the sole purpose of criticism and without the intention to insult or deride the institutions in question would not constitute a crime.' The seventh package further reduced the lower limit of the jail term from one year to six months. It has been convincingly argued that Article 159 and the corresponding Article 301 of the new Criminal Code still present major shortcomings since the words 'Turkishness' and 'Republic' are too broad and vague, and it is not easy to draw the line between insult and derision and legitimate criticism.2 Article 301 was finally amended 'in a more liberal direction on 30 April 2008 (Law No. 5759). The amendment replaced the words 'Turkishness' and 'the Republic' with the more concrete and legally definable terms 'Turkish nation' and 'the State of Turkish Republic.' Furthermore, it reduced the jail terms making it possible for the courts to defer their execution or convert them into fines. Perhaps most importantly, it made the starting of a criminal investigation subject to the approval of the Minister of Justice. Article 8 of the Anti-Terrorism Act was another major roadblock to freedom of expression. The article had prohibited written, oral or visual propaganda, as well as meetings, demonstrations and marches carried out with the purpose of destroying the indivisible integrity of the state with its territory and nation. The first harmonisation package reduced the jail terms, and the sixth package totally abrogated the article, overriding the President's veto. The reform has been praised as 'a positive development on its own in terms of ensuring effective protection of free speech.'3 The sixth package also narrowed down the definition of terror, emphasising the use of 'force and violence' as a necessary element of a terrorist act. Thus, simple exertion of pressure, intimidation, or threat no longer constitutes a terrorist act. The second, third and fourth packages brought about improvements in the field of the freedom of the press. Thus, the confiscation of printed material can only be based on a court order and in urgent cases on a decision of the public prosecutor. In the latter case, the public procecutor's decision is submitted within 24 hours for the approval of the competent judge. If it is not approved within 48 hours, it automatically ceases to be effective. The fourth package provided that the owners, general editors and authors of

Democratising reforms and constitutional issues 59 journals and periodicals cannot be forced to reveal the sources of their news items. Freedom of association The second, third, fourth and seventh packages introduced certain improvements concerning the freedom of association. Notably, the fourth package (Article 34) permitted associations to engage in international activities and collaboration, to establish branches abroad or to become members in asssociations established "abroad. Similarly, in cases where international cooperation is deemed useful and observing the principle of reciprocity, foreign associations may be permitted to engage in activities and collaboration, establish branches and join other associations in Turkey by a decision of the Ministry of Interior upon the advice of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Article 35). More recently, in July 2004, Turkish Parliament passed an entirely new law on associations (Law No. 5231). This law has rightly been characterised by a leading Turkish NGO (the Third Sector Foundation of Turkey, TOSEV) as the most liberal law on associations in over 20 years. Some of the major revisions include the following: (i) associations are no longer required to obtain prior authorisation for foreign funding, partnerships or activities; (2) associations are no longer required to inform local government officials of the dayltimeflocation of general assembly meetings and no longer required to invite a government official to general assembly meetings; (3) audit officials must give 24 hours' prior notice and just cause for random audits; (4) NGOs are permitted to open representative offices for federations and confederations abroad; (5) security forces are no longer allowed on premises of associations without a court order; (6) specific provisions and restrictions for student asociations have been entirely removed; (7) children from the age of 15 can form associations; (8) internal audit standards have been strengthened to ensure accountability of members and management; (9) NGOs will be able to form temporary platforms/iniatives to pursue common objectives; (10) government funding for up to 50 per cent ofNGO projects will be possible; (11) NGOs will be allowed to buy and sell necessary immovable assets. Freedom of assembly The seventh harmonisation package limited the power of provincial governors to postpone or ban meetings and demonstration marches. Thus, the period of postponement is reduced from two to one month, and a meeting can be banned only if there is a clear and present danger of a crime being committed (Article 20). Similarly, a governor can ban all meetings in his province for one month only in the case of a clear and present danger of a crime being committed (Article 22). The third package permits foreigners to

60 Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey hold meetings and demonstrations with the permission of the Ministry of Interior. .

Freedom of religion The third package enables the community trusts (meaning non-Muslim charitable trusts) to acquire and dispose of real property with the permission of the Council of Ministers. They can also acquire real property by way of gift or bequest (Article 4). The fourth package confirmed this right, substituting the permission of the General Directorate of Foundations for the permission of the Council of Ministers (Article 3). The sixth package recognised the right of non-Muslim communities to build places of worship subject to the permission of competent administrative authorities (Article 9).

Prevention of torture and mistreatment The progress reports of the European Commission, as well as the reports of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and many international NGOs, have stressed the widespread incidence of torture and mistreatment in Turkey. Therefore, certain reforms were made to deter such practices. The second package changed the Civil Servants Law stipulating that damages paid by Turkey as a result of the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights in torture and mistreatment cases shall be claimed from the perpetrators. The fourth package abolished the requirement to obtain the permission of the competent administrative authorities to prosecute public servants and other public employees in torture and mistreatment cases. Thus, public prosecutors can now directly prosecute the perpetrators. The seventh package provided for a procedure of speedy trial in torture and mistreatment cases stipulating that such cases shall be given priority and trials shall continue during the judicial recess. More recently, in July 2004, the Turkish parliament passed a law (Law No. 5233) that provided for the payment of damages by the state incurred as a result of terrorist actions or of the anti-terror activities of government officials.

Minority rights The third package brought about an a:lmost revolutionary change in Turkish law and mentality by permitting the use of local languages other than Turkish (the exact wording of the Law is 'different languages and dialects traditionally used by Turk.sh citizens in their daily lives') in radio and television broadcasting. The sixth package broadened this right by permitting such broadcasting both by public and private radio and television channels. The third package also permitted the setting up of private courses for the teaching of such languages.

Democratising reforms and constitutional issues

61

International protection of human rights In the third package, the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, which found Turkey in violation of the Convention, were recognised as a ground for a renewal of trial in civil and criminal courts. Such a request can be made, within one year of the final judgment of the ECHR, to the presidency of the Court of Cassation by the Minister of Justice, the Public Prosecutor of the Court of Cassation or the applicant to the ECHR, in cases where payment of just satisfaction would not redress the consequences. The decision for a retri~1 is made by the competent Plenary session (civil or criminal) of the Court of Cassation. According to the fifth package, decisions for a retrial are to be made by the competent civil or criminal court, which had rendered the original verdict. The sixth package (Article 6) extended this right to administrative cases.

Civil-military relations In addition to the constitutional amendments of 2001 concerning civil-military relations, the seventh package introduced a number of important reforms regarding the structure and functions of the National Security Council, as well as certain other aspects of civil-military relations. Under Article 24 of the Law; the Prime Minister may empower one of the Deputy Prime Ministers to submit the Council's advisory decisions and opinions to the Council of Ministers and to secure the coordination of their implementation in case they are approved by the Council of Ministers (a function that formerly belonged to the Secretary General of the National Security Council). Under Article 25, the National Security Council shall meet in every two months instead of once every month. Article 26 divests the Secretary General of the Council from most of his executive powers and limits them essentially to secretarial duties. Article 27 amends the provision requiring the appointment of the Secretary General from among high-ranking military officers; now, the Secretary General can be appOinted either from among high-ranking military officers or from among high-level civilian bureaucrats. Since August 2004, this position has been filled by civilian officials. Article 28 stipulates that the regulation on the functions of the Secretariat of the Council shall be published in the Official Gazette, thus abolishing the secrecy clause and enhancing the transparency of the Secretariat's activities. The seventh harmonisation package also makes it possible for the Court of Accounts to exercise financial supervision on state properties in the hands of the armed forces. The way in which such control is carried out shall be determined by a secret regulation to be prepared by the Ministry of National Defence and adopted by the Council of Ministers. This reform is also confirmed by the constitutional amendment of 2004, which repealed the last paragraph of Article 160 that had given the legislature the possibility to exclude the armed forces from the review of the Court of Accounts.

62 Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey Finally, the seventh harmonisation package (Article 6) stipulated that crimes regulated by Article 58 of the Military Criminal Code, cornrni"tted by non-military persons in time of peace, shall not be tried by military courts.

Other major legislation The Grand National Assembly elected in November 2002 also adopted two major codes (the Civil Code and the Criminal Code) which brought about certain significant improvements in the field of human rights. The Civil Code reinforced gender equality. Thus, equal rights were granted to spouses with regard to the age of marriage, alimony, choice of residence, equal management of the marriage union, payment of expenses, representation of the marriage union and in the exercise of ~he parental rights over children. The requirement of a court decision for the wife's undertaking certain legal transactions was abolished. The principle of partnership was adopted over the assets acquired during marriage. The new Criminal Code that went into effect on 1 April 2005 also introduced major improvements in the field of human rights, the most important of which can be summarised as follows: Genocide, crimes against humanity, immigrant smuggling and human trafficking are adopted as newly created crimes (Articles 77-80). Penalties for honour killings (Article 82) and torture crimes (Article 94) are increased. Obstruction of the exercise of union rights (Article 118) and of the right of petition (Article 121) is made a criminal offence, as well as discriminatory behaviour in economic and professional activities (Article 122). The penalty for insulting someone on the basis of his/her religious, political, social and philosophical beliefs or opinions is increased (Article 125). Eavesdropping on private conversations, violation of the right of privacy and recording of personal data are made criminal offence (Articles 133-135). Crimes against the environment are introduced (Articles 181-182). Penalties for insulting the President of the Republic are reduced (Article 299). Incitement to hatred on the basis of differences of social class, race, religion, sect or region is made punishable only if it creates a 'clear and present danger' for public security. Insulting a certain segment of the people on account of their religious values is made a criminal offence (Article 216). Thus, the process of democratic reforms, which started in earnest under the tripartite coalition government, continued during the AKP government, resulting in the liquidation of an important part of the semi-authoritarian legacy of the National Security Council administration (1980-83).

The constitutional crisis of 2007-08 and the search for a new constitution The search for an entirely new constitution was triggered by the constitutional crisis in the spring of 2007 over the question of the Presidency of the

Democratising reforms and constitutional issues

63

Republic, as was explained in Chapter 3. As a result of the deadlock over the Presidency, the Assembly decided to call new elections, and the AKP deputies proposed a constitutional amendment package that involved changes in five articles and the addition of two provisional articles. The proposal involved the shortening of the legislative period from five to four years, the popular election of the President of the Republic for a maximum two five-year terms, and an amendment to Article 96 according to which the meeting quorum for the Assembly shall be one third of its full membership for all business including elections. The proposal was strongly opposed by the CHP, but supported by the minor opposition party ANAP. Therefore, all were adopted in the second reading by more than a two-thirds majority. The amendment package was designed with a view to preventing the re-occurrence of the parliamentary deadlock in the election of the President. During the debates, the CHP deputies argued that the real intention of the proposed change was to create a semi-presidential system, since popular election would increase the political weight of the President already endowed with broad constitutional powers. 4 Indeed, the establishment of a presidential or semi-presidential system had long been advocated by such centre-right leaders as Turgut Ozal and Siileyman Demirel.5 The amendment bill was returned to Parliament for reconsideration by President Sezer on 25 May 2007. Sezer argued in his reasoning that changing the method of election of the President is not a simple procedural change, but one directly related to the political system preferred by the Constitution. The present Constitution conceives the Presidency as an impartial office, an element of 'balance and stability' vis-a-vis the power of the majority party. The proposed change means a departure from the parliamentary government system without, however, adopting the main features of a presidential or semi-presidential system; thus, it will be a system 'with no example or practice.' Sezer warned that a popularly elected President will 'easily become the dominant element of the political system', and the system will lead to conflicts and frictions within the executive. He also objected to the nomination of presidential candidates by political parties and the possibility of getting elected for a second five-year term as measures likely to weaken the impartiality of the President and to politicise his office. Finally, Sezer argued that such a fundamental change in the political system should not be introduced in haste without sufficient consideration and deliberation. 6 Upon reconsideration, the Assembly readopted the amendment bill in verbatim. All articles, expect Article 1 concerning the shortening of the legislative period from five to four years, were adopted by more than the requisite two-thirds majority (i.e. 367 votes). That Article 1 received only 366 votes led to a procedural debate on the question of the constitutionality of the voting, as will be explained below.7 This conflict over the constitutionality of the proceedings was carried to the Constitutional Court by President Sezer and the CHP deputies. The claimants argued that, under Article 175 of the Constitution, the required

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quorum for the bill upon its being returned to parliament by the President for reconsideration is two-thirds of its full membership, and that this requirement is valid for every article of the bill, as well as for the whole bill. Therefore, according to the CHP deputies, the fact that Article 1 of the bill received only 366 votes made the adoption of that Article unconstitutional; it also made the final vote on the whole of the bill (which received 370 votes) unconstitutional since the rejected Article 1 was not dropped from the bill. President Sezer went further in arguing that the adopted bill should be considered 'null and void' (in Turkish law, it is different from annulability) since the quorum rules for constitutional amendments were not complied with. Both claims were ultimately based on Article 148 of the Constitution, which allows the Constitutional Court to review constitutional amendments from a strictly procedural point of view, i.e., whether the amendment bill is debated twice and whether the quorum rules for the proposal and adoption of the amendment bill are complied with. The Constitutional Court rejected the claim of unconstitutionality, however, in its ruling on 5 July 2007. First, the Court rejected the President's claim of nullity with a nine-to-two votes majority on the grounds that procedural irregularities alluded to in the Constitution are grounds for annulment, not for nullity. Second, the Court, again with a nine-to-two majority, did not find it unconstitutional the fact that, in the first reading of the bill, a two-thirds majority was not obtained. According to the Court's reasoning, such an interpretation would make the second reading meaningless. Third, the Court argued that a two-thirds majority is not a constitutional requirement in cases of reconsideration upon the President's request. According to the Court, the requisite majority is the three-fifths of the full membership in all cases, the only difference being that if the bill is readopted by a three-fifths but less than two-thirds majority a referendum is mandatory, while if it is readopted by a two-thirds or stronger majority, referendum is left to the discretion of the President. On this last point, the Court's ruling was six-to-five.8 Meanwhile, President Sezer had already submitted the readopted amendment law (Law No. 5678) to referendum as he was entitled to under Article 175 of the Constitution. The parliamentary elections of 22 July gave the AKP a strong mandate with.46.7 per cent of the vote and 340 out of 550 seats. One of the first items on the agenda of the newly elected Assembly was to elect a President. However, given the Constitutional Court's decision discussed earlier, the same problem persisted. The AKP had enough votes to elect its candidate on the third or the fourth rounds, but not on the first two rounds. Since the required quorum for the starting of the first round was the two-thirds majority according to the Constitutional Court's interpretation, the AKP needed to secure the attendance of at least some of the opposition deputies. At this point, the second largest opposition party, the ultra-nationalist MHP, decided to attend the parliamentary sessions in order not to create a second constitutional crisis. TheMHP's lead was also followed by the Kurdish nationalist Democratic Society Party (DTP) and the

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Democratic Left Party (DSP) whose deputies were nominated on the CHP lists but resigned from the CHP immediately after the elections. The MHP and the DSP deputies attended the parliamentary sessions but voted for their own candidates, Sabahattin <;akmakoglu and Hiiseyin Tayfun ic;:li, respectively. On the third round held on 28 August, Abdullah Giil was duly elected the eleventh President of the Republic with 339 votes out of a total of 448 votes. 9 On October 21, the constitutional amendment Law No. 5678 was adopted by referendum with a 68.95 per cent lO majority and with a turnout rate of 67.51 per cent. Thus, the long drawn-out constitutional battle over the question of the Presidency seemed to be finally o:ver, but not quite. The CHP took the last (16 October) amendment to the Constitutional Court, and the Court rejected it since the claim was not related to the procedural irregularities referred to by the Constitution, i.e., whether the amendment proposal was debated twice, and whether the quorum rules on the proposal and adoption of the bill were complied with. 11 Similarly, the CHP's claim for the cancellation of the 21 October referendum was rejected by the Supreme Board of Elections. The year 2007 can indeed be characterised as a period of a series of 'constitutional battles.'12 The bitterness and intensity of these battles can only be understood in terms of the peculiarities of Turkish politics. The secularist state elites who have always enjoyed a controlling influence on Turkish politics see the Presidency as their indisputable domain and as a guarantee against anti-secular tendencies. The broad powers granted to it by the 1982 Constitution make it a particularly important prize in political competition. The secularist camp often expresses the fear that an Islamist president can gradually Islamise the Constitutional Court, the judiciary and the universities through his broad appointive powers. This fear is more dramatically expressed in the often-heard slogan that the Presidency is the last citadel of the secular Republic, which should not be surrendered to an Islamist at all costs. The secularists' and the 1982 Constitution's conception of the Presidency is an office of tutelage or a mechanism of check and balance over elected politicians on behalf of the state elites. Hence, the bitterness of the opposition to Abdullah Giil's election as the President of the Republic. The same opposition is also evident in the reaction shown to the AKP's initiative for a new constitution.

The AKP's initiative for a new constitution The AKP's 2007 election manifesto contains a strong promise for a new constitution, which is described as 'civilian' and as a 'social contract.' It should protect fundamental rights and liberties in the most effective way in accordance with the standards of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and European Convention on Human Rights, while preserving the unamendable characteristics of the Republic such as the democratic, secular

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and social state based on human rights and the rule of law. The manifesto promises to regulate the relations among different branches of government in line with the parliamentary model and to redefine the powers of the President accordingly. The new constitution should be based on the broadest possible consensus.13 The AKP started to work on the new constitution even before the 22 July 2007 elections. On June 8, Prime Minister Erdogan asked a group of constitutionallaw professors to prepare a draft constitution within the parameters in the party's election manifesto. 14 The drafting committee presented its draft to the AKP leadership on 29 August 2007, and on 14-16 September, a joint meeting between the committee members and eleven leading JDP ministers and parliamentarians took place in Sapanca, where some minor modifications were made on the draft. Some of the main novelties proposed by the draft are as follows: (a) Standards for fundamental rights and liberties are improved in the light of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Constitutional Court is empowered to annul a law that conflicts with an international human rights treaty to which Turkey is a party. Political rights are broadened by making the prohibition of political parties more difficult and abolishing the five-year political ban for individual party members resulting from the closure of their party. New rights are added such as the right to receive information, children's rights, the right to a fair trial and the right to the protection of personal data. The provision on equality is amended to allow positive discrimination (affirmative action) for women and the other disadvantaged groups. Religious education that was made compulsory by the 1982 Constitution is made optional. The protection of human dignity is emphasised as one of the fundamental duties of the state both in the preamble and in the text. (b) The principle of the rule of law is bolstered by removing certain restrictions on judicial review, such as on the decisions of the Supreme Council of Judges and Public Prosecutors, of the Supreme Military Council, and the decree-laws passed during martial law and the state of emergency. (c) The democratic legitimacy of the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Council of Judges and Public Prosecutors is strengthened by allowing the parliament to elect some of their members (8 out of 17 in the case of the Constitutional Court, and S-out of 17 in the case of the Supreme Council of Judges and Public Prosecutors). (d) The excessive powers of the President of the Republic are eliminated making the system of government much closer to a classical parliamentary model, although the popular election of the President is maintained.1S Even though the draft is incomparably more democratic and liberal than the present Turkish Constitution, it was met by strong criticism from those

Democratising reforms attd constitutional issues 67 sectors of the public opinion who are deeply suspicious of the AKP's 'hidden intentions.' Thus, it was argued that the proposed draft undermined secularism and Ataturk's principles, intended to weaken judicial independence and to politicise the judiciary, thus creating an unchecked majority rule paving the way for gradually introducing an Islamic government. For example, the Union of Turkish Bar Associations reacted by preparing a draft of its own in which they criticised the AKP's constitutional initiative for 'opening the door to the revengeful tendencies of a single party government which gives the impression of not being reconciled to the achievements of the Republic.' The Bar Associations' draft emphasised that it was natural for the Constitution 'to bear the traces of an enlightenmentalist world-view.' It proposed to put the judiciary above the elected branches of government by allowing the Constitutional Court to review constitutional amendments both from a procedural and substantive point of view. 16 The original declared intention of the AKP leadership was to present the draft (after they had finalised it) to a fairly long period of societal debate and then to present it to the parliament as a formal amendment proposal. It was hoped that debates both in the pre-legislative and the legislative stages would make it possible to reach a broader consensus. The final stage would be a referendum regardless of the extent of the majority obtained in parliament. However, the developments that will be spelled out below (Chapter 6) and possibly some differences of opinion within the AKP itself caused the project to be silently shelved at least for the time being. It is generally agreed that the AKP government's reformist and democratising zeal has considerably slowed down starting from 2005. This has led to disappointment and criticism from its liberal allies. Several possible reasons can be put forward to explain this change of mentality. First, with the start of accession negotiations with the EU, democratising reforms may have lost their urgency to some extent. Second, the ambivalent attitudes of the EU authorities and objections against Turkey'S eventual full membership voiced by such leading European leaders as Sarkozy and Merkel created a more nationalistic and anti-EU opinion in Turkish society. Third, some of the issues on the reform agenda are, by their very nature, more difficult to resolve compared with earlier reforms, such as a peaceful resolution of the Kurdish and Cyprus questions and reducing the political influence of the military. The AKP government might have been expected to move more energetically on the reform path with the renewed popular mandate it obtained in the 2007 elections. The search for a new constitution, the change in Article 301 of the Criminal Code and the adoption of a new, more liberal law on foundations (Law No. 5737, dated 20 February 2008), which replaced many restrictions on non-Muslim charitable foundations, could be considered as hopeful signs. However, the developments to be analysed in the next chapter made the fate of the reform agenda, as well as that of the AKP and the stability of the political system in general, uncertain.

6

Cultural policies Creeping Islamisation or politics of avoidance?

It has been pointed out earlier (in Chapter 2) that some observers have characterised the Adalet ve Kalkmma Partisi (AKP) policies on Islam-rela.ted cultural issues as the 'politics of avoidance'. On the other hand~ it has been observed that a majority of Turkish voters (obviously including but not limited to the AKP voters) are attached to religiously inspired conservative values. Finally, the sensitivity of the ultra-secularist state elites (including the military and judiciary) and of the main opposition party, the Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi (CHP), to demands for greater religious liberties has been an important restraining factor. Such a combination of conflicting pressures has led the AKP government to engage in a highly difficult tightrope walk. During its first term in power, the AKP government generally avoided addressing itself to such issues, except for the two abortive attempts to recriminalise adultery and to improve the chances of the graduates of imamhatip (prayer leaders' and preachers') high schools at university entrance examinations, although no attempt was made to lift the;: headscarf ban for female university students. These cautious policies lend support to the 'politics of avoidance' thesis. After its impressive victory in the 2007 elections, however, the AKP attempted to lift this ban through a constitutional amendment that led to dramatic events as described later.

Imam-Hatip schools issue After a quarter of a century (1924--49) of a total absence of formal religious education, the Imam-Hatip schools were opened in 1949 during the last year of the CHP government, as a response to growing societal demands activated by the transition to a multi-party system. Initially, they were intended to be vocational high schools to train imams and hatips (preachers). They were state schools attached to the Ministry of National Education and followed the same curriculum as regular state high schools with the addition of religious subjects. In time, their numbers increased rapidly under almost any government and their graduates were able to join any university departments provided that they passed the highly competitive university entrance examinations according to the same criteria as the graduates of the regular

Cultural policies 69 high schools. Successive centre-right governments have always supported and defended Imam-Hatip schools. For example, the former Prime Minister and President of Republic Siileyman Demirel stated repeatedly that these schools were not opened only to train imams. 'They were opened to educate doctors, lawyers, and engineers who are knowledgeable about their religion.'! The situation changed radically with the so-called post-modern coup of 28 February 1997. The new coalition government backed by the military sought to marginalise the Imam-Hatip schools by two ways. First, by introducing eight-year compulsory education, it closed down the junior highschool grades (sixth, seventh and eighth grades) of these schools, as well as those of all other vocational high schools. Second, and more importantly, by changing the rules on the university entrance examinations, 'it made it almost impossible for the graduates of these schools to enter universities, except the departments of theology. When the 28 February coup occurred, in the 1996-1997 academic year, the Imam-Hatip schools were ·at their peak, with 511,502 students. As a result of these two particular policies, the number of students at these schools decreased to 64,534 in the 2002-3 academic year.'l The AKP government made an attempt in the spring of 2004 to improve the status of the Imam-Hatip schools' graduates (Prime Minister Erdogan himself is a graduate of these schools) by adopting a law (Law No. 5171, dated 13 May 2004) changing certain provisions of the Law on Higher Education. The most important change introduced by the new law was to equalise the chances of the graduates of all vocational schools (including those of Iniam-Hatip schools) at the university entrance examinations on the same footing as the graduates of regular high schools. The law was met with a fierce reaction by the ultra-secularist circles and vetoed by President Sezer on 28 May 2004.3 One of Sezer's objections was based on Article 131 of the Constitution which empowered the Council of Higher Education to 'plan, regulate, administer, and supervise' education at institutions of higher education, and therefore the parliament had no authority to regulate the conditions of admission into universities. This was an argument of extremely dubious validity, in view of Article 130 of the Constitution that stipulated that admission into universities shall be regulated by law. Sezer's second argument is even more interesting, however, in that it represented an ideological manifesto of assertive (or radical) secularism. Sezer argued that 'the aim of the.Atatiirk revolution is to catch the age of enlightenment and to modernise Turkish society. The basis of the revolution is the principle of secularism. The principle of secularism is the foundation stone of all values that forms the Republic of Turkey ... Secularism is a civilised way of life that is the basis of a conception of freedom and democracy developed under the guidance of reason and in the light of science, as well as of nation-building, independence, national sovereignty and the ideal of humanity.' Sezer argued that to give the Imam-Hatip schools' graduates equal rights at the university

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entrance examinations was against the 1924 Unity of Education Law (one of the main reform laws of the Atatiirk period that closed down all n:!ligious schools) and therefore inconsistent with a 'concept of education based on democratic, secular, egalitarian, just, functional and scientific foundations'. Just before Sezer's veto, the Chief of the General Staff Office issued a written press release on the subject, in which the standard arguments of the ultra-secularist circles regarding Imam-Hatip schools were repeated. It was argued that the purpose of these schools was to train religious functionaries. Therefore, the adopted law violated the principles of the 'unity of education' and of 'secular education'. 'The thoughts and attitudes of the Turkish Armed Forces regarding the democratic, secular, social characteristics of the Republic are the same as were yesterday and will remain so tomorrow. Nobody should be expected to be in doubt or make a mistake about this opinion and attitude of the Turkish Armed Forces.'4 The AKP government chose not to override the presidential veto, although under the constitution if a vetoed bill is readopted by parliament by simple majority the President has to promulgate it. After promulgation, however, the President has the option of challenging the law before the Constitutional Court. Probably, the AKP government chose not to push the matter further, thinking that the Court would almost certainly agree with the President. Erdogan explained this unwillingness saying that 'the parents who sent their children to the vocational schools did not support the issue enough. The society did not stand up against the pressure. We could have sent the bill twice. But are you ready to pay the price? There is a price attached to it. As a government we are not ready yet to pay the price.'5 The criteria for entrance into universities was again a matter of debate between the government and the Council of Higher Education in the summer of 2005. However, negotiations did not lead to a compromise and the system remained as it was. 6 Interestingly, this abortive attempt has been cited as an evidence in the Chief Public Prosecutor's indictment against the AKP as an action undermining the principle of a secular state.7

The abortive attempt to recriminalise adultery Adultery was a punishable offence under the old criminal code. However, the Constitutional Court had found this unconstitutional on the grounds of different and unequal conditions for men's and women's adultery. The matter became a controversial issue when-parliament started to debate the new criminal code in the autumn of 2004. At this stage, several AKP spokespersons including Prime Minister Erdogan, Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdullah Gill, Minister of Justice Cemil <;icek, Minister of State Giildal Ak§it (the only woman in the cabinet) and Minister of Health Recep Akdag made statements in favour of recriminalising adultery on the basis of equality between genders, and subject to the complaint of· the deceived spouse. Erdogan defended the measure as one designed to protect human honour,

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family and the right of the deceived woman. He even compared adultery to theft and drug-related crimes. 8 Gul pointed out that every nation's special sensitivities must be taken into account in the EU process, and compared the adultery issue to the ban on abortions in Ireland. 9 Interestingly, the main opposition party, the strongly secularist CHP, as well as the more conservative Milliyetc;i Hareket Partisi (Mill) and Dogru Yol Partisi (DYP), initially gave support to the proposal. The CHP even proposed that public prosecutors should be able to prosecute the crimes directly, without the complaint of the wronged spouse. 10 Faced with strong reaction from Turkish liberals and the European circles, however, the CHP quickly withdrew its support. Indeed, the reaction "from the EU authorities and individual European countries was quite strong. EU's commissioner for enlargement Gunther Verheugen and his spokesman Jean Cristophe Flori criticised the proposal as damaging the positive image of Turkey in EU circles. Verheugen warned that this measure might be misunderstood in European countries as 'granting privilege to Islamic tendencies', and characterised it as a 'historical joke'.11 Many European policy-makers and the ambassadors of the EU-member countries in Turkey voiced similar criticisms. \2 TOsiAD, the leading businessmen's association, \3 and an overwhelming majority of liberal academics and journalists also joined the protest. This strong reaction encouraged the liberals and moderates within the AKP, such as Erkan Mumcu (Minister of Culture and Tourism), K6ksal Toptan (Chairman of the Justice Committee) and Burhan Kuzu (Chairman of the Constitutional Committee) to voice their objections. 14 Finally, the AKP and the CHP agreed not to bring the matter to the floor of parliament;IS as this formula did not satisfy the more conservative AKP deputies, however, the bill was withdrawn by the Justice Committee just before the final vote on it. 16 The final text of the new criminal code adopted on 26 September 2004 contained no reference to adultery, thus quietly ending the crisis. The AKP government's attitude on adultery issue reflects, on the one hand, its sensitivity to the religiously inspired conservative demands of a majority of its voters, and, on the other, its flexibility and pragmatism in the face of strong domestic and international criticisms. Its attitude on the adultery issue is, in a sense, a replica of its course on the Imam-Hatip schools issue.

The 'headscarf' amendment and the new constitutional crisis The roots of the headscarf issue go back to the mid-1980s. As a response to the practice of some university administrators of not allowing the wearing of headscarves at the universities and the rulings of the Council of State supporting their practice, the then majority party, the ANAP, passed a law (No. 3511) in 1988 to allow female university students 'to cover their hair and their necks because of their religious convictions'. The law was challenged by the then President of the Republic Kenan Evren and the

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.Constitutional Court found it unconstitutional in a highly controversial ruling rendered on 7 March 1989. The Constitutional Court argued that in a secular political system, laws cannot be based upon religious injunctions. In its reasoning, the Court defined secularism in terms reminiscent of Comteian positivism. Thus, it is argued, 'secularism has separated religiosity and scientific thought' and 'speeded up the march toward civilisation. In fact, secularism cannot be narrowed down to the separation of religion and state affairs. It is a milieu of civilisation, freedom and modernity whose dimensions are broader and whose scope is larger. It is Turkey's philosophy of modernisation, its method of living humanly. It is the ideal of humanity ... The dominant and effective power in the state is reason and science, not religious rules and injunctions.'17 Upon the annulment of the law, the ANAP majority made a second attempt by passing a law (No. 3670) on 25 October 1990 to lift the ban on headscarf-wearing at the universities. The new law stipulated that 'attire is free at the institutions of higher education so long as it is not against the laws in force'. This time the main opposition party (Social Democratic Populist Party (SDHP)) challenged the law before the Constitutional Court. The Court ruled on 9 April 1991 that the law was not unconstitutional, but it had to be interpreted in the light of the Court's earlier decision. The Court argued that the term 'laws in force' also included the Constitution itself, and as it was already established that the wearing of a headscarf was against the constitutional principle of secularism, the new law could not and did not abolish the ban. IS In this ruling, the Constitutional Court used the technique known as 'interpretation in conformity with the Constitution'. The AKP government made no attempt to lift the head scarf ban during its first term of office. Prime Minister Erdogan and other party spokesmen often stated that there was a social consensus for the lifting of the ban, but not an 'institutional consensus,' obviously referring to the opposition of the CHP, military and the judiciary, and promised that they would seek to obtain institutional consensus as well. Indeed, survey research has shown that over 70 per cent of the respondents (76.1 per cent in 1999 and 71.1 per cent in 2006) were in favour of allowing female university students to wear headscarves. 19 An institutional consensus, however, has never materialised. The headscarf issue, dormant during the first term of the AKP government, suddenly became the number one issue of the political agenda in early 2008. Erdogan in a press conference in Madrid stated that the ban should be lifted even if the headscarf is used· ·as a political symbol. He added that there was no need to wait for the ·adoption of a new constitution and that the problem could be solved bya simple, 'one sentence,' constitutional amendment. The Prime Minister's statement was strongly criticised by the CHP, but surprisingly supported by the second largest opposition party, the ultra-nationalist MHP. The MHP leader Devlet Bahceli argued that the ban could be lifted by a change in the constitutional article on equality.20 After intensive talks between the two parties, they agreed on an amendment

Cultural policies 73 proposal concerning Articles 10 and 42 of the Constitution, and the proposal was submitted to the Assembly with the signatures of 278 AKP and 70 MHP deputiesY The change in Article 10 concerning equality involved the addition of the phrase 'in the use of all kinds of public services'. Article 42 on the right to education was also changed by adding a new paragraph: 'No one shall be deprived of his/her right to higher education for any reason not explicitly specified by law. The limits on the exercise of this right shall be determined by law.' At the end of the first round of debates, Article 1 was adopted by 401 (with 110 opposing deputies) and Article 2 by 404 (with 99 opposing deputies) votes. 22 On the second round, both articles received 403 votes, and the entire bill received 411 votes. 23 Ii: is not clear whether the amendments automatically lifted the ban, or whether that would require a new implementing legislation. In any case, the CHP and the DSP deputies challenged the constitutional amendment before the Constitutional Court arguing that it was against the unamendable articles of the Constitution (i.e. secularism) and therefore null and void. On 5 June 2008, the Constitutional Court annulled the amendments. It was clear from the brief official announcement of the Court that its decision was based on the alleged incompatibility of the amendments with the principle of secularism referred to in the unamendable Article 2 of the Constitution. 24 In fact, Article 4 states that the first three articles of the Constitution are unamendable and that no proposal can be made to amend them. On the other hand, Article 148 of the Constitution limits the Court's competence regarding constitutional amendments to a merely procedural (i.e. not substantive) review. Moreover, unlike its predecessor, the Constitution of 1982 explicitly specifies the procedural defects that can be reviewed by the Court. These are the quorums for the proposal (it must be signed by at least onethird of the full membership of the Assembly) and for its adoption (it must be adopted by at least a three-fifths majority), and the requirement that the proposal be debated twice. Article 148 explicitly 'limits' the procedural review of the Court to these three dimensions. As Article 148 is the 'special provision' relevant to the case, according to the well-known rule 'lex specialis derogat legi generali', Article 4 cannot be invoked as a basis for broadening the competence of the Court over constitutional amendments. Indeed, Article 148 of the 1982 Constitution explicitly specified and defined the extent of procedural review. The Constitution has-no explicit or implicit rule allowing the Court to review the compatibility of a constitutional amendment with the first three unamendable articles of the Constitution. Under the 1982 Constitution, the Court rejected three requests (one in 1987 and two in 2007) for such review quoting the provisions of Article 148. Therefore, the recent decision of the Court is not only-inconsistent with its earlier rulings, but it also amounts to a 'usurpation of power' because it is in violation of the explicit text of Article 148. The resulting situation gives the Court almost total power of control over constitutional amendments. The characteristics enumerated in Articles 2 and 3 ('a democratic, secular

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and social state governed by the rule of law, respectful of human rights, committed to Atatiirk nationalism, and based on the principles speCified in the Preamble within an understanding of social peace, national solidarity, and justice') are so vague and broad that almost no constitutional amendment can be conceived that is not in one way another related to one of these characteristics. Thus, this interpretation amounts to an almost complete usurpation of the constituent power by the Constitutional Court which can only be described as an extreme example of 'juristocracy'. After this ruling which made almost any constitutional amendment subject to the approval of the Constitutional Court, the door for a radical constitutional change seems to be closed. The only possible way out of this impasse would be to create a Constituent Assembly with a clear mandate from the people that would make an entirely new, more democratic constitution which, among other things, would redefine the composition and competence of the Constitutional Court.

The closure case against the AKP On 14 March 2008, the Chief Public Prosecutor of the Court of Cassation started prohibition proceedings against the AKP, based on Articles 68 and 69 of the Constitution. He claimed that the AKP had become a focus of anticonstitutional activities intended to undermine the secular character of the Turkish Republic. Although evidently he had been collecting evidence against the AKP for a long time, the start of the proceedings seems to have been triggered by the constitutional amendment concerning the headscarf issue. A large part of the 'evidence' consists of newspaper clippings whose accuracy is unchecked; some of them later denied or contradicted in the same media. The indictment also includes statements by the AKP leaders uttered much before the establishment of the AKP, or statements by civil servants who are not (and cannot be) members of the party. Those statements clearly are not attributable to the party. Similarly, some statements uttered by the AKP parliamentarians or their parliamentary acts such as signing the proposal for the recent constitutional amendment are presented as evidence in the indictment, even though they are absolutely covered by the constitutional provision on parliamentary non-liability. At any rate, none of these statements contain anything that would undermine secularism, and they are all within the limits of the freedom of expression. On the contrary, the AKP's constitution and programme, as well as statements by its leaders are full of references to secularism, upholding it as one of the basic characteristics of the Turkish state. The Chief Public Prosecutor also cites the recent constitutional amendment as one reason for the closure of the party, although the amendment was adopted by a nearly three-fourths majority of the Assembly that included not only the AKP deputies but also those of the MHP (ultranati.onalist), DTP (Kurdish nationalist) and some independents. At any rate,

Cultural policies 75

accusing a party for an act of Parliament that clearly is within the limits of its constituent power is another interesting feature of the indictment. The accusations in the indictment conform neither to the European standards for party prohibition (the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) rulings and the Venice Commission criteria) nor even to the more restrictive clauses of the Turkish Constitution (Article 68). They are based on a certain assertive and authoritarian understanding of secularism without any parallel in any Western democracy. On 30 July 2008, the Constitutional Court announced its ruling on the AKP case.25 Even though a majority of the judges (six out of eleven) voted in favour of banning the party, the qualified majority (three-fifths or seven members out of eleven) required by the Constitution was not obtained. Therefore, the party was not banned but ten members concluded that the AKP had violated constitutional prohibitions, namely had become a focus of anti-secular activities, and decided to deprive the party partially of state funding (a sanction also provided by the Constitution for less severe cases of violation). The implications of this ruling for the future of the AKP and of Turkish politics in general will be discussed in the concluding chapter.

The Kurdish question Islamic political thought has always rejected ethnic nationalism (qawmiyya) in favour of an all-inclusive concept of umma based on the brotherhood of all Muslims regardless of race, colour and ethnicity. This outlook has differentiated the Turkish Islamist parties from the mainstream secular parties in their views on Turkish nationalism and the Kurdish question. Although the Kemalist notion of nationalism ('the Atatiirkist notion of nationalism' as the 1982 Constitution puts it) is not based on race or ethnicity, it aimed at the creation of a homogeneous Turkish nation based on the unity of culture, language and ideals. Thus, the CHP Programme adopted at the General Congress on 13-14 May 1931 defined the nation 'as a political and social body composed of citizens tied to each other by the unity of language, culture, and ideal'.26 Clearly, this definition does not leave much room for the recognition and development of cultural and l.inguistic sub-identities. Furthermore, in the 1930s, Turkish nationalism developed certain ethnicist and even racist traits as found in the expressions in the Turkish History and the Sun Language theses. The former claimed that Turks brought civilisation to all parts of the world when they migrated out of their original homeland in Central Asia. The latter claimed that the Turkish language was the mother of all major languages of the world. Not unexpectedly, Turkish Islamist parties have found themselves at odds with the secular character of the Kemalist notion of nationalism. In their view, 'the republic's militant secularism and the Kemalist suppression of the country's Islamic heritage had antagonised Turkish citizens of Kurdish origin' by destroying the Islamic bond between Turks and KurdsP Thus, they see the secularist nationalism of the Republic as mainly responsible for the

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emergence of the Kurdish question. Especially the RP in the early 1990s, gave greater priority to the Kurdish question than the mainstream· secular parties. Even though the mainstream politicians and the mainstream media also showed signs of greater recognition of the problem, their main approach was to blame the problem on the economic underdevelopment and feudal power relationships prevalent in the southeast and/or the machinations of foreign enemies.28 In contrast, the RP's positions on the Kurdish question in the early 1990s were quite radical. At its fourth General Congress on 10 December 1993, the problem was blamed, among other things, on 'the materialist and racist character of Turkish nationalism' and the 'destruction of Islamic Brotherhood by Republican policies of modernisation without providing a substitute in its place'. The RP prepared three documents on the Kurdish qu.estion between 1991 and 1995, all of which 'speak about recognising Kl,lrdish identity, and the first and the third ones have even incorporated the words "Kurdish national identity". Another commonality in all the documents is the call for allowing education and broadcasting in Kurdish language.' The third document advocates the introduction of an administrative system of relatively autonomous regions (eyalet sistemi) with elected governors and elected judges and prosecutors. The RP's approach to the Kurdish q·uestion seems to have been motivated by a desire to revive Muslim brotherhood through an emphasis on an ill-defined concept of justice (Adil Duzen, Just Order}.29 After its coming to power in 1996 in coalition with the centre-right DYP, however, RP's interest in the Kurdish question seems to have faded away. Thus, in its fifth General Congress held in 1996, 'it was not possible to find even one word about Kurds except the statement that terrorism should be fought to the end'. In this period, the RP's position approached that of the mainstream political parties in that the root of the problem was identified as economic underdevelopment. It even reverted back from its earlier positions of recognising Kurdish identity and granting cultural rights such as broadcasting and education in Kurdish. 30 Understandably, the AKP has been much less vocal than the RP in its criticism ofthe Kemalist notion of secularism as the root cause of the Kurdish problem. It can be expected, however, that the AKP leaders share the view that stressing common Islamic ties and brotherhood would ease solving the problem. 3! The AKP's programme sees the cultural differences in the southeast as 'richness', and considers cultural activities in languages other than Turkish as a factor that would strengthen the unity of the country, so long as the official language and the language of education remain Turkish.32 Prime Minister Erdogan frequently cited ethnic, religious and regional nationalisms as the three red lines of the party. It is generally agreed, however, that despite the high hopes it has created, the AKP government has failed to develop and implement a coherent policy on the issue. The reasons for this failure are cited as the opposition of the state institutions, particularly of the military, and the fear that a too-liberal

Cultural policies 77 policy on the Kurdish issue could undermine the party's. support among Turkish Muslims who also tend to be strongly nationalistic. 33 It is not entirely fair, however, to describe the party's policy as politics of avoidance or a 'policy of ignorance'.34 Even though few concrete steps have followed, two major symbolic gestures by Erdogan are quite noteworthy. One was the debate started by Erdogan in August 2005 when he made several speeches distinguishing between the 'supra-identity' of Turkish citizenship and ethnic 'sub-identities'. He also stressed that like any other major states, the Turkish state has also committed mistakes in the past, and that the Kurdish problem could be solved. by greater democratisation, respecting the principles of a single state, single nation and the single flag. 3s Both the admission of the past mistakes of the Turkish state and recognising ethnic sub-identites under the umbrella concept of Turkish citizenship were firsts by the leader of a major Turkish political party. Indeed, the military reacted strongly to these ideas. General Ya§ar Biiyiikamt (at the time Commander of the Land Forces) at a speech in May 2003, had criticised the efforts 'to erode national identity through micro-nationalist movements which are supported by the separation of primary and sub-identities', adding that they would erode 'the concepts of nation-state and sovereignty'. At a National Security Council meeting following the initiation of the debate by Erdogan, it was reportedly stated that 'the debates on primary and sub-identites would erode the national identity, and micro-nationalism would endanger Turkey's unitary structure, harming its integrity and unity'.36 Olson argues that the AKP's position towards the Kurdish question was the main source of conflict between the AKP and the armed forcesY Erdogan's second message regarding the Kurdish question was less farreaching, but still important as a novelty in Turkish politics. In a press interview with the general director of a major Turkish daily, Erdogan left the door open for a possible coalition with the Kurdish nationalist DTP. However, Erdogan was careful in making a comparison with the Rights and Freedoms Party in Bulgaria (supported mostly by Bulgarians of Turkish origin), praising the responsible behaviour of that party, its commitment and loyalty to the Bulgarian state, and implying that only if and when the DTP starts behaving that way, would such a coalition be conceivable. 38 As was pointed out, however, these goodwill gestures were not followed by major policy changes. Among the relatively minor improvements, one may cite the decision by the Supreme Board of Radio and Television (RTOK) to allow private radio and TV stations to start broadcasting 45 minutes a day in Kurdish by the end of January 2006. 39 A more recent law (Law No. 5767) adopted on 11 June 2008, explicitly allowed the state-owned Radio and Television Corporation to broadcast in languages and dialects other than Turkish. The Kurdish television channel (TRT 6) started to broadcast 24 hours a day on 1 January 2009 with a speech by Erdogan in which he expressed his good wishes in Kurdish. The move was strongly criticised by the two nationalist opposition parties (CHP and MHP) as well as by the

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Kurdish nationalist DTP which belittled it as an election manoeuvre. Yet, the AKP's aproach to the Kurdish problem seems significantly different from those of the other mainstream parties and more sympathetic towards identity-based claims. This explains the substantial increase of its votes in the eastern and southeastern regions in the 2007 elections. The Alevi question Alevis constitute the largest non-Sunni religious/sectarian minority in Turkey. As the census data contain no information on Alevis, their estimated numbers vary between 6 and 17 millions (12-25 per cent of the total population). The huge difference between these estimates is due to the syncretic nature of the Alevis and the presence of different trends within the community.40 Indeed, 'Alevi religiosity can be very generally - and very cautiously - defined as a religious syncretism (including influences from Turkic shamanism, Shi'ism, sufism, Sunnism and Mazdaism) which can be interpreted as part of Islam. Many of the religious practices, textual interpretations and beliefs of versions of Alevism are totally different, and at times in opposition to Sunni Islam, the largest section in Turkey.'41 It is commonly observed that Alevis, having suffered from exclusion and discrimination under the Sunni-dominated Ottoman administration, welcomed and supported the secularising reforms of Kemal Atatiirk, and generally voted for the CHP (or other leftist parties) after the transition to competitive politics. Parallel to the general rise of identity politics in recent decades and feeling threatened by what they perceive as the increasing Sunnification of the state under-right wing governments, Alevis have become more politically conscious and activeY Islamist and other centre-right parties in Turkey have generally depended on the support of the Sunnis and made little or no effort to capture the Alevi support. Their policies towards Alevis varied between benign neglect and efforts at assimilation (i.e. Sunnification). The AKP tended to ignore the demands of the Alevis during its first term of office. It made a timid effort, however, in the 2007 parlimentary elections by nominating a number of Alevis, including the prominent Alevi writer Reha <::amuroglu. After elections, <::amuroglu served for a while as one of the advisors to Erdogan. Largely on his initiative, Erdogan attended and spoke at an Alevi mourning dinner on 11 January 2008 in commeration of the martyrdom of Husein, the son of Caliph Ali and the grandson of Prophet Muhammad, the holiest day for the Alevis. Although about 900 Alevis and others attended the dinner, a great majority of Alevi associations refused to attend it, describing it as insincere and an effort at assimilation. Some of them went so far as threatening the participating Alevis with excommunication (du§kunluk). This was later withdrawn, however, and the President of one of the largest Alevi organisations (Cern Foundation), Professor izzettin Dogan, stated that the Alevis were ready to shake a hand extended for peace, but repeated his expectations for more concrete steps.43 The dinner event was repeated on

Cultural policies 79

6 January 2009 with a warm and sentimental speech by Erdogan. This time, the dinner was attended by a greater number (but not all) of the Alevi organisations, including the Cern Foundation, and was generally received more warmly by the Alevis. Indeed, the demands of the Alevis seem quite modest. Foremost among them is the recognition of their worship places (cemevleri) officially as worship places benefiting from the same facilities as mosques. They also demand the abolition of the compulsory religious teachings at elementary and intermediary schools, rightly arguing that such courses have in practice aimed at the indoctrination of Sunni Islam. If co~pulsory religious education cannot be eliminated altogether, they claim that it should at least give proper room to Alevi teachings as well. Similarly, they demand a reorganisation of the Presidency of Religious Affairs in a way to serve the Alevis as well as the Sunnis, again correctly observing that in practice this institution functions as a Sunni organisation.44 In sum, although Erdogan's goodwill gesture was meaningful, it has not been followed by any concrete steps to meet the Alevi demands. Just as in the case of its stand on the Kurdish question, the AKP government seems to have opted for a 'politics of avoidance'.

7

The AKP government and the military

A striking feature of Turkey's political system since the Second World War has been the persistent and powerful role of the military in politics, despite the gradual and sometimes halting transition toward liberal democracy. Unlike Germany, Italy, thelberian peninsula, the eastern European states or Greece, Turkey never went through the trauma of defeat in the Second World War or the collapse of fascist or Soviet-directed communist regimes. Such experiences had drastically undermined military prestige and power, as well as authoritarian government, in those parts of Europe where democracy had historically been weak. For Turks, the cathartic phase of their modern history occurred between 1918 and 1923, when the attempts of the entente powers of the First World War to partition their territory were defeated, and the Turkish republic was founded on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire. In this story, the role of the army was seen as wholly positive. Losing a war is a common way for an army to lose its domestic political clout (witness the examples of Germany in 1945, Greece in 1974 or Argentina in 1982), but since 1918, the Turkish army had never suffered a decisive defeat in war, if only because its political leaders had wisely kept it out of dangerous external confrontations. For the armed forces, attachment to republican, modernist and secularist principles and to their architect, Kemal Atatiirk, was an overriding commitment. Unlike contemporary leaders in the rest of Europe, Atatiirk has continued to enjoy heroic status in his own country. Hence,the armed forces could continue to see themselves as the bedrock of the nation as well as Kemalist modernism. In response, the attitude of the AKP was cautious. Despite its powerful popular mandate, the AKP government was reluctant to openly challenge an institution, which, according to opinion polls, still enjoyed overwhelming public confidence. 1 The party also avoided religious labelling, defining itself as a supporter of secularism and 'conservative democracy' (see pp. 20-29). Nevertheless, given the distinctly Islamist origins of most of its leaders and the conservative inclinations of most of its grassroots supporters, hard-line secularists, both inside and outside the armed forces, were bound to regard it with suspicion.

The AKP government and the military

81

Since the transition to multi-party politics in 1950, the armed forces had launched two outright takeovers of power, in 1960 and 1980, as well as a 'veto coup', in 1971, in which they displaced an elected government with a nominally civilian successor, which actually followed their off-stage directions. In 1997, they played a leading role in forcing the resignation of the 'Refahyol' government led by Necmettin Erbakan, the veteran leader of political Islamism in Turkey (see pp. 4-5). These experiences had demonstrated the military commanders' political strengths and weaknesses. On the positive side, they had not sought to stay in power indefinitely and (almost uniquely, given the experiences of other countries) had voluntarily withdrawn to their barracks after a relatively short period, accepting the re-establishment of elected civilian government. Moreover, military activism reflected periodic chronic weakness in the civilian political system. The military could argue fairly convincingly that they had taken the lead only at points of crisis and when the civilian politicians appeared to have lost controF As Tayyip Erdogan maintained in December 2002: 'The military intervened in politics only when there was a political vacuum: the military played a somewhat expanded role because the- political will was weak'. 3 In 1980, the generals were probably correct in claiming that their intervention had saved the country from anarchy and economic collapse; hence, it was accepted by the public with general relief. After the first coup, in 1960, they had enacted a new constitution, which, in important respects, was far more democratic than its predecessor. On the debit side of the balance sheet~ the military regimes of 1971-73 and 1980-83 had been responsible for serious human rights abuses and, in the last case, for the imposition of a new constitution, which severely ~on­ stricted democratic rights. Through the National Security Council (NSC), which brought together the commanders of the armed forces, the President, the Prime Minister and other government leaders, the military- sought to establish a permanent voice in the system of government, but there were frequent complaints that this gave the military too much power in what was supposed to be a democracy. Although the armed forces had tried to present a united image to the outside world, when in power (especially during 1960-61 and 1971-73), the officers were frequently divided by bitter disputes, often based on personal rivalries and disagreements on policy. After the return to civilian government in 1961, there were constant plans for coups and countercoups by dissident officers.4 Finally, the military regimes had been remarkably unsuccessful in trying to impose their own blueprint on the post-military governments. An apt example of this had been seen in 1983 when Turgut Ozal, who had clearly been opposed by the military, was returned to power in the general elections with an overall majority, while the military's favoured party was convincingly defeated. On these, as on similar occasions,S the Turkish voters had shown clearly that they were prepared to accept military rule at times of crisis but were unwilling to allow the generals permanent

82 Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey control over the political system. In their relations with the AKP government, the armed forces commanders could ignore these lessons only at their peril. To be effective as political actors, they needed to be popular and respected. 6 In outline, the story of relations between the armed forces commanders and the AKP government can be divided into three phases. The first of these, running from November 2002 until around the end of 2006, was one of the controlled conflict between the two sides in which the military, while continuing to press the government over such issues as the protection of secularism and the unitary state, nevertheless, accepted its legitimacy and its ultimate right to determine policy, even on contentious issues. The start of 2007 and the summer of that year saw a second and far more dangerous phase, when it appeared that the military commanders were openly challenging the government's authority. Subsequently, the chiefs of the armed forces appeared to have accepted that they would have to stay in the background, even if there were still serious tensions between them and the AKP government.

The first phase: controlled conflict, 2002-06 At first glance, the Turkish armed forces appear as a monolithic institution, in which policies and actions are determined by rules and tradition, not personalities. On closer acquaintance, this picture has to be revised. In practice, much depends on individuals, and, in particular, the Chief of the General Staff (CGS) who has command authority over all the armed services (i.e. the army, navy, air force and paramilitary gendarmerie) via their separate force commanders. During his period as a CGS, between August 2002 and August 2006, General Hilmi Ozk6k was reluctant to engage in open confrontations with the government. He had an adaptive attitude toward Kemalism, stressing that, like Atatiirk, its adherents should think ahead. He criticised previous interventions on the grounds that they had been quite unsuccessful. 7 c::;hanges in the composition of the military leadership during his term as a CGS appeared to -strengt:he}! th~.PQ~!!:ioILOf the moderates..atthe tQj:fofthe-atmecUotces; In AUgllst-2003, General Tuncer Ktlm<; who had "strongly-crrticised-polltlcanlberalisation reforms, especially on the Kurdish issue, left the crucial post of Secretary General of the NSC to be succeeded by General Siikrii Sarn§!k. 8 As General Ozk6k remarked shortly afterwards, 'we should get rid of those who merely copy the past and march on the spot'.'J Later changes in August 2004 saw the departure of Generals Ayta<; Yalman and Sener Eruygur, commanders of the land forces and gendarmerie, respectively, both of whom had previously defied GeneralOzk6k's announcement that the commanders should not make independent public statements: later, in July 2008, General Eruygur was arrested as part of the ongoing 'Ergenekon' investigations for alleged membership of a 'terrorist organisation' (see pp. 94-5). General Hur§it Tolon, who had opposed the government's

The AKP government and the military 83 peace plans for Cyprus and was arrested along with Eruygur in 2008, left his crucial post as Commander of the First Army, based in Istanbul, in August 2005. 10 Soon after the results of the general elections of 3 November 2002 were published, General Ozk6k announced that he respected them as 'the will of our nation'.11 He never later implied that he contested the constitutional legitimacy of the AKP government. Nonetheless, he and his fellow commanders were clearly at odds with the government on some crucial issues. In foreign policy, these included, most notably, the Cyprus problem. Turkey's reaction to tlieOS-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, and subsequent American policy in that country, could also prove problematic. In domestic politics, the most critical cause of conflict was the accusation that the AKP was seeking to undermine, or even destroy, the secular state. Finally, the generals had to cope with changes in their constitutional position, which were pushed through by the government as part of the democratic reforms demanded by the European Union (EU), as part of Turkey's bid to gain membership of the Union. Each of these points of conflict can be considered in turn. On the first score, at the end of 2002, the government decided to work for a settlement of the Cyprus problem by supporting the United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan's plan for the establishment of a bizonal federal republic, in which the Greek and Turkish Cypriots would share power. This provoked a strong reaction from the military, partly because they were mostly attached by their upbringing and internal culture to strongly nationalist views, but also because a settlement with the Greek Cypriots would inevitably bring about a drastic reduction in the Turkish military presence in Northern Cyprus, which was put at around 30,000 troops, and thus the army's ability to shape the future of the island. It was even argued that, without a continued presence of Turkish military in Cyprus, Turkey would be surrounded on two sides by supposedly hostile Hellenic states. As related in Chapter 9 (pp. 122-3), the AKP government initially supported the 'Annan plan', but during 2003, it was blocked in its efforts to reach a deal by strong opposition from the then President of the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) Rauf Denktash, as well as the military. In a visit to the TRNC in January 2003, General Ayta~ Yalman, as Commander of Land Forces, publicly claimed that 'the UN Cyprus Plan was unacceptable, [since] it could lead to violence and it threatened Turkey'S interests and the island's security'.12 Other statements by army commanders claimed that the AKP's policy toward Cyprus would be lead 'to surrender and to being trapped in Anatolia'.13 However, by January 2004, when Mehrnet Ali Talat, who led the opposition to Rauf Denktash, had become Prime Minister of the TRNC, the military commanders apparently realised that they would have to soften their stand. Hence, on 23 January 2004, after a meeting in Ankara of the NSC, it was announced that the ~SC supported the Annan plan. Subsequently, General Ozk6k

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stated that there 'were two differing viewpoints for the first time ever [sic] on a matter of national importance', 14 suggesting that the generals had effectively allowed themselves-to be oyerrideo 00 this issue. Later, they were saved from their dilemma by the Greek Cypriots, who voted to reject the Annan plan, in a referendum held on 24 April 2004 (see p. 124). For the most part, Turkey'S policy toward the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a less problematic issue in relations between the AKP government and the military since both accepted that, like it or not, national interests would best be served by allowing the United States to use Turkish territory for the attack on Iraq, provided Turkish troops could also be inserted into a 'buffer zone' in the north of the country. Hence, the government's main problem was in coping with substantial opposition to the idea within the AKP and overwhelming opposition in the country at large, and not with the military (see p. 129). A crisis point was reached at the end 01 February 2003, after the government tabled a motion in parliament to allow the US plan to go ahead. Fully aware that this would be an unpopular decision, the government decided to press for endorsement from the NSC before the issue was debated on the floor of the House. However, the military were as reluctant as the politicians to shoulder the responsibility. There were reports that the generals had had last-minute reservations about the wisdom of going through with the American plan,15 but these were denied by the General Staff secretariat, which claimed unconvincingly that 'the Turkish armed forces have always avoided conduct which could influence the will of the Grand National Assembly'. 16 When the NSC met on 28 February, it declined to make a recommendation, saying merely that the results of negotiations with the United States had been 'evaluated' .17 On the following day, 1 March, when parliament debated the government motion to allow US troops to enter Turkish territory and Turkish troops to enter Iraq, it was defeated by the hair'sbreadth margin ohhree votes. As a result, the military chiefs came in for harsh criticism in Washington, where Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz chastised them for not having played a 'leadership role'.18 General Qzk6k's response was that the military ..c~)Uld only make recommendations to the government, not the parliament,~but this did not suffice to silence American criticisms. Subsequently, neither the government nor the military pressed for a reversal of the 1 March vote, suggesting that both sides accepted the fait accompli. Essentially, the Turkish military command was at odds with the Pentagon, not with its own government, and the problem of Iraq did not emerge as an issue of dispute· between the two until the spring of 2007 (see p. 90). A far more persistent and crucial source of conflict between the armed forces leaders and the government was the military's strong support for Kemalist secularism and its apparent suspicion that the AKP had a hidden agenda to establish an Islamist regime or something like it. In this, it was supported by part of the media and a part, albeit very far from a majority,2° of public opinion. The symbolic issue of female attire was the flash point of

Tbe AKP government and tbe military

85

conflict. An early sign of this erupted on 20 November 2002 when Biilent Arm~, the Speaker of parliament, went to Ankara airport to see off President Sezer, who was flying to a NATO meeting in Prague. Arm~ was accompanied by his wife Miinevver who was wearing her customary Muslim headscarf. The attendance of a woman in a headscarf at an official ceremony was regarded as anathema by the military chiefs, who were required by custom to pay a courtesy visit to the Speaker on 28 November. Instead of exchanging the usual pleasantries, they sat in silence for three minutes before leaving. 11 The row re-erupted on 23 April 2003 when Biilent Ann~ hosted an official reception to mark"National Sovereignty and Children's Day', at which his wife was expected to appear wearing her headscarf. In response, the top military commanders, as well as President Sezer, stayed away from the reception (although in·the event Miinevver Ann~, apparently anxious to avoid provoking another rumpus, also absented herself)Y Subsequently, the battleground shifted to the presidential mansion, as President Sezer refused to extend invitations to official receptions to the headscarved wives of AKP deputies. As a compromise, party leaders like Tayyip Erdogan and Abdullah Giillefttheir wives at home on such occasions - producing the bizarre result that while Mrs. Emine Erdogan could, for instance, be welcomed to the White House by President Bush and his wife, she was effectively banned from the President's house in her own country.. While these incidents may have seemed absurd and petty-minded to outsiders, for Turks on both sides of the secularist/conservative divide they had great symbolic importance, centred around the possibility that the AKP government might revoke the existing ban on headscarves in state institutions. Naturally, this was strongly opposed by the military and was reportedly the subject of fierce debate between the military commanders and the Prime Minister at a meeting of the NSC on 30 April 2003. After the meeting, it was announced that the NSC had 'emphasised the importance of the principle of secularism as one of the basic principles of the state, and that it should be scrupulously protected', with subsequent reports that the Prime Minister had stated that he was in full agreement with the military.13 This did not lay the argument to rest, however. In July 2004, there was a proposed change to the Penal Code, which would have penalised anyone who prevented headscarved students from entering university grounds. The move was blocked by the Minister of Justice, Cemil <;i~ek, who was apparently anxious to avoid another collision with the militaryY Thereafter, the government appears to have put this thorny problem onto the back burner, until it re-emerged at the top of the political agenda in 2008. Education was another crucial battleground between the hard-line secularists and the AKP. In September 2003, government plans to reform the higher education system included proposals to strengthen the position of the 'Schools for imams and Preachers' (imam-Hatip Okullarz), notably by making it possible for their graduates to compete with students from normal high schools for university places on equal terms (see pp. 69-70). When the

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government proposed these and other changes, there was fierce opposition from the military, as General Aytac; Yalman, as conunander of land forces, held meetings with university rectors to discuss strategy for opposing the new law. On 14 September, General Ozk6k denied that Yalman was acting on his own initiative, declaring that it was 'natural' for the armed forces to follow 'developments related to the national education system'.2S This confrontation continued into the spring of 2004, when the government prepared a draft bill equalising the university entrance conditions for imam-Hatip and normal high-school graduates, provoking the retort from General Ozk6k that the former 'should take up jobs only in religious services'.26 Later, he was supported by General Ya§ar Biiyiikamt, the land forces commander and Ozk6k's successor as CGS. The government used its large majority to push the bill through the House on 13 May 2004, but shelved the proposal after it had been returned to parliament by President Sezer (see pp. 69-70),27 The Kurdish problem was also critical in government-military relations, since the AKP accepted the cultural diversity of Turkey, and moved some way to meeting EU demands on this score, whereas the military opposed any moves that might be seen as endangering Turkey'S territorial integrity. In the sununer of 2003, the AKP government enacted a number of reforms affecting the Kurds, as part of the 'Sixth Harmonisation Package' designed to bring Turkey into line with the EU's Copenhagen criteria (see pp. 58, 60). This included permission for private radio and TV stations to broadcast in 'languages and dialects traditionally used by Turkish citizens in their daily lives' (i.e. including Kurdish) and the deletion of Article 8 of the 'Law for the Struggle against Terrorism' (Law No. 3713) of 1991, which had made it an offence to give verbal support to those deemed terrorists. As SecretaryGeneral of the NSC, General Tuncer Ktlmc; was reported to have sent a 'secret message' to the Prime Minister's office objecting to both these changes, among other things. Later, General Ozk6k denied this story, or that the army was divided on this issue, and claimed that the military fully supported the principle of Turkish accession to the EU.28 These apparently divided opinions reflected the fact that, while the military broadly supported the Turkish bid to join the EU, as the logical result of Kemal Atatiirk's drive to make his country a respected member of the western comity of nations, and of confirmation of Turkey's membership of NATO, they were reluctant to accept the reduction of their political role or the alteration of policy on die Kurdish question, which would be-part of the deal. Following further terrorist attacks on foreign tourists in the sununer of 2005, apparently by the Kurdistan Workers' Party(PKK), there was pressure from the security forces to consider reintroducing legislation similar to Article 8 of Law No. 3713. This was resisted by the Prime Minister and the foreign ministry, so that a meeting of the NSC on 23 August 2005 agreed merely that the government should fight terrorism by implementing 'social, economic and cultural measures' in the southeast.29 This did not mark the

The AKP government and the military 87 end of civil-military conflict on the Kurdish issue, however. In August 2005, in the course of a visit to Diyarbaklr, the biggest city in the Kurdish southeast, Prime Minister Erdogan admitted that Turkey had a 'Kurdish problem' and that the state had made mistakes in dealing with it in the past. His admission prompted a harsh reaction from General Ozk6k, who asserted that 'the biggest problem facing Turkey is that of separatist movements which resort to terrorism'.30 In June 2006, the government appeared to acknowledge the general's point, when it enacted a new anti-terrorism law, which increased the punishments for terrorist offences and reintroduced prison sentences for journalists convicted of 'propagating terrorism'. The new law was strongly criticised by liberal opinion - which, in this case,· included the Minister of Justice, Cemil C;i~ek, who said he hoped it would never be used. 3! The image of the armed forces was also damaged by events in the southeast in November 2005, when a bomb explosion in the remote township of Semdinli killed one bystander and injured another 13. This turned out on strong evidence to be the work of two plain-clothed non-commissioned officers of the paramilitary gendarmerie, aided by a former convicted PKK terrorist. Following their arrest, Ferhat Sankaya, the public prosecutor of the nearby city of Van, was dismissed after he accused General Ya§ar BiiyUkarut, the land forces commander, for trying to influence their upcoming trial. None of the senior military officers who were also accused by the prosecutor were brought to court, and the culprits went unpunished. The Semdinli affair was later overshadowed by far wider accusations of wrongdoing by sections of the security forces, which emerged from the 'Ergenekon' enquiries (see pp. 94-5). Nonetheless, it strengthened accusations that there was a shadowy 'deep state' in Turkey, in which criminal elements of the armed forces and police, protected by politicians, were operating outside the control of the law or maybe the top commanders.32 While some of the details of the Semdinli affair remained obscure, changes in the constitution and some legal statutes, which were in the open, continued to be contested by the military commanders, especially when they affected their own status and powers. In July 2003, parliament enacted a 'Seventh Harmonisation Package', which included amendments to the laws governing the powers and functions of the NSC and its Secretariat (see p. 61); (these followed amendments to Article 118 of the constitution, passed in October 2001, which required the government to 'evaluate' decisions of the NSC rather than give them 'priority consideration', as had previously been stipulated). The new legislation further restricted the range of issues on which the NSC could issue recommendations to those affecting the 'national security policy of the state', and stated that these could only be 'advisory' for the government. The frequency of regular meetings of the Council was reduced from once a month to once every two months, and allowance was made for the appointment of a civilian, rather than a military officer, to the crucial role of Secretary-General of the NSC, with a reduction of his powers. 33 In May 2004, parliament followed this up by altering Articles 131

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and 160 of the constitution, so as to remove the military representative from the Higher Education Council, responsible for supervising the universities and appointing their Rectors, and making military expenditures subject to scrutiny by the civilian Court of Accounts. 34 These changes were accepted, however reluctantly, by the armed forces commanders, but they succeeded in blocking other reforms that were being urged by the EU. These could be divided into two categories - first, the . requirement that the elected government and legislature should have enhanced oversight and control over the military in the exercise of its professional functions and, second that the armed forces' ability to intervene in politics should be reduced. On the first score; the EU persistently urged that the CGS should be answerable to the Minister of Defence, rather than the Prime Minister, as provided by.Article 117 of the constitution. This was seen as part of an overall attempt to increase civilian control over the armed forces, by upgrading the defence ministry's role to include defence planning, rather than that of a mere support office for the armed forces, which it still is in Turkey. This proposal was persistently resisted by the military, on the grounds that the existing arrangement prevented the politicisation of defence management, and the AKP government did not care to contest the point. 35 Nor could the government prevent serving commanders issuing. public pronouncements on subjects well outside the defence field, such as the protection of secularism, or changes in the education system. In its annual . report on Turkey's progress towards accession, issued in November 2005, the EU Commission urged that Turkish practice still needed to be brought into line with that in EU member states - in particular, that 'statements by the military should only concern military, defence, and security matters and should only be made under the authority of the government'. Moreover, 'the civilian authorities should fully exercise their supervisory functions, in particular as regards the formation of the national security strategy and its implementation'.36 That nothing effective had been done to address these issues was indicated by the fact that the same points were repeated, almost verbatim, in a decision issued by the European Council in February 2008.31 Perceptions of the Turkish military during General Ozk6k's term as CGS have also been affected by accounts of plotting against him and the government by senior commanders, although these only came to light later and their authenticity is contested. A storm broke in March-April 2007 when the weekly magazine Nokta published what it claimed were the diaries of Admiral Ozden Ornek, who had served as Commander of the Navy between August 2003 and August 2005. According to the alleged diaries, Admiral Ornek, together with his fellow force commanders (i.e. Commander of Land Forces General Ayta~ Yalman, Commander of the Air Force General ibrahim Flrtma and the Gendarmerie commander General Sener Eruygur), deeply mistrusted General Ozk6k, suspecting that he was a puppet of the government. 38 If the diaries are to be believed, the four commanders discussed a plan, codenamed 'Blonde Girl' (Sartktz) under which they would first win

The AKP government and the military 89 over the press to their side, then the university rectors, encouraging them to 'pour their students out into the street'. Labour unions and other 'societies' would be 'encouraged against the government'.39 The aim, apparently, was to manufacture an atmosphere of crisis, which would justify a coup. The alleged diaries relate that Ornek himself then had doubts about the plan, since there would be no support from the United States (as there had been in previous coups) and there might be no unity within the armed forces. The original aim had apparently been to block the Annan plan for Cyprus, but on this score, the Greek Cypriots effectively did the generals' work for them by voting down the peace plan in the referendum of 24 April 2004 (see p. 124).40 After this, the alleged Blonde Girl project appears to have fizzled out. However, according to the diaries, General Eruygur did not give up, . and he prepared a second coup plan, codenamed 'Moonlight' (Ayz§ZKZ) from which the other commanders evidently backed Off.41 By August 2006, all four force commanders had retired from the armed forces. One must be very cautious in assessing this story, since Admiral Ornek persistently denied that he was the author of the 'diaries' or even that he had kept a diary.42 Subsequently, he appealed to a public prosecutor, who launched a libel chatge against Alper G6rmii~, the editor of Nokta (which had meanwhile been closed down). However, the ex-editor was acquitted, and a copy of the alleged diaries was given to Zekeriya Oz, the public prosecutor in the 'Ergenekon' case, presumably to be usee{ against the 'Ergenekon' suspects (see pp. 94-5).43 Moreover, in August 2008, documents were seized from the house of another 'Ergenekon' suspect, Captain Muzaffer YIIdmm, which appeared to confirm the outline of the story related in the 'diaries'.44 Meanwhile, General Eruygur and General Hiir~it Tolon, previously Commander of the First Army, were arrested on 5 July 2008 in connection with the'Ergenekon' inquiry, for allegedly 'founding and directing a terrorist organisation'.45 For his part, General Ozk6k, now in retirement, stated in July 2008 that he could neither deny or confirm the incidents related in the diaries,46 prompting the suggestion that if he· had known them to be untrue he would have said so. Even if Admiral Ornek did not author them, the alleged diaries appeared to contain at least a grain of truth. As the influential journalist Mehmet Ali Birand suggested, despite Ornek's denials, 'the public believes that a coup was planned during the years 2002-2003 [sic] ••.. which had then been called off either because Hilmi Ozk6k, the CGS of that time, did not approve of it or due to the lack of support among the commanders of the various forces'.4'

1

The second phase: challenge and crisis, 2007 In August 2006, General Ozk6k retired as CGS, to be succeeded by General Ya~ar Biiyiikamt, previously the Commander of Land Forces. General Biiyiikarut was identified as having strong nationalist and pro-secularist views, and so it was expected that his relations with the government would

..

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not be easy.48 In the handover ceremony, held on 28 August 2006, which was broadcasted live on national television, he claimed that it was 'the army's duty' to protect the 'fundamental principles of the republic' (by implication, secularism).49 As Gareth Jenkins suggests, this and similar statements by the new CGS were probably designed as much to reassure his subordinates in the officer corps as to threaten the government, but they nevertheless demonstrated continuing tensions between the AKP and the army.50 Moreover, in the early part of 2007, new conflicts between the government and the military came out into the open. In February 2007, Prime Minister Erdogan suggested that the government might start direct negotiations with the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq. The idea was controversial because several thousand PKK militants were known to be sheltering in northern Iraq, from where they could carry out terrorist attacks in Turkey, and the KRG was seen as being in informal alliance with them (see pp. 134-5). Erdogan's proposal was strongly attacked by General Biiyiikamt, who was in the United States at the time. When Erdogan remarked that Biiyiikarut was expressing his personal ideas, not those of the armed forces as a whole, the General Staff office retorted that, on the contrary, he was expressing the views of the General Staff as an institution.51 The matter was laid to rest for a time, but succeeded by a much more critical conflict over the possibility of a unilateral Turkish military intervention in northern Iraq. As Turkish forces were being built up along the frontier with Iraq in mid-March, General ilker Ba§bug, the Commander of Land Forces, suggested that '[W]hen military conditions required it, Turkey could at any time take whatever measures it saw suitable against the terrorist organisation in northern Iraq, within the framework of the rules of the constitution, the laws, and international law'. 52 In principle, Ba§bug may have been right, but in practice, Turkey could not act against the PKK in northern Iraq without a green light from the United States, as the occupying power, and the American military authorities in Iraq were strongly opposed to this. Nonetheless, a month later, General Biiyiikamt told a press conference that 'an operation into Iraq is necessary and will be useful', provoking strong criticisms from the US State Department and the EU.53 Referring to the possibility of a cross-border operation, Tayyip Erdogan told a TV interviewer that 'when necessary, this step would be taken',54 but he evidently wished to avoid a head-on collision with the United States on this issue. In June, when proposals for a cross-border operation by Turkey were again aired, he pointed out that Turkey would have to defeat terrorism on its own territory first. 55 Meanwhile, these clashes over Iraq were being overshadowed by a far more bitter and potentially dangerous contest over the presidential election, originally due to be completed by 16 May 2007 (see pp. 39-40). Hard-line secularists strongly opposed the prospect that the AKP might elect one of its number to replace President Sezer, raising the possibility that a headscarved first lady might occupy the presidential mansion. In April 2007, the'Atatiirkist

The AKP government and the military 91 Thought Society' (ADD), among a large number of other civil society groups, organised mass meetings in Ankara, Istanbul, and other cities, calling for the defence of secularism and strongly opposing the election of either Tayyip Erdogan or Abdullah Giil to the presidency. Significantly, the chairman of the ADD was none other than the (now retired) General ~ener Eruygur, who had figured prominently in the alleged 'Ornek diaries'. However, it was also noticed that many in the crowd, as well as some of the platform speakers, opposed the idea of a military coup as a means of achieving their ends.56 The point was significant, since on 12 April 2007, General Biiyiikamt broke his silence over the presidential election by telling a press conference that 'we hope that someone will be elected President who is attached to the basic values of the republic, not just in words but in spirit' and appeared to express indirect support for the mass meetings.57 Prime Minister Erdogan responded carefully by saying that the General 'had given reasonable answers, like a statesman ... He was positive'.58 However, the clear impression was given that the armed forces opposed the election of either Erdogan or Giil to the presidency. This was reinforced by a notice that appeared on the General Staff web site on 27 April, immediately after the first round of balloting for the presidency in parliament, stating that 'the armed forces noticed with disquiet' the fact that the presidential election was (supposedly) centring around the question of secularism. It concluded that 'the armed forces are a party to this debate and are staunch defenders of secularism. When necessary, they will display their attitudes and actions very clearly'.59 Precisely what this meant was unclear, but it appeared to threaten some sort of military intervention if Abdullah Giil were elected President. The fact that General Biiyiikamt failed to make any statement about the authenticity of what was called the 'e-memorandum' also prompted speculation about whether he had authorised it and it was not until May 2009 that he admitted he had written it.60 For the government, the e-memorandum was sharply attacked by Cemil <;ic;ek, the Minister of Justice, who pointed out that the CGS was constitutionally answerable to the Prime Minister, and that 'it is inconceivable in a democratic state based on the rule of law for the General Staff ... to speak out against the government'. The apparent threat contained in the e-memorandum was also attacked by the leaders of the two centre-right opposition parties - the True Path Party (DYP) and the Motherland Party (ANAP) - and, more mildly, by Deniz Baykal, for the Republican People's Party (CHP), who stressed that the presidential election problem should be solved by democratic means. 61 Abroad, the e-memorandum was condemned by OUi Rehn, the European Union's Commission for enlargement and, after some delay, by the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. 62 Mer the AKP's landslide victory in the general elections of 27 July 2007 (see pp. 41-3) the deputy leader of the CHP, Mustafa Ozyiirek, claimed that the army's intervention of 27 April had backfired, by helping the AKP to win, although Biiyiikamt naturally said he disagreed. 63 The government also took the

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line that their election victory proved the illegitimacy of the 27 April 'memorandum'; as Abdullah Giil put it '[A]ny sort of act that is seen as an interference in politics causes reaction among the people. And this happened during the elections'.64

The third phase: the army draws back, 2007-08 In the immediate aftermath of the e-memorandum of 27 April, General Biiyiikamt met Tayyip Erdogan on 4 May 2007 for an unexpected meeting in Istanbul's Dolmabahc;e Palace, which was reported to have continued for more than two hours. No official announcement was made afterwards, except that 'the general situation was evaluated'. There was nonetheless speculation that the e-memorandum and the presidential elections had been on the agenda. 6; It would seem likely' that some sort of accommodation was reached, since the army then pulled in its horns over the presidential issue. Following the general elections, and Abdullah Giil's election as President on 28 August 2007, the military commanders refused to attend the new President's swearing-in ceremony, presumably as a mark of disapproval. Similarly, they refused to follow precedent by not attending the opening of the new parliament on 1 October. 66 However, their reaction went no further than this open snub, which probably did them little good in the eyes of most of the public. The two elections may not quite have been 'the final nail in the army's coffin', as one government official told the London weekly The Economist,6i but it was quite clear that the generals could not have reversed the result, even if they had wanted to, without launching an outright coup d'etat for which they were apparently unprepared, and which would have earned them near-universal condemnation, both at home and abroad. Draft clauses of a new constitution, which were prepared for the government and extensively leaked to the press, under which senior officers would no longer be immune from prosecution in civilian courts, Kurdish would be taught as a second language in state schools, and the definition of the national identity expanded to embrace citizens of different ethnicity and religions, could be expected to provoke the ire of the military.68 Whether the government would actually enact such an ambitious project remained doubtful, however, given serious likely opposition in parliament. In fact, the military commanders generally stayed out of the debate. External changes also removed Iraq as a source of friction between the military and the AKP government, since a visit by Tayyip Erdogan to Washington on 5 November 2007 produced a turnabout in US policy. Following this, the US military in Iraq effectively gave the Turkish forces a green light for cross-border operations against the PKK, providing them with 'real-time' intelligence on PKK positions (see pp. 135-6). The result was a dramatic improvement in the relationship between the Turkish military and the Pentagon, as well as the accommodation between the generals and the government over policy towards Iraq.

The AKP government and the military 93 This is not to suggest that all was plain sailing in military-government relations after August 2007. On 30 January 2008, following the agreement between the leaders of the AKP and the Nationalist Action Party to lift the ban on the wearing of headscarves by university students (see pp. 72-3), General Biiyiikamt told reporters that '[A]ll segments of Turkish society know very well the position of the military on this issue', making it clear that the military opposed it, but went no further than that. 69 Another shock erupted in June 2008 when the newspaper Tarat, a strong critic of the military, published what it claimed was a comprehensive 'Action Plan', prepared in the office of the General Staff, for extensive intervention by the armed forces in politics (although this would apparently fall short of an outright coup). In a manner reminiscent of the Blonde Girl project related in the alleged 'Ornek diaries', the universities, judiciary and the media would be used to 'foment public opinion'. In response, the office of the General Staff stated that 'there is no such official document approved by the commanding ranks in General Staff records'. Critics were quick to point out that this was not tantamount to denying the existence of the 'Action Plan', but merely to state that it did not have the approval of the senior commanders. The con~lusion was that one or more disgruntled 'deep throats' within the army were supplying Tarat with information and that the top commanders were still not in complete control of their subordinates. 7o During 2008, two stories dominated the domestic news agenda. The first of these was the closure case against the AKP launched in March. This ended with a verdict on 30 July under which the party escaped being closed down, but was fined and criticised for allegedly having been a 'focus for anti-secular activities' (see pp. 74-5). A minor storm broke in mid-June when Tarat claimed that Osman Paksiit, the Deputy President of the Constitutional Court, had paid a secret visit to General iIker Ba~bug in the Land Forces Command Headquarters on 4 March, before the closure case was initiated. The unproven implication was that the armed forces had put pressure on the Constitutional Court over the closure case and on the related case in which the Court overturned the constitutional amendment on headscarves on 5 June (see pp. 73-4). In response, Osman Paksiit admitted he had met General Ba~bug only to offer his condolences for the loss of 27 soldiers in recent operations in northern Iraq. He firmly denied that he had discussed any of the cases on the Court's agenda. General Ba~bug and the General Staff office also denied the Tarat story, with the latter announcing that it would sue those responsible. 71 The war of words was then dropped, even if the two sides were not reconciled. When the Constitutional Court's verdict was eventually announced on the closure case, General Biiyiikamt, as CGS, rigidly refused to make any comment, although he was pressed hard by reporters to do so. As Murat Yetkin, a leader-writer for Radikal newspaper argued, the verdict had laid to rest the conspiracy theories linking the court case to the military. He concluded that since the e-memorandum of 27 April 2007 the army had avoided taking sides on controversial issues affecting

94 Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey politics and the judiciary. If the army had openly supported closure of the AKP, then matters would have been very different. 72 . Besides the closure case, investigations into a clandestine criminal group known as 'Ergenekon' filled the Turkish headlines during 2008 (as part of the mythology of ultra-nationalism in Turkey, the name was taken from a legendary land of milk and honey in central Asia where the Oguz Turks are said to have taken refuge after being routed by the Tatars). The story began in June 2007 when the General Staff office launched an investigation into an arms cache found in a slum house in the Urnraniye district of Istanbul. Those arrested included a retired army Captain, Muzaffer Tekin, who had earlier been held by the police during an investigation into an armed attack in 2006 on the Council of State, in which a senior judge had been murdered, and was said to be part of the organisation called 'Ergenekon'. The net was widened in January 2008, when 33 more suspects were arrested, including a retired General, Veli Ku~uk, who was allegedly the founder of a clandestine organisation, the Gendarmerie Intelligence and Counter-terrorism Service (]iTEM). This was believed to have operated within the gendarmerie (although its existence was officially denied) and said to have been behind a number of bombings and murders previously attributed to other terrorist groups. These were suspected to have included the murder of the prominent Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink, in January 2007.73 There was a further shock on 1 July 2008, with another round of arrests, including those of retired Generals Sener Eruygur, Hiir§it Tolon and iIker Guven (see pp. 88-9). Retired Brigadier Levent Ers6z, formerly head of the Intelligence Department of the Gendarmerie, who was reported to be in Russia, was also sought, as was a former AKP Deputy, Turhan <;6mez, who had taken refuge in London. According to reports, apparently based on leaks from the prosecutor's office, the suspects had planned to start mass rallies on 7 July, backed by Eruygur's Atatiirkist Thought Society, with the aim of provoking clashes between the police and demonstrators. This would be followed by the murder of senior members of the judiciary by a 30-man hit squad and a campaign designed to show that the Turkish economy was in severe decline. The aim, evidently, was to create an atmosphere of chaos, which would set the stage for a coup d'etat. 74 As in the case of the alleged 'Ornek diaries', one should be very cautious in assessing this story, since at the time of writing none of the allegations against the Ergenekon suspects had been tested in court. Moreover, the armed forces commanders could not-be held responsible for their alleged activities, unless it could be proved that they had taken place before their retirement (as would be the case with the ']iTEM' allegations). There were criticisms that the Ergenekon inquiries had been initiated by the government as a 'revenge' against the ultra-secularist nationalists for the closure case; however, these seemed false, given that the inquiries had begun in June 2007, around nine months before the closure case was launched. The idea was firmly denounced by Cemil <;icek, as government spokesman and by

The AKP government and the military 95 the Ergenekon prosecutor. 75 More crucially, the military commanders raised no public objections to the Ergenekon inquiries, and generally seemed anxious to distance themselves from the alleged plotters.76 Critics also suspected that the Ergenekon case would not be pursued to its conclusion, and the affair would end in a cover-up, as in the case of the ~emdinli and similar investigations.77 However, if this were avoided and if the allegations by the prosecutor's office proved correct, it seemed likely that serious damage would be done to the overall image of the armed forces in the eyes of the public, which was already tarnished by the stream of allegations and revelations. . That the army needed to reconstruct its public standing seems to have been recognised by General ilker Ba~bug who, in time-honoured fashion, was promoted from the command of Land Forces to become CGS after Ya~ar Biiyiikamt's retirement in August 2008. On taking over his new cotriiIiand, General Ba~bug issllea1lie expected denunciation of 'reactionary movements, which attempt to devastate the secular structure of the Republic of Turkey, and terror, attempting to demolish [its] unitary structure'. However, in distinction to his predecessors, he was able to praise the state of Turkey'S relations with the United States, which were now 'more important than ever for the two countries', following the cooperative arrangements over northern Iraq.78 Meanwhile, his other actions suggested that he was anxious to rebuild support for the armed forces from the public, especially in the Kurdish-inhabited southeast. On 4 September 2008, he paid a visit to Diyarbakrr, the main city in the region, where he had talks with a number of civil society organisations, emphasising that 'fighting against terrorism needs to be done in coordination with the public', as well as discussing measures to solve the region'S socio-economic problems. He followed this up with a visit to the frontier city of Van, where he had a rare walkabout, crossing the security barriers to chat with people in the street. According to the general, his visit to Van produced 'emotional moments' for him, and 'J will not forget this experience for rest of my life'. 79 Back in Ankara, he took steps to improve the army's relations with the media, by instituting regular press briefings at the General Staff, boosting the position of its Public Relations and Media Department, and partially lifting a blacklist on some of media known to be critical of the armed forces, which had been imposed by his predecessors. 8o Whether this would be enough to restore the confidence of the public, especially in the southeast, remained to be seen, but the evidence was that the new CGS at least realised the seriousness of the problem.

Assessments and the way ahead Although the story of the AKP government's relations with the military is still unfinished, it has already been subjected to differing interpretations. In an article published in the summer of 2005, while Hilmi Ozkok was still serving as CGS, Metin Heper suggested that 'instances of hostile relations

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between the military and the AKP [have been] turning into cooperative, if not friendly, ones'.HI He concluded that 'during the AKP government, civilmilitary relations in Turkey moved closer to the democratic model than ever before' and that 'even if some generals sometimes register their opposition to the high command's approach to civil-military relations, once a decision is made by the high command, the former always comply with that decision, for hierarchy continues to be a basic norm in the Turkish military'Y Dmit Cizre, in a paper written in 2001, appears to agree, in seeing the period up to October 2005 as one of 'civilian empowerment', in which the government relied on a strategy of 'confrontation avoidance' in its relations with the armed forces. s3 During.the subsequent phase, however, she suggests, 'the government seems to have moved towards a new convergence with the popular conservative-nationalist sentiment and the military's policy priorities on key issues'.H4 For the AKP, this was a 'defeatist phase', she maintains, in which Tayyip Erdogan relapsed into 'paranoid nationalism'.Hs With the benefit of hindsight, it seems that both these views need some revision. Given the clashes between the military and the government over Cyprus, the headscarf wrangle, education and the Kurdish question, it appears that, even during Ozkok's term as CGS, relations between the military and the government were often much less than friendly and cooperative - even though, as Heper correctly points out, the military eventually gave way to the government on crucial issues. Assuming that. the 'Ornek diaries', whoever actualiy wrote them, contain a substantial grain of truth (and the subsequent 'Ergenekon' arrests suggest that they do) then it appears that the force commanders were far from accepting the authority of the CGS, and that at least one of them was actually plotting to overthrow him. Admittedly, Ozkok was able to preveilt them from launching a counter-coup, but he seems to have had little control over their day-to-day activities. Events since the spring of 2007 suggest that Dmit Cizre's analysis errs in the opposite direction. Far from reacting to the 27 April e-memorandum with defeatism, the AKP government openly challenged it, by pressing ahead with Abdullah Giil's election to the presidency after its resounding electoral victory in July 2007. Admittedly, the government's enthusiasm for further liberal reforms in line with the ED's Copenhagen criteria notably waned after 2005, but this had much more to do with disappointment at ED policy (or lack of it) over Cyprus, and the rise of anti-Turkish sentiment in France and other countries, than anti-reformist pressure from the military (see pp. 124-8). To accuse Erdogan of 'paranoid nationalism' seems a gross exaggeration. In.the event, the attempt by the armed forces, aided by militant civilian nationalist-secularists, to overthrow the government, ended in a double defeat - first in the general elections, and then in the decision of the Constitutional Court not to close down the AKP. By the time the closure case was launched in March 2008, General Buyukamt wisely decided that it would be best to stand aside.

·The AKP government and the military 97 Despite the changes in the government-military relationship during 2007-08~ it remained true that Turkey still fell shortofthe liberal-democratic

model, in which the military fully accepts that it has no more than an advisory role, and then only in matters directly related to defence and national security, and in which the elected government, normally through the Ministry of Defence, both plans defence strategy and, with the legislature, exercises full oversight over the armed forces' conduct of their professional functions. As related earlier, the European Union pressed repeatedly that the CGS should be responsible to the Minister of Defence, not to the Prime Minister, and that the NSC should have a less exalted role, especially in matters not strictly related to defence. On the first score, both the armed forces and the government successfully resisted reform, but there are legitimate doubts as to ·how much practical difference the suggested change would make. As Gareth Jenkins points out, the Ministry of Defence is primarily staffed by serving officers on secondment from the General Staff, directed by three-star generals, and it is hard to see how a civilian minister could be expected to exercise effective control over them. 86 To be effective, reform would necessitate a long-run cultural change, including the evolution of a cadre of civil servants, sufficiently expert in defence matters, who would also be free of party patronage and bias - something which Turkey is still a long way from realising. Similarly, achieving meaningful oversight by the legislature would require a fundamental shift of outlook by parliamentarians, and ultimately the electorate, both of whom inherit an ingrained tradition of leaving defence policy, and its execution, to the professional soldiers .. On the second score, the constitutional and legal changes of 2001 and 2003 went some way towards meeting the EU's requirement for a reduced political role for the NSC. However, they did not suffice to prevent the CGS and other senior commanders from issuing frequent public pronouncements on a wide variety of issues - including those like education, the protection of secularism, or Kurdish cultural rights, which had little if anything to do with national defence - outside the NSC. Given the military's long record of interventionism, these received exaggerated attention in the media. As Abdullah Giil, who was then foreign minister, pointed out in May 2003, the military were entitled to express their views, but only within the NSC, and that '[W]henever the views of the military are carried to newspaper headlines everybody begins to think that the country is facing another political crisis'.87 Ending this practice would require a basic ideational shift by the media and the generals. In retrospect, the experiences of 2007 indicated a serious lack of political understanding, and a misinterpretation of the state of public opinion, at the top of the armed forces. If those who were responsible for the e-memorandum of 27 April seriously thought that they could determine the outcome of the presidential election without resorting to an outright coup d'etat, then they were gravely mistaken. They may have thought there was a parallel with the

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situation of 1997, when pressure by the military had played a major role in the downfall of the 'Refahyol' government, but the environment' of 2007 was fundamentally different. Unlike 'Refahyol', the AKP government still had massive public support domestically, as well as internationally. Bodies as diverse as the business community and human rights organisations, which had opposed 'Refahyol' in 1997, strongly resisted military action to overthrow the AKP in 2007. As General Ba§bug evidently realised, given that they would continue to be political actors, the armed forces also had to change the way they addressed the public - to learn to talk with it, rather than at it, or to talk purely among themselves. Although the issue was little discussed, changing the military mindset, making it more aware of social conditions and attitudes, while narrowing the cultural gulf between the officer corps and much of civil society, required reform of the rigidly separatist military education system, and the collective culture, which it nurtured. Successive governments and military commanders had left this essentially untouched. 88 Finally, the application of the liberal model and military withdrawal from politics required a change of attitude and behaviour by politicians, and those they represented, as well as the military commanders. Writing during the period of the previous Ecevit government, Gareth Jenkins had suggested that military activism was 'a symptom rather than a cause of the failure of parliamentary democracy in Turkey'. 89 Since 2002, the AKP government, while far from perfect, had provided the country with more effective and stable administration than it had experienced for the previous decade. Nonetheless, there was a tendency for those who opposed it (as they were perfectly entitled to do) to look over their shoulders to the military for support, rather than tackle the task of constructing an effective oppositional movement with a wide support base. The military too responded to this. Clearly, both sides would have to change their approaches if the process of democratisation were to be fully achieved.

8

The AKP and the Turkish economy

'It's the economy, stupid'. The sign posted in Bill Clinton's headquarters during America's 1992 presidential election campaign, to keep his team 'on message', may have been too simplistic, but transferred to Turkey, it goes a long way to explaining the AKP's electoral success. In both the 2002 and 2007 elections, opinion polls showed that Turkish voters overwhelmingly ranked the state of the economy as their first priority. In the run-up to the 2002 elections, in a poll conducted one month before election day, 90 per cent of respondents identified the economy as 'the most important problem of the country' with unemployment and inflation heading the list of particular concerns. 1 Their economic failure was also cited as the main reason for not voting for any of the previously ruling parties.2 Similarly, in 2007, in a pre-election poll, more than 78 per cent of respondents cited the 'economic situation and expectations' as the most important factor determining their party preference. 3 The AKP's future thus hung heavily on its economic performance in office: if it were to meet the hopes and expectations of its grassroots supporters anq stay in government, it clearly had to deliver economic benefits and prove itself to be a better manager of the national economy than its rivals. Since this a book about politics, rather than economics, this chapter can give no more than a summary survey of the economic aims and performance of the AKP governments, concentrating on those aspects with the greatest political impact, and ignoring those which would probably be of interest mainly to economic or financial specialists, while keeping the analysis at a simple level. It begins with an outline of the economic policies stated by AKP and the state of the economy at the time it came into office, which set the agenda for the following years. This is followed by a survey of its performance, as indicated by the main trends in the economy after 2002. The chapter closes with an assessment of the economic priorities facing the government at the time of writing, in 2008.

Economic policies and agenda: 2002-07 Like other aspects of its programme, the economic policies stated by AKP were eclectic - in this case, balancing the need to promote economic growth

100

lslamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey

in a market economy, integrated into the global system, with the economic demands of its grassroots supporters. In its manifesto issued for the 20.02 elections, the party abandoned the anti-capitalist stance previously adopted by Necmettin Erbakan's Welfare Party, in which interest would be abolished, and small-scale enterprises promoted alongside a powerful state industrial sector (the so-called 'Just Order', or Adil Diize11).4 Instead, the AKP declared that 'the srength of private enterprise of our nation is the most important source of economic progress'. The economic role of the state would be r~stricted to 'ensuring the conditions for free competition in th~ market, and removing the obstacles facing private enterprise'. Although it accepted that globalisation created dangers and opportunities for the developing economies, it supported Turkey's integration into the global economic system, as well as the privatisation of the large state industrial and services sector, which was inherited from previous policies of etatism, going back to the 1930s. Meanwhile, to ensure greater social justice, it undertook to reduce unemployment and serious imbalances in income distribution.s The party repeated much the same message in its 2007 election manifesto, confirming its commitment to the market economy, and declaring that the state would withdraw from producing goods and services, emphasising only its regulatory and supervisory funtions. Moreover, this would be carried out in a context of 'social sensitivity'. Recalling that Turkey is defined in Article 2 of the Turkish constitution as a 'social state', it confirmed that 'implementing social justice is the most basic concern of our party ... and its foremost objective'.6 In both elections, its stated aims reflected its commitment to strengthening Turkey'S position in the global economy, and balancing the demands of its domestic constituency in large sections of the the entrepreneurial and technocratic niiddle class with those of farmers and the urban poor. In practice, these ambitious aims were inevitably restricted by the state of the economy at the time the AKP took office - in particular, the legacy of an economic and financial crash, which had devastated the economy in 2001, and the rescue plan prescribed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to which Turkey had been committed by the previous Ecevit government. This produced both gains and losses for the AKP. On the one hand, the economic failures of the previous coalition partners was, as already noticed, one of the main reasons for the strong swing towards the AKP in the November 2002 elections. Voters may have been uncertain whether the AKP could do better than its predecessors, but they were at least prepared to give it the benefit of the doubt, since it could hardly do worse. On the other hand, in the autumn of 2002, the Turkish economy was barely out of the casualty ward. Like it or not, rejecting the IMF-imposed stabilisation plan was not a realistic option for the new AKP government, and it had to restrict its economic and social ambitions accordingly. Some details need to be added to this picture, since the lessons and legacies of the recent past played a major role in shaping the AKP's policies. The

The AKP and the Turkish ecol1omy

101

2001 crisis could be seen as the most recent of what Ziya bni~ aptly describes as a series of 'populist cycles' in the economy, stretching back to the late 1950s, in which large fiscal deficits and consequent high inflation led to a balance of payments crisis, an inevitable encounter with the IMF, a restrictive stabilisation plan, and then a return to economic populism by a following government, which re-started the go-stop-go cycle. 7 The main difference between the 2001 crisis and its predecessors was that it was brought to a head by a collapse of the financial system, rather than the balance of payments. In December 1999, the Ecevit government negotiated a stand-by loan with the IMF for $4 billion. Under pressure from the FUIid, it had created a Banking Regulation and Supervisory Agency (BRSA), which in 2000 placed a number of banks under receivership: their owners were arrested and faced criminal investigation. In the last week of November, this created severe anxiety in the market, producing a short-term capital outflow of around $5 billion in one week. This was not halted until 6 December, when a $15 billion aid package led by the IMF was announced. However, this failed to generate enough credibility on the part of market players, mainly because the government's commitment to other parts of the IMF's programme, involving far-reaching disinflation and important structural reforms, was only half-hearted. 8 The crisis re-erupted, far more acutely, on 19 February 2001, when there was a head-on clash between Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit and President Sezer. At a meeting of the National Security Council, the President accused Ecevit of having failed to investigate reports of widespread malpractice at three state banks, or sack his Minister of Energy, who was accused of corrupt practices. In response, the Prime Minister angrily criticised the President for 'inappropriate behaviour'.9 As Hakan Tum; explains it, the financial markets took this as a sign that the government;and hence the IMF-imposed programme, could be about to collapse. Frightened investors rushed to convert their Turkish Lira-denominated assets into dollars. This produced a catastrophic liquidity squeeze for banks, as they turned to the inter-bank market to raise Liras with which to buy dollars from the Central Bank. However, the latter refused to provide extra liquidity to the banks, so that overnight interest rates shot upwards. On 21 February, two public banks were unable to meet their obligations to other banks, producing a collapse of the inter-bank payments system. In response, the government was forced to abandon the 'crawling-peg' exchange rate system, which had been adopted as part of the 1999 programme, and allowed the Lira to float. to As a result, the currency devalued by almost 50 per cent in two months, and the economy was pushed into deep recession. Thanks to the cost of bailing out the failed banking system, total government debt soared to $123.6 billion by the end of 2001, equivalent to around 100 per cent of Turkey's Gross Domestic Product (GDP).l1 According to different calculations, GDP dropped by between 5.7 per cent and 7.5 per cent in 2001, whereas consumer price inflation rose to 68.5 per cent and the unemployment rate in the

102

Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey

final quarter to lOA per cent of the workforceY Other estimates put the number of enterprises going out of business in the two years to August 2002 at 600,000 and total job losses during this period at 2.3 million, with a fall in real wages in the manufacturing sector of 1404 per cent in 2001.\3 In effect, virtually all sections of society - businessmen, workers and consumers - suffered more than at any time since the Second World War. From this point on, the Ecevit government was electorally doomed. Following the devaluation, a former World Bank Vice':President, Kemal Dervi§, was hastily recruited to the government as a minister of the economy, to draw up an economic stabilisation plan. As part of this, the Central Bank was left free to fix interest rates, independently of the government. In May-2001, the IMF announced a new credit line to Turkey of $8 billion, in addition to the $6 billion still available under the previous programme. In February 2002, this was succeeded by a new three-year stand-by agreement with the IMF in which the Fund pledged around $17 billion in credits, with $4 billion outstanding from earlier agreements. 14 In all this, Turkey received favourable treatment, thanks to its strategic importance to the United States, as the Fund's dominant member - underlining the importance of Turkey's political links with Washington (see p. 12S).H However, these credits came with tight strings attached. Following the February 2002 agreement, the independence of the Central Bank was retained, along with the floating exchange rate. Tight fiscal targets were extended up to 2004, and the government was committed to vital structural reforms - in particular, the re-capitalisation of private banks, the re-structuring of the state banking sector and the strengthening of government finances by rationalising employment in the public sector, reforming the tax system and privatisation. 16 These commitments were inherited by the AKP government in November 2002. Following the elections, there was a long delay in the release of IMF loans, as the new government seemed reluctant to accept the Fund's conditions. However, the release of further credit tranches eventually resumed in April 2003, after the government sent a new Letter of Intent to the Fund. The central part of its programme, which was to last until 2005, was to achieve a primary surplus in the public sector (that is, before interest payments) equivalent to 6.5 per cent of Gross National Product (GNP), so as to reduce monetary inflation and government indebtedness. In effect, this meant bringing government expenditure under tight control and increasing revenue. To achieve the first, the government undertook to adhere to 'prudent public sector wage and employment policies', to eliminate 'redundant positions in state enterprises', and to overhaul the social security system, which was recording huge annual deficits. On the revenue side, the government pledged to reform the tax system, to make sure that more taxpayers complied with their obligations, and to press ahead with privatisation, which was regarded as a 'top agenda item'. Reform and strengthening of the banking sector would be continued, as would the floating exchange rate regime. 17 In effect, the government was committed to a dis inflationary

The AKP and the Turkish economy 103 belt-tightening strategy, rather than populist policies, which might have met the immediate demands of its electoral base. Naturally, the agreement with the IMF of April 2003 was only the beginning of the AKP government's negotiations with the Fund. The original three-year stand-by agreement expired in February 2005, but with no new accord to take its place, since the government had failed to meet its commitments on reforming the tax administration, financial institutions and the social security system. 18 A new agreement was not signed until May 2005, following a statement of its commitments sent to the IMF by the government on 26 April. Under this, the administration pledged to continue tight fiscal discipline, in particular the IMF's central benchmark of a consolidated public sector primary surplus equivalent to 6.5 per cent of GNP. To help achieve this, it undertook to enact the long-delayed reform to the social security system, to reform the personal income and corporation tax systems, and continue privatisation of state sector enterprises. To strengthen the banking system, a new banking law was also promised. Meanwhile, to follow up its success in reducing inflation (see below, p. 108), the government proclaimed targets of an 8 per cent inflation rate for 2005 and to move to levels below five per cent by the end of the programme in 2008. 19 For the AKP government, the main advantage of the new agreement was to re-schedule the repayment of the inherited debts to the IMF, particularly those incurred in 2000-01, amounting to around $20 billion, most of which were to be repaid in 2005-07. By providing $10 billion in extra credit, the IMF effectively postponed repayment of around half of these until after the end of the new programme. 20 Over the next two years, the government's record in meeting its reform obligations was not perfect, although not all the blame for this could be laid at its door. The promised banking law was duly enacted in July 2005, but this was sent back to parliament by President Sezer and not re-passed by the assembly until December. Two bills to reform the social security system were passed by parliament in April 2006, but were also returned by the President. They were re-passed unchanged at the end of May, but were then referred by the President to the Constitutional Court, which vetoed important parts, in a verdict delivered in December 2006. 21 The result was that this important reform remained unachieved when the IMF programme ended in 2008. Economic stabilisation was also undermined in March 2006 when the fiveyear term of the widely respected Governor of the Central Bank, Siireyya Serdengec;ti, expired. The choice of a successor caused severe tension between Tayyip Erdogan and President Sezer, since the Prime Minister favoured the appointment of Adnan Biiyiikdeniz, who had spent almost all his career in the Islamic (or non-interest) banking community. This was strongly opposed by the staunchly secularist President, and it was not until 18 April that the Prime Minister backed down, allowing the appointment of Durmu§ Ydmaz, a career official of the Bank.22 In the meantime, the uncertainty set off a bout of instability in financial markets, with the Lira 23 falling abruptly

104

Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey

from 1.31 to the dollar on 8 May to 1.70 on 23 June (by the end of the year it had re-stabilised at around 1.40 to the dollar).24 On the positive side, the government enacted changes to the tax system, reducing corporation tax from 30 to 20 per cent, in a bid to attract more foreign direct investment. The number of tax brackets for personal income tax was reduced, and the tax rates reduced for ~he self-employed, in the hope that more of them would file accurate tax returns (or indeed any at all: see below pp. 109-10). The changes came into effect in November 2006.25 The banking law of 2005 was part of continued efforts to rescue the banking system from the crisis of 2001. Originally established in 1983, the Savings Deposit Insurance Fund (SDIF) was charged with honouring the obligations of failed banks, and attempting to recover the public funds expended from the former owners and other borrowers, and by selling off subsidiaries, real estate and other a~sets of the seized institutions. Between 1997 and 2003, 20 banks were placed in its hands, of which 12 were merged with other banks, and five were sold. In September 2008, the total cost to the state of bailing out the failed banks was put at $27 billion,26 with $15.7 billion recovered by the SDIF by the end of 2007. Particularly spectacular recoveries were from the Uzan family, formerly owners of the defunct imar Bank, from whom $6.9 billion was recovered, and Din'.; Bilgin, from whom $255 million was retrieved following the collapse of Etibank and Bilgin's media empire.27 The remaining banks were strengthened through strict monitoring by the BRSA and their capital structures reinforced. Consequently, the total equity of the banking sector rose from $37 billion in 2005, when the new banking law was enacted, to $67 billion·by 2008. During the same period, deposit collection increased by 80 per cent in terms of dollars, to reach $330 billion, or 60 per cent of banking resources. Reliance on external sources (mostly syndicated credits from foreign banks) was also substantially reduced to around $25 billion or less than five per cent of totalliabilities.28 Overseas banks also showed increased interest in the Turkish banking sector, either through purchases of existing Turkish banks, or independent operations. As a result, the share of foreign banks in the sector, which had only been about one per cent in 1999, reached 42.7 per cent by 2008. Among many others, notable takeovers were those of 89 per cent of the fomer DI~bank by the (then) DutchBelgian group Fortis for $1.28 billion, 26 per cent of Garanti Bankasl by the Consumer Finance arm of the US company General Electric, and 46 per cent (later increased to 56 per cent) of Finansbank by the National Bank of Greece, for a total of just under $3.5 billion.29 . In line with the IMP's prescriptions, privatisation of the lumbering state sector was another major part of the government's agenda. According to the Privatisation Administration, which is attached to the Prime Minister's office, the purpose of this programme is to 'reduce the state's industrial and commercial activity in the economy to a minimum, to nurture the market economy based on competition, to reduce the burden to the state budget of financing state economic enterprises [and] develop the capital market'.30

The AKP al1d the Turkish

eC01tOmy

105

Industrialisation had begun in Turkey during the 1930s under a state-led programme of etatism. Since the 1980s, governments had been committed to turning over a large proportion of the state sector to private hands, but by 2002, little had been achieved, so that many basic industries, such as iron and steel, chemicals and cement, most public utilities, some food processing, and about 30 per cent of the banking sector were still owned by the state. Between 1985 and 2003, total privatisation revenues only reached around $8.2 billion, or an average of around $430 million per year. Between 2004 and 2007, the government was able to exploit the increased confidence of both domestic and foreign investors, as well as an effective institutional structure, to increase privatisation revenues to almost $21.8 billion, or an annual average of around $5.45 billion. A major achievement was the longawaited privatisation of Tiirk Telekom, which has a monopoly of the fixed-line telephone network and was sold to the Oger company, based in Saudi Arabia, for a total of $8.4 billion, Other privatisations included 51 per cent of the state oil refiner Tiipra§ (for $4.1 billion), the state share in the steel company Erdemir ($2.8 billion) and the sale of the Tekel state cigarette factories, which fetched $1.7 billion (to its credit, the government also promoted an anti-smoking campaign).JI The process was not an easy or smooth one, since it was opposed both by the labour unions, who correctly expected that it would lead to a downsizing of the workforce in the affected industries, and by the judiciary, which could be expected to adhere to etatist principles. In particular, the sale of 51 per cent of Tiipra~, originally to a German firm linked to the Russian oil company Tatneft, was initially announced in February 2004. However, the sale was referred to the courts by the petroleum workers' union Petrol-i§, and it was not until May 2006 that it was finally approved by the Council of State (the supreme administrative court); by this time, the purchasers were the Turkish conglomerate KoC; Holding and ShellY Similarly, the sale of 51 per cent of the state petrochemicals producer Petkim failed for different reasons in 2003 and 2004. It was only in May 2008 that the sale was finalised, to a consortium headed by the Turkish company Turcas and the Azerbaijani state energy company So car. Even then, Petrol-i§ had filed suits against the privatisation. JJ Despite these obstacles, however, it could be said that the privatisation programme had been generally successful - and certainly far more so than the half-hearted attempts made by previous governments.

Economic performance and macroeconomic trends,

2002-07 Given the patchy legacy which it had inherited, the main test for the AKP government in 2002 was whether it could restore growth and price stability to the economy, while reducing unemployment and increasing overseas earnings and capital inflows so as to finance the expected increase in imports.

106

Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey

Data for Turkey's GDP between 2000 and 2007 (the last full year for which figures were available at the time of writing) are shown in Table 8.1 and are drawn from the new national income series announced by the Turkish Statistical Institute in March 2008. 34 As can be seen, economic growth (as measured by GDP at constant prices) was restored rapidly after the crash of 2001, and continued at a high rate until 2007, when it fell back, thanks mainly to the uncertainty created by the political crisis over the presidential election, and the following general elections (see pp. 74-5) as well as a drop in agricultural output, because of drought conditions. As a result, the annual GDP growth rate fell back to 4.5 per cent, or 0.5 per cent below the government's original projections. 3s The composition of GDP altered only slightly during the period shown in Table 8.1, with the share of agriculture falling from around 12 per cent to 9 per cent, that of industry growing from 24 per cent to 25 per cent, with services also increasing from 64 per cent to 66 per cent. 36 It is also worth noting that the Turkish economy had been restored to a growth path by 2002, although the AKP government only took over in November of that year. In this way, the AKP benefited from the changes initiated by the previous Ecevit government, even if by then it was too late to save Biilent Ecevit from an almost total loss of public support. Nevertheless, the AKP could take most of the credit for the turnaround in the economy: with an average annual GDP growth rate of almost 7 per cent between 2002 and 2007, the Turkish economy grew far faster than those of the main industrialised economies, being outpaced only by the 'Asian tigers' such as China and India. Calculation of the rise in per capita GDP over the period is difficult, as the government statisticians also revised population figures downwards, after the introduction of a new methodology in 2007,37 without giving population Table 8.1 Gross Domestic Product, 2000-07 Year

At currelZt prices, YTL billion

At currelZt prices, $ billion

At constant (1998) prices, YTL billion

Per celZt change

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007

166.7 240.2 350.4 454.8 559.0 648.9 758.4 856.4

265.4 196.7 230.5 304.9 390.4 481.5 526.4 658.8

72.4 68.3 72.5 76.3 83.5 90.5 96.7 101.0

6.8 -5.7 6.2 5.3 9.4 8.4 6.9 4.5

Source: Turkish Statistical Institute (Turkstat), new national income data series announced in March 2008 (see note 34); Note As from 1 January 2005, the Turkish Lira (TL) was redenominatedby deleting the last six digits and renamed 'New Turkish Lira' (¥IL). As from 1 January 2009, the previous name, 'Turkish Lira', was restored. To provide continuity, all pre·200S data have been converted to ¥IL.

The AKP and the Turkish economy 107 estimates for years before 2007; however, the official estimate for per capita GDP using the revised population figures was $9,333 for 2007. With an estimated population growth rate of 1.26 per cent per annum,38 the growth in the economy was evidently well ahead that of the rise in population, with a consequent rise in the average per capita figure. However, this still left average incomes at well below those of the European Union, which Turkey aimed to join. 39 Moreover, as part of its social welfare objectives, the AKP government was also committed to reducing imbalances in income distribution. According to calculations by the Turkish Statistical Institute, the Gini coefficient (running from 1.0, for absolute inequality, to zero, for absolute inequality) for Turkey in 2005 stood at 0.38, with the ratio of the share of the richest 20 per cent of the population to that of the poorest 20 per cent standing at 7.3. 40 Given that the recorded ratio for 2002 was 9.4 (or 11.2 for 1994 )41 there was evidence of some improvement. Nevertheless, income distribution in Turkey was clearly far less even than in the EU as a whole, where the comparable ratio for 2006 stood at 4.8. 42 There was also a serious interregional imbalance in income distribution, with the eastern and southeastern regions far poorer than those the industrialised west. Thus, in 2001, taking the national average per capita income as 100, the index number for 17 eastern and southeastern provinces was between 34 and 52; by contrast, the index number for izmir was 150, and 143 for Istanbul. 43 In 2006,17.8 per cent of the population was recorded as living below the poverty line, with a monthly income in New Turkish Liras (YTL) for a fourmember family of less than YTL 549 ($384), or only enough to cover food and other basic necessities. Admittedly, this represented an improvement over the finding for 2002, where the proportion had been recorded as just under 27 per cent, but the government clearly still had a long way to go if it were to meet its social goals. 44 Poverty was particularly acute in families with children, with UNICEF reporting in 2007 that almost 28 per cent of children under 15 were living in poverty.4S By the end of 2008, the Turkish Statistical Institute calculated that a monthly income of YTL 729 ($470) was required to meet basic needs, yet the minimum wage was fixed at only YTL 527 ($340) per month for 2009. The main form of aid to poor families took the form of free food packages and deliveries of coal, given three times per month by the municipalities, plus free hospital treatment. However, there were complaints that the rules for eligibility were poorly established, with some families receiving assistance they did not really need, whereas other needy families were neglected. In November 2008, it was announced that a single national database, counting the poor and the institutions providing aid, as part of a project for 'Integrated Social Aid Services', but this would not be put into effect until 2010.46 Besides restoring economic growth, vital objectives for the AKP were to bring down the chronically high inflation levels it had inherited from the previous government and, in line with this, to restore fiscal discipline (the striking lack of which had been the major cause of inflation) in line with

108

Is/amism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey

the IMF's prescriptions. On both these scores, it had important successes, although the inflation record was not perfect in later years. As can ·be seen from Table 8.2, in 2002, consumer price inflation had already been brought down from 68.5 per cent in 2001 to 29.7 per cent, and the AKP government built on this to reduce the annual rise to single digits by 2004 - although this was still well above the levels recorded by most industrial economies. However, by 2006-07, it was clearly falling short of its commitment to the IMF to reduce inflation to levels below 5 per cent by 2008 (see p. 103). During 2006, inflation was pushed upwards by the increases in the price of crude oil (nearly all of which Turkey has to import) and by the drop in the international value of the Lira during May-June 2006 caused by the political row over the Central Bank governorship (p. 103). These pressures continued during 2007, with continued rises in oil and raw material prices and some relaxation of fiscal discipline by the government in the run-up to the 2007 elections. 47 Restoring fiscal discipline, by reducing the huge deficit in the central government's budget, was a central weapon in the battle against inflation, and the main test demanded by the IMF as a condition for its continued support to the Turkish economy. As the first column in Table 8.3 shows, the central government's consolidated balance deficit was a colossal YTL 29 billion in the crisis year of 2001, equivalent to 16.3 per cent of GDP, or about 56 per cent of total revenue, with the government spending about YTL 1.57 for every Lira it was taking in tax and other revenues. The major cause was the huge cost servicing the public debt, which, according to figures from the Central Bank of Turkey stood at 90.5 per cent of GDP in 2001 (taking the domestic and external debt together). Although the debt continued to grow in absolute terms, as GDP growth was resumed this proportion was reduced to 63.5 per cent in 2004 and 29.1 per cent in 2007. 48 After 2001, the annual cost of servicing this debt grew slightly, from YTL 41.1 billion in 2001 to YTL 48.7 billion in 2007. However, during the same period, the

Table 8.2 Wholesale and consumer price indices, 2001-08 (per cent change, year on year) Year

Wholesale price index

Consumer price index"

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007

88.6 30.8 13.9 13.8 4.5 11.6 5.6

685 29.7 18.4 9.4 7.7 9.7 8.4

Source: Turkish Statistical Institute (Turkstat; www.tuik.gov.tr). "For 2001-03, 1994-based ·consumer index numbers: for 2004-07, 2003-based consumer inde~ numbers.

Tbe AKP and tbe Turkisb economy 109 Table 8.3 Consolidated central government finances, 2000-07, YTL billion"

Consolidated revenue Consolidated expenditure of which, interest Consolidated balance as % ofGDP Consolidated balance excluding interest as % ofGDP

2001

2005 ....

2006

2007* ....

51.5 80.6 41.1 -29.0 -16.3

138.0 146.1 45.7 -8.1 -1.7

171.3 175.2 45.9 -4.0 -0.7

189.6 203.5 48.7 -13.9 -1.6

12.1 6.7

37.6 7.7

42.0 7.3

34.8 4.1

Source: Economist Intelligence Unit, Turkey: Coulltry Profile, for 2005, 2007; Tllrkey: COlllltry Report, Jllly 2008. Notes "See note to Table 8.1. " .. Break in series: as of 2005, revenue and expenditure exclude tax rebates . .. .... Break in series: 'recalculated on 2007 basis'.

growth in the economy and improved revenue collection allowed the government to increase revenue from YTL 51.5 billion to YTL 189.6 billion, and expenditure from YTL 80.6 billion to YTL 203.5 billion, with the share of debt servicing in total expenditure falling to just under 24 per cent by 2007. While the government finances consolidated balance, including interest, continued to show a deficit, the figure excluding interest payments (the 'primary balance') showed a positive figure, above the IMF's benchmark of 6.5 per cent of GDP, according to the Central Bank figures. 49 In 2007, however, with a slowdown in economic growth but a continued rise in public expenditure, the primary balance dropped, both absolutely and as a per centage of GDP, corresponding to a rise in inflation. An important objective of fiscal policy was to increase tax.revenue - in particular, by achieving a greater degree of compliance by tax-payers - and to reform the tax regime, so as to achieve greater social equity. A striking feature of the tax system was that, according to calculations by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) published in 2008, the share of personal income taxes in total tax revenues in Turkey was less than 15 per cent, compared with an OECD average of 24.5 per cent, despite a relatively high average personal income tax of 30.5 per cent. The main reason was the huge size of the informal economy, with an estimated 53 per cent of all employees being unregistered (hence, paid in cash, with no income tax deductions). Additionally, self-employed workers and professionals had a very low rate of compliance with, for instance, travel agents, restaurant owners, clothing workshop owners and dentists paying only about 10-15 per cent of their estimated tax liabilities.so In other words, registered employees, mainly in the state sector or large private firms, paid high personal income taxes, whereas unregistered workers paid none, and the self-employed, including many high-earning professionals, paid far less in taxes, as a proportion of their income, than registered wage-earners. After

110

Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey

delays caused by referral of the original statute back to the legislature by President Sezer, the parliament finally passed a new income tax law in March 2006, reducing the number of tax bands, increasing the tax rates for higher paid employees, but reducing them for those doing self-assessments (that is, the self-employed) so as to encourage greater compliance. Other amendments were designed to make tax evasion more difficult. Corporation tax was also reduced from 20 to 30 per cent, in line with the rates adopted by central and eastern European countries, so as to attract more foreign direct investment.51 The reduction of unemployment was the third major item in the AKP's economic agenda, and the one most consistently demanded by the electorate. Here, the AKP was faced with the problem that while the overall population (and hence that of working age) was growing, agricultural employment was falling, thanks to the mechanisation of farming. Thus, while the total workforce grew by around one million between 2002 and 2006, from 23.8 million to 24.8 million, employment in agriculture fell from around 7.5 million to just over 6 million. In effect, jobs had to be found for around 2.5 million new workers, besides the previously unemployed.52 Growth of employment was also held back by the fact that the 500 largest firms in Turkey, which generated almost half of total industrial value added and 54 per cent of exports in 2006, employed only 12 per cent of the industrial workforce, and made little contribution to extra employment, reflecting their high capital intensity.53 Hence, recorded unemployment, expressed as a percentage o{the total workforce, fell only marginally, from 10.3 per cent in 2002 to 9.9 per cent in 2007. Turkey also had a particularly low labour force participation rate (expressed as a percentage of the total population aged 15 and above) of 49.6 per cent in 2002, falling to 47.8 per cent in 2007.54 The fall could partly be explained by a rise in the number of students, as a proportion of the total adult population, but also by the fact that married women, who had previous been employed on the family farm, tended to stay at home rather than go out to work when the family moved to the city. This may have been due to conservative Muslim tradition, but generally the high rate of unemployment must also be a part of the explanation. Expanding foreign trade and tackling the large deficit in the current account balance of payments, which had long been the Achilles heel of the Turkish economy, was the final part of the government's task list, which is considered here. Between 2002 and 2007, foreign trade grew rapidly, reflecting Turkey's growing integration into the global economy, from around 38 per cent of GDP in 2002 to just more than 42 per cent by 2007.55 As can be seen from Table 8.4, exports increased exponentially, by a multiplier of more than 3.35, between 2002 and 2007, but were outpaced by imports, for which the 2007 total was more than 4.25 times that of 2002. The composition of foreign trade reflected the fact that Turkey was now a largely industrialised economy. Despite the massive rise in imports; there was little change in their composition between 2001 and 2007, with about 73 per cent of the

Table 8.4 Summary balance of payments statistics, 2002-07 ($ billion)

Exports f.o.b. Imports f.o.b.

Trade balance Services Credit Debit Net income Net current transfers

Current account balance Net direct investment Net portfolio investment Net other investment"

Financial balance Net errors and omissions

Overall balance Average exchange rates (YTL per $US) (YTLper €) Foreign Reserves ($ bn, year's end, excluding gold)

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

34.4 -38.1 -3.7

40.1 -47.4 -7.3

51.2 -65.2 -14.0

67.0 -90.9 -23.9

76.9 -109.9 -32.9

93.6 -134.6 -40.9

115.4 -162.0 -46.7

15.2 -6.1 -5.0 3.0 3.4 2.9 -4.5 -12.9 -14.6 -1.7 -12.9

14.0 -6.2 -4.6 2.4 -1.5 1.0 -0.6 0.8 1.2 0.1 -0.2

18.0 -7.5 -5.6 1.0 -8.0 1.3 2.5 3.5 7.2 4.9 4.1

22.9 -10.2 -5.6 1.1 -15.6 2.0 8.0 7.7 17.8 2.1 4.3

25.9 -11.9 -5.6 1.5 -23.2 8.7 13.4 22.0 44.1 2.2 23.2

25.3 -11.4 -6.7 1.9 -31.9 19.3 7.4 16.1 42.8 -0.2 10.6

28.8 -14.9 -7.1 2.2 -37.7 20.2 0.7 27.7 48.6 1.1 12.0

1.51 1.42 27.1

1.50 1.70 34.0

1.23 1.10 18.9

1.43 1.77 35.7

1.34 1.67 50.6

1.43 1.79 61.1

1.18 .", 1.71 "., 73.4

Sources: for 2001-05, Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), TIlrlwy, COllntry Profile. 2007, p. 75 (from IMF figures): for 2006-07, Central Bank of Turkey (www.tcmb.gov.tr) (Central Bank figures for earlier years differ slightly). Totals may not add exactly, because of rounding. Exchange rates and foreign reserves from EIU, Turkey, COllntry Profile, 2005, pp. 76, 77; ibid. 2007, p. 76; Turkey, COllntry Report, July 2008, pp. 20,21. "Other investment liabilities, less assets. ""Year's end.

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Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey

total being accounted for by the raw materials and intermediate products needed by Turkish industry, around 17 per cent by capital goods a"nd only 10 per cent by consumer goods. The rise in imports was partly the result of high economic growth, and the consequent rise in imports of raw materials and capital goods needed by "industry, and partly by the rise in commodity prices, especially that of oil, after 2005. Thus, while oil imports remained steady, at around 23-24 million metric tons per year, throughout the period, their cost increased from just over $6 billion in 2004 to $11.8 billion in 2007, with a further hefty increase expected for 2008. In exports, the share of industrial products increased slightly during this period, from 92 to 94 per cent, with agricultural and mining products accounting for the remaining 6-8 per cent. However, there was a significant shift in the composition of Turkey's industrial exports, in which clothing and textiles accounted for more than half (50.5 per cent) of total exports in 2001, but only 20.1 per cent in 2007, whereas the share of motor vehicles rose to 15.9 per cent and that of base metals (mainly steel) to 11.5 per cent.56 In effect, increased competition from low-wage economies, such as China and India, with the liberalisation of international trade, had held down the exports oflabour-intensive industries, of which clothing was the prime example. Per contra, capitalintensive industries grew fast, as Turkey moved up the technological ladder: the motor industry, which was dominated by foreign firins working with Turkish partners, was a prime example of this. The excess of imports over exports left Turkey with a large and continuing foreign trade deficit. Part of this was covered by the services account, in which income from items such as tourism, trade and transport normally exceeded outgoings. Tourism, in particular, was "a strong performer, with the number of foreign visitors increasing from 11.6 million in 2001 to 23.3 million in 2007, and annual tourism income (including the expenditures in Turkey of Turks living abroad) from $10 billion to $18.5 billion in the same period.57 Net foreign income (that is, profits transferred by firms and individuals from and to Turkey) was a deficit item, although emigrants' remittances - the main element in" 'Current Transfers' - reduced this. In 2001, exceptionally, the economic crisis and the consequent drop in imports left Turkey with a positive current account balance, but a growing deficit was recorded in the following years. In 2001, with the massive outflow of capital, the overall balance recorded a large deficit, but this was reduced, and then turned positive, thanks to increased capital inflows. In effect, greater foreign confidence in the Turkish economy allowed the country to cover a large current account "deficit, and even to allow a substantial increase in reserves after 2002. A crucial element in this was the very impressive rise in foreign direct investment, especially after 2005, which both helped to cover the imports bill, and accelerated the modernisation of Turkish industry as foreign firms brought in know-how"and marketing networks as well as capital. On the other hand, a substantial part of the inflow was of liquid funds, attracted both by the rise of the stock market and the fact that real

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interest rates in Turkey were usually well above those in other markets. 5H This element in the balance of payments was obviously vulnerable, especially if foreign confidence evaporated or overseas real interest rates rose significantly. Nevertheless, the overall improvement was impressive, with a rise in foreign exchange reserves at the Central Bank from just under $19 billion in 2001 to $73.4 billion (equivalent to around 45 per cent of the year's imports) by the end of 2007. After the massive devaluation of 2001, the international value of the Lira stabilised at around YTL 1.50 to the dollar in 2002-03: after this, it actually appreciated, along with the decline in the value of the dollar against other world currencies, to reach YTL 1.18 by December 2007. Against the Euro (a significant factor, given the importance of the EU in Turkey's foreign trade) the exchange rate stabilised at around YTL 1.70-1.80 in 2003 and after. Since Turkey's inflation rate was above the levels of its main trade partners, it appears that the Lira became overvalued - by around 14 per cent at the end of 2007, according to calculations by the OECD.59 There were also important changes in the direction of Turkey's foreign trade during this period, shown in Table 8.5. Since the 1970s, the European Union and its predecessor organisations had emerged as Turkey's dominant commercial partner, with Germany in the lead in both imports and exports. The EU's role was reinforced by a customs union with Turkey, which had come into force in 1996. This dominance increased with successive enlargements of the EU, so that by 2002 the 27 members of the Union (as of 2007)60 accounted for more than half Turkey's total foreign trade. After 2004, however, a significant shift began, as the EU's share slipped to just below 43 per cent by the first half of 2008 (trade with the United States was relatively insignificant, accounting for less than 5 per cent of the total in 2007).61 Meanwhile, by 2008, Russia had emerged as Turkey'S biggest single trading partner, overtaking Germany. This historically unprecedented situation was largely due to the rise in natural gas imports from Russia, combined with Table 8.5 Foreign merchandise trade, by country groups

Total (exports + imports, $ billion) Of which (per cent) EU27 (Germany) MENA"" Rest of world (Russia)

2002

2004

2006

2007

2008*

87.6

160.7

225.1

277.3

207.8

52.6 (14.7) 11.4 36.0 (5.8)

52.7 (13.2) 11.8 35.5 (6.8)

47.6 (10.9) 13.2 39.1 (9.3)

46.5 (10.6) 12.7 40.7 (10.2)

42.9 (9.6) 15.4 41.6 (11.4)

Source: Turkish Statistical Institute (Turkstat; www.tuik.gov.tr). Notes Figures for total foreign trade differ slightly from those shown in Table 8.4. "Year to July. .... Middle East and North Africa.

114 Isiamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey the increase in the price of fossil fuels, notably crude oil, of which about 40 per cent of Turkey's supplies came from Russia (see p. 137). However, there was a massive imbalance in trade with Russia, with imports exceeding exports in the ratio of 5 : 1. In principle, in a global trading system, there was no need for Turkey to balance its trade with each country exactly, but the deficit in trade with Russia undoubtedly played a major role in the growing overall trade deficit. Meanwhile, Turkish trade with the countries of the Middle East and North Africa (shown as 'MENA' in Table 8.5) also increased significantly. This was partly due to the rise in oil prices, which increased the value of oil imports from the region, but also to a significant rise in exports to the oil-exporting countries. The oil price escalation thus cuts both ways for Turkey, as it was able to exploit its geographical (perhaps cultural) advantages in a growing market. As a result, in 2007, Turkey had a surplus in its trade with MENA, with exports of $19.1 billion and imports of $15.8 billion. 62 A similar trend was noticeable in capital inflows. In 2003, foreign direct investment totalled $6.1 billion, of which 72 per cent came from the EO and just less than 15 per cent from the MENA countries. During 2004-07, the total reached $36.5 billion, with the shares of the EO and MENA at 64 and 26 per cent, respectively. In this way, its Middle Eastern partners - in particular, the Arab oil-exporting countries - had become Turkey's second most important source of inward investment. 63 In the broader perspective, these changes reflected global shifts in the balance of economic power, as the dominant position of the advanced industrial countries in the world economy was gradually eroded by the rise of Russia, Brazil, India and China (the so-called 'BRIC') as the world's new economic giants. It also echoed the emphasis on a more diversified foreign policy, which was part of the AKP's external political strategy (see pp. 120-21). These effects should not be exaggerated however. Of the four 'BRIC' countries, Russia was the only one with close economic relations with Turkey. Equally, the Middle Eastern countries - although not included in 'BRIC' - were crucial partners, for obvious geographical reasons. Moreover, despite these global shifts, the EO still had a fundamentally important economic role in Turkey. Whatever the tensions in the Turkey-EO relationship and the shift in global trading patterns, Turkey could not afford to ignore the huge economic advantages which it derived from the customs union, and the possibility of eventual EO membership, which provided a vital external anchor for careful economic policies and continued growth. The continuing agenda: 2008 As the foregoing account has illustrated, despite the Islamist origins of most of its leaders, there was little that was identifiably 'Islamic' about the AKP's economic policies and performance, which corresponded fairly closely to those of previous centre-right governments in Turkey, such as those of the Motherland Party under Turgut Ozal during the 1980s. In effect, the AKP

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115

government's economic strategies were directed by the need to carry out its commitments to the IMF and to strengthen its case for membership of the EU, as well as its attachment to liberal economic principles combined with greater social justice - a Turkish version, maybe, of the 'social market economy' espoused by the German Christian Democratic Union-Christian Social Union {CDU-CSU).64 In achieving this, its main advantage over its predecessors was that it was able to form a single-party government, avoiding the need for ramshackle coalitions, which had plagued Turkish politics during the 1990s, and to retain power through two successive general elections. As a result, it was able· to chalk up some impressive achievements, winning international plaudits. As the OECD concluded in July 2008, '[T]he recovery from the 2001 crisis has brought an unprecedented period of high growth and the first palpable signs of sustained catch-up and convergence'.65 Nonetheless, by 2008, the government was still facing several unsolved problems and new challenges. The first of these was to maintain economic growth and avoid a balance of payments crisis, especially in view of the global financial crash of September-October 2008. After the relatively slow growth rate in 2007 (p. 106), the economy recovered in the first quarter of 2008, to grow by 6.7 per cent compared with the same period of the previous year. However, in the second quarter, this fell back to 1.9 per cent,66 following the political uncertainty created by the opening of the closure case against the AKP in the Constitutional Court in March (see pp. 74-5). The Court's decision not to close down the party, issued in July, restored confidence, but this was then badly undermined by the global financial meltdown. Thanks to its own crisis in 2001 and the subsequent reconstruction and reform of its banking system, Turkey's banks were in a better condition to weather the storm than than those of United States and Western Europe, with a capital adequacy ratio of around 17.5 per cent as of June 2008 67 and a non-performing loans rati0 68 of only 0.6 per cent.69 Nonetheless, the severe economic turndown in Europe and North America had serious implications for Turkey. As a sign of this, the GNP growth rate slowed to 0.5 per cent in the third quarter of 2008. With the fall in both domestic and external demand, industrial output was particularly hit hard, with a fall of 13.9 per cent in November 2008, following falls in each of the previous three months, and a rise in unemployment to 10.3 per cent by September - the worst performance since the crisis in 2001. 70 The IMF estimated that each one per cent point reduction in the growth rate of the advanced industrialised countries would reduce Turkey'S growth by a cumulative 0.8 percentage points, and the Turkish authorities revised their growth forecast for 2008 downwards from 5.5 to 4.5 per cent. The IMF's forecast for GDP growth in 2009 was only 4.3 per cent, rising to 5 per cent in 2010, or well below the growth rates of the earlier part of the decade.71 Other forecasts put expected growth at still lower than this.72 As in other countries, the global crisis brought about a sharp slide in the Istanbul stock market, with the stock exchange index of 100 leading shares falling by 45 per cent between January and October 2008

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Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey

in Lira terms, or almost 55 per cent in dollar values. i3 As foreign hedge funds turned away from emerging markets such as Turkey, the Lira fell in value by around 30 per cent aganist the US dollar, and around 20 per cent against the Euro, during 2008.74 The global financial crisis was predicted to hit the Turkish economy in two ways. First, it was expected that it would make it more difficult for Turkish firms and banks to raise money from abroad, and thus meet the need for investment funds and cover the deficit in the current account. 75 Second,. the slowdown in the main industrial economies, especially in the EU, could be expected to reduce exports to those markets, and thus the finances of exporting firms as well as the balance of payments. As an ominous sign of this, exports fell by 22.3 per cent in November 2008. Before the climax of the global crisis, the IMF had forecast a current account deficit of. just under $48 billion for 2008/6 and there was littie expectation that this would be substantially reduced. According to preliminary trade statistics issued in January 2009, exports in 2008 stood at $131.5 billion, with imports of $201.4 billion, leaving a visible trade gap of $69.9 billion. The government predicted a further fall in exports to $109 billion in 2009,. but claimed that the fall in the prices of commodities - particularly oil - that Turkey would need to import, would reduce imports to $151 billion, and thus bring the visible trade gap down to $42 billion. 77 Whether this optimistic scenario would be realised remained doubtful, however. Since it could not be certain of its full effects, the government's immediate reaction to the global crisis was limited. After May 2008, when the stand-by agreement with the IMF of 2005 (p. 103) expired, the government dragged its feet in renewing it. At this stage, Mehmet ~im§ek, the Minister of State with special responsibility for' the economy, announced that a new stand-by loan would not be needed, and it appeared that the government might opt for a less stringent post-programme monitoring process, with no access to new loans. The government was evidently reluctant to sign a new agreement, since it realised that this would almost certainly involve restrictions on state expenditure just when it was anxious to distribute some largesse to the electorate in advance of the local elections, scheduled for March 2009. However, in the wake of the global crisis, it came under strong pressure from business circles to work for a new stand-by agreement, which would provide a stronger externalllnchor to the economy. Preliminary talks began with the IMF in October 2008. Full negotiations began on 8 January 2009, when an IMF delegation arrived in Turkey, with the expectation that an agreement could be approved by the Fund's executive board in March. At this stage, it was expected that Turkey would negotiate a credit line of between $19 billion and $25 billion, with a short-term standard stand-by agreement, which would allow quick financial support for amounts exceeding Turkey's membership quota emerging as the most likely option. This would have a term of two years, after which a precautionary stand-by deal could be discussed, depending on how global markets fared in the second half of 2009.78

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117

Several months before the global crisis broke, the government had announced an 'action plan' designed to increase employment and redress some of the economic imbalance between Southeastern Anatolia and the western provinces. Details of these plans, which were announced in May 2008, included proposals to complete long-delayed parts of the Southern Anatolia Project for irrigation and hydro-power production, on which a total of YTL 3.3 billion would be spent in 2008, and a total of around YTL 6 billion during 2009-12. Local authorities in the southeast would also be granted extra resources under this programme. 79 Under a new Labour Law passed in May 2008, as an encouragement to firms to increase employment, those taking on women workers or men between the ages of 18 and 29 would be excused from paying all their social security contributions for the first year, to be followed by 80 per cent in the second and falling to 20 per cent in the fifth year, while employers' social security contributions for all workers, previously running at 21.5 per cent of gross wages, would be reduced by 5 per cent. BO Overall, according to calculations by the OECD, it was expected that this package, when combined with announced income tax reductions for lower paid workers, would reduce the 'labour tax wedge' for workers on the minimum wage from -more than 40 per cent to less than 30 per cent of gross wages, or around the average for OECD countries.BI Although Tayyip Erdogan promised that 'fiscal discipline will remain in place' during the 'action plan',82 there were criticisms that the government was abandonirig this in a bid to win popularity in the local elections,83 and the global economic crisis prompted doubts about whether it would· be able to carry it through. Nonetheless, it was clear that the AKP was anxious to overcome some of the shortcomings of its previous economic performance, besides addressing economic aspects of the continuing Kurdish problem. Reducing the size of the informal economy, in which no taxes were collected and the workers remained without any formal social security coverage, was another important objective. Apart from negotiating a new agreement with the JMF, the government was also committed to enacting a new Social Security Law. This was part of its obligations to the IMF left over from the previous agreement, following the annulment by the Constitutional Court of the previous attempt at reform in 2006 (p. 103). The first purpose was to bring together the three separate social security funds, separately covering regular wage-earners, the selfemployed and civil servants, under a single umbrella, as an aid to greater labour mobility, as well as equity and coherence. Second, the reform aimed to reduce the huge financial deficits, which the previous schemes had incurred - amounting to around $20 billion in 2007, or some 3 per cent of GDP - by achieving greater compliance and, more crucially, gradually raising the retirement age. Under the previous rules, workers with a full record of contributions could retire in their 40s (after which they often took a second job) putting a serious burden on the system. The new law provided for the gradual raising of the retirement age, which would eventually

118

Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey

reach 65 for most new retirees in around 2060-70. The increase in pensions would be linked to the increase in consumer prices, rather than be"ing discretionary, and often in excess of inflation, as they had been previously. The conditions under which workers could receive severance payments if laid off were also tightened. These changes naturally provoked strong protests from the labour unions and some work stoppages, but the government pressed ahead with the reform, and the new law was passed by parliament on 6 March 2008. According to estimates by the World Bank, the deficit in the system would be reduced to below 2 per cent of GDP by 2025, and into rough financial balance by 2070, avoiding the massive deficits, which would otherwise have accrued. 84 In conclusion, it can be said that by the autumn of 2008 the AKP could look back on a generally successful economic record, although its performance had deteriorated in some important respects over the previous two years, and the full effects of the global economic crisis still had to be faced. Up to 2006, Turkey had performed well in meeting the demands of the international economic players, notably the IME However, it is argued that the principles of the 'Washington consensus', on which this programme was based, with their single-minded emphasis on fiscal rectitude and economic growth, ignored the wider objectives of achieving fairer income distribution and reducing poverty. The 'trickle down' effect might fail, if left to itself, to achieve greater social justice. Hence strategies needed to be modified by more effective policies specifically aimed at achieving social objectives. 85 The AKP had a split commitment to the entrepreneurial and technocratic middle class on the one hand, and to the urban and rural poor on the other. It needed to maintain the support of both, even though their economic interests sometimes conflicted. Its "main mechanism for social assistance was the regular handout of food parcels and coal to needy families, distributed by the municipalities, and this apparently accounted for its continuing support among the urban poor. However, it was argued that this was no substitute for a systematic and properly organised system of social assistance and more effective policies for employment creation. There were even objections on religious grounds, arguing that in Muslim tradition gifts to the needy should be voluntary, and by individuals, rather than public, or for political purposes. Eligibility for social assistance should be established by law, and as a right, rather than a matter of public charity, it was claimed. 86 Clearly, in the short term, the AKP government confronted serious problems in overcoming the threats posed by the global financial meltdown; in the longer term, however, it needed to achieve a fairer balance in the trade-off between growth and equity. To achieve this, pushing forward with the process of eventual integration into the European Union, and with more vigour and commitment than it had shown over the previous three years, would be vital. In this respect, its problems were more political than economic.

9

Foreign policy and the AKP

The start of the new millennium saw Turkey's foreign-policy makers faced with an extraordinarily wide and diverse agenda. The end of the Cold War had ended the stable externalities that had governed Turkish foreign policy since 1945 - a firm attachment to the western alliance, with the assumptions that its main security threat came from the USSR, and that the lines dividing eastern and western Europe were there to stay. With the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the previous existential threat was eliminated. For the first time, Turkey's immediate neighbours were weaker, both militarily and (with the exception of Greece) economically than itself. This created the possibility of flexible and independent policies, which had previously been constrained by cold-war realities. On the other hand, the collapse of communist power created a host of new conflicts, notably in the former Yugoslavia and Transcaucasia, which Turkey could not ignore. Continuing turmoil in the Middle East created a further set of problems. On the positive side, in December 1999, after years of dithering, the member states of the European Union (EU) finally decided to accept Turkey as a candidate for possible eventual membership of the EU,provided it met the 'Copenhagen criteria' of democratic norms and a functioning market economy. By the turn of the century, the drive for eventual EU membership, as well as its longstanding alliance with the United States, had become the two primary reference points for Turkey's foreign policy. The events that no one had foreseen then created new problems. By the time the AKP came to power in Ankara in November 2002, the terrorist attacks in Washington and New York of 11 September 2001, the US-led intervention in Afghanistan and the looming invasion of Iraq, presented unexpected cballenges for which the new goverrunent was ill prepared.

Foreign policy strategies and debates Before November 2002, the AKP leaders had devoted relatively little attention to defining their foreign policy, but for their determination to press ahead with their bid for EU membership. This was natural, given that the

120

[slamism, Democracy a1td Liberalism in Turkey

party's overriding aim was to win mass support, and that the domestic issues, especially the economy, are the primary determinants of most voters' choices, with foreign policy way down the list of priorities. Behind the scenes, however, Professor Ahmet Davutoglu, who was to become an important foreign policy advisor to both Abdullah Gul and Tayyip Erdogan, was producing the nearest the AKP had to a foreign policy doctrine. In an article published at the end of 1997, he criticised both the 'End of History' thesis proposed by Francis Fukuyama, suggesting that the victory of liberal democracy meant the end of man's ideological evolution, and Samuel Huntington's proposal that the cold war would be followed by a 'Clash of Civilisations', primarily between the West and the Muslim world. Both saw Islam as a threat to western values. In response, Davutoglu argued that the Muslim world did not have the resources to develop a global strategy as an anti-systemic force.! He went on to maintain that 'the history of civilisations is not composed only of clashes' and that 'a comprehensive civilisational dialogue ... is needed for a globally legitimate international order'.2 In a book published in 2000, he developed his thesis by arguing that Turkey, thanks to its geographical position, possessed a 'strategic depth', which it had hitherto failed to exploit: it should move away from its previous 'threat assessment approach' to develop an active engagement in regional political systems in the Middle East, Asia, the Balkans and Transcaucasia. 3 After the AKP ·had come to power, Davutoglu gave further clues to his thinking by suggesting that rather than acting as a mere 'bridge' between the West and the Muslim world, a previously repeated mantra of Turkish foreign policy spokesmen, Turkey.should act as a 'central country', breaking away from a 'static and single-parameter policy', and becoming a 'problem solver' contributing to 'global and regional peace'.4 While his ideas were important behind the scenes, Ahmet Davutoglu tended to stay in the background, rarely giving interviews, and government leaders did not make specific references to the 'Strategic Depth' doctrine. His proposals have been criticised on the grounds that they seemed to exaggerate Turkey'S geopolitical position and its cultural and historicallnfluence.5 Nor were they entirely new. For instance, during the late 1970s, Bulent Ecevit had ·advanced a 'new national security concept' based broadly on similar proposals, although his government was too weak and short lived to put them into effect. Similarly, during the 1980s, Prime Minister (later President) Turgut Ozal made important strides in integrating Turkey into the global economy and increasing economic interdependencies. 6 However, the ideas that Davutoglu and like-minded thinkers now advanced were more comprehensive and had influence ·over the practice of foreign policy under the AKP. By contrast, the traditional republican foreign-policy-making establishment had prioritised national security and military readiness, with a highly cautious or stand-off approach towards Turkey'S Middle Eastern neighbours, in particular. Ultra-nationalist opinion held to the xenophobic line that 'the Turks have no friends but themselves'. The Al

Foreig11 policy and the AKP 121 this highly defensive security culture and the cautious and 'hard power' approaches of the established Kemalist elite in the foreign ministry and military.7 This reorientation showed itself as an attempt to eliminate contests with neighbouring countries wherever possible, while maintaining a degree of independence from the western powers, especially the United States. Rather than see them as security threats, the AKP urged that Turkey should reach out to its neighbours, in particular to Greece and the Balkan countries, to Russia and the former Soviet republics, and the main Middle Eastern states. It should also attempt to play an active role in resolving regional disputes. More broadly, Turkey should act as a leader in attempts to overcome the supposed clash between the West' and the Muslim world. Where possible, the AKP government tried to make greater use of 'soft power' - economic, political and cultural - in place 9f the alternative heavily securitised approaches, especially in relations with its Middle Eastern neighbours. x However, in practice, the two approaches - securitised nationalism and de-securitised liberalism - continued in uneasy tandem, reflecting both the internal balance of power between the AKP government and the state establishment and hard external realities. Inevitably, there was tension between the two. How this worked itself out can be seen in Turkey's foreign policy towards the main theatres in which it was engaged, notably towards the EU, Greece and Cyprus, towards the United States and the problem of Iraq, and towards its other neighbours in the Middle East, Russia and the former Soviet republics in Transcaucasia.

The EU, Greece and Cyprus For the AKP, the bid to secure eventual membership of the EU was designed not just to enhance and stabilise Turkey's international position but also to provide an external anchor for internal democratisation. Its commitment thus marked a sharp break with the approaches of the former Welfare Party (RP) under Necmettin Erbakan, of which most of the AKP's leaders had previously been members, which had strongly attacked the EU project in favour of a supposed 'Muslim Union'.9 In August 2002, with the support of the AKP's parliamentary group, paJ:"liament had passed an important package of reforms, designed to bring Turkey further into line with the 'Copenhagen criteria'. The hope was that this would persuade the EU leaders, who were due to meet in Copenhagen as the European Council on 12-13 December 2002, to give Turkey a starting date for full accession negotiations. Securing this was the main task facing the AKP government when it came into office in November 2002. Although he was not the Prime Minister at the time (but merely the chairman of the AKP), Tayyip Erdogan acted as though he were already the head of government, setting off on a round of visits to European capitals, and winning support from the leaders of Italy, Greece, Spain, Britain and Belgium, as well as President George W. Bush in Washington, but a less enthusiastic response from

122 Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey Germany and France. 1o In the event, the Council decided to review Turkey's progress towards meeting the Copenhagen criteria in two years' time (i.e., December 2004). If its decision were positive, then negotiations could start at the 'earliest possible date' after that.ll In response, Erdogan put on a brave face, telling his party's parliamentary group that the Copenhagen summit had been a 'national success' for Turkey, since it mapped out a clear timetable for the government to complete the necessary adaptations,12 but the fact was that the EU had merely postponed a difficult decision. During 2003, the government took important steps towards meeting the EU's agenda of democratic reforms, since this fitted well into its own determination to liberalise Turkey's politics. In July 2003, it used its large majority in parliament to pass what were known as the sixth and seventh 'harmonisation packages' of democratic reforms, to be followed by important changes to the Penal Code enacted in September 2004 (see pp. 55-6). These changes were welcomed by Giinter Verheugen, the EU Commissioner in charge of Enlargement, as well as the governments of Greece, Britain and Italy.13 However, by the middle of 2004, serious objections to the whole principle of Turkish accession to the EU were beginning to emerge in several EU countries. In Austria, the conservative Chancellor, Wolfgang Schiissel, carne out firmly against the idea, as did Angela Merkel, leader of the German Christian Democratic Union-Christian Social Union (CDU-CSU), then in opposition, who proposed instead that Turkey should be offered a vaguely defined 'privileged partnership'. This was firmly rejected in Ankara, since it offered Turkey virtually no more than its existing customs union agreement with the EU, which had corne into force in 1996. In France, opinions were divided, since the ruling UMP party (Union pour un mouvement populaire) opposed the idea of Turkish accession, while the President, Jacques Chirac, extended cautious support. 14 During 2004, Turkey'S relations with the EU were further complicated by the seemingly endless dispute over Cyprus. Following the abortive attempt by the junta in Athens to take over the island in 1974, provoking the occupation of the north by Turkish troops, the Turkish Cypriots had proclaimed a Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) in 1983. However, this remained unrecognised by any country, except Turkey, which in turn refused to recognise the Greek Cypriot government as the legitimate authority in the whole of the island. Hence, sporadic negotiations between the Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders got nowhere. From the start, the AKP government was determined to break the logjam if it could, mainly because it realised that maintaining a hard-line stance· over Cyprus, as previous governments had done, would create serious obstacles in the planned path to EU accession. It also had the advantage, as a new party, that it carried no historical baggage of previous commitments on the Cyprus question. The AKP's Cyprus policy got off to a faltering start, mainly due to opposition to new approaches by the TRNC President, Rauf Denktash, as well as the Turkish military. At the outset, the AKP government gave full support to the settlement plan drafted by the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, in

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November 2002, which proposed a two-state federal republic. The hope was that there would be agreement to proceed on this basis at the Copenhagen summit in the following month, but President Denktash blocked this attempt. In January 2003, the Turkish Commander of Land Forces, General Ayta~ Yalman, backed him up, by making it clear that the Turkish military opposed the Annan plan. Prospects for a settlement were further dimmed in February 2003 when a hard-line nationalist, Tassos Papadopoulos, succeeded Glafcos Clerides as President of the (Greek Cypriot) Republic of Cyprus. Denktash continued his attitude when Kofi Annan brought him and Papadopoulos together for fruitless talks in The Hague in March 2003.15 At the Helsinki summit of December 1999, whf!O the European Council had agreed to allow Turkey candidate status, it had also made the fatal mistake of declaring that the Republic of Cyprus could be admitted to the EU even if there were no previous constitutional settlement between the two Cypriot communities. At the time, the EU's assumption was that, under Clerides, the Greek Cypriots would be willing to accept a reasonable settlement, but that pressure needed to be put on the Turks. The election of Papadopoulos and subsequent political changes on the Turkish Cypriot side reversed this outlook. However, the Copenhagen summit of December 2002 had also made it urgent for the EU to settle the problem if possible, since it had been agreed that the Republic of Cyprus would be admitted to the EU, along with nine other candidate countries, on 1 May 2004. In December 2003, the outlook became more hopeful, at least on the Turkish Cypriot side, when parliamentary elections in the TRNC produced an even split between Denktash's supporters and the opposition Republican Turkish Party (CTP) led by Mehmet Ali Talat. A new government, in which Talat was Prime Minister, with Rauf Denktash's son Serdar (who had broken with his father) as deputy premier and Foreign Minister, took office in January 2004. This committed itself to reaching a settlement with the Greek Cypriot government by 1 May and to acting in 'full harmony' with Turkey.16 Meanwhile, at a meeting with Kofi Annan on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on 24 January, Tayyip Erdogan agreed with the Secretary General that if the two sides could not reach full agreement on a settlement, then Turkey could allow him to 'fill in the gaps', provided the Greeks agreed. Simultaneous referendums could then be held on the two sides of the island to legitimise the settlement.u In effect, the Turkish government agreed to hand the authority for pushing through a solution over to Kofi Annan and the Cypriot people. Although the Chief of the Turkish General Staff, General Hilmi Ozkok, later admitted that the armed forces had opposed this move, a meeting on 23 January of the National Security Council (NSC), bringing together President Sezer (who also opposed the plan), the government leaders and military commanders agreed to support the efforts of the Secretary General. ls Negotiations on what were now the fourth and fifth versions of the Annan plan were held on this basis at Biirgenstock, in Switzerland, in March 2004, attended by President Papadopoulos, Kofi Annan, and

124 Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey the Foreign Ministers of both Greece and Turkey. On the Turkish Cypriot side, the intransigent Rauf Denktash's place was taken by his son; and by Talat, as Prime Minister. With Papadopoulos still unwilling to accept a settlement, there was no agreed text, but Kofi Annan, as planned, was left to fill in the outstanding points, and preparations were made for twin referendums to be held on the island on 24 April 2004. 19 In the run-up to the referendums, it became clear that although the TRNC government and the majority of Turkish Cypriots supported the Annan plan, mainly because they saw it as the key to their entering the EU as well as re-uniting the island, President Papadopoulos strongly opposed it. Since the Greek Cypriots were guaranteed EU accession anyway, they had no substantial incentive to accept a compromise and had objections on economic and security issues. In an emotional TV address on 7 April, in which at one point he broke into tears, the Greek Cypriot President urged his audience to give 'a resounding NO on 24 April'.20 The results of the referendums were thus predictable. In an 89 per cent turnout, almost 76 per cent of the Greek Cypriot voters cast a 'no' vote, while just less than 65 per cent of the Turkish Cypriot electors voted 'yes', with a turnout rate of 87 per cent.21 The Greek Cypriot decision prompted a· chorus of disapproval in Ankara, Brussels, Washington.and the United Nations, with Giinter Verheugen complaining that he had been 'cheated' by the Greek Cypriot government, which had earlier maintained that it supported the Annan plan.22 In response, Kofi Annan called on the UN Security Council to lift all economic restrictions and embargoes imposed on the Turkish Cypriots. However, a resolution to this effect was vetoed by Russia, which saw no reason to help the EU escape from a self-created problem. 23 For the EU Commission, Verheugen declared that the EU would 'seriously consider' ways of ending the economic isolation of the Turkish Cypriots,24 which had been imposed by the EU's European Court of Justice in 1994. However, attempts to put this into effect were .foiled by the Greek Cypriot government, which effectively blocked a decision by exploiting the EU's intricate and obstacle-strewn decision-making system. The Turkish Cypriots had reason to feel highly resentful of this result, since they could argue that they had done everything possible to reach a settlement, but had received no reward. This view was fully shared in Ankara. It was against this background that the EU leaders gathered for the European Council meeting in Brussels on 16-17 December 2004, which was expected to fix a date for the start of accession negotiations with Turkey. Following the Cypriot referendums,--Papadopoulos adhered to the traditional Greek policy that the planned accession process should be used as a means of leverage over Turkey, obliging it to accept a Cyprus settlement highly favourable to the Greek Cypriots. By contrast, although there was some resentment in Athens that Ankara had not moved further to resolve longstanding disputes between the two countries over offshore rights in the Aegean and other issues, the Greek government held to the policy it had effectively adopted as part of its rapprochement with Turkey in 1999, to the

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effect that Greece would be far safer with Turkey inside the EU than outside it. 25 Hence, when Papadopoulos threatened to veto any decision to start accession negotiations unless Turkey recognised his government,26 he was not effectively supported by Greece and forced to back down. Before the Brussels summit, there were further skirmishes with Chancellor Schiissel and with President Chirac, who suggested that France should be allowed to hold a referendum before Turkish accession could be completed. 27 Nonetheless, since the majority of EU member states were clearly in favour, the Brussels meeting took the momentous decision of agreeing that accession negotiations could start on 3 October 2005, provided the Turkish government agreed to sign an· additional protocol to its existing customs union agreement, extending it to the ten countries (including Cyprus) that had joined the EU the previous May. For Turkey, the most important result of accepting this would be that it would be obliged to give Cypriot-registered ships and aircraft access to Turkish harbours and airports. It refused to do this, on the grounds that this would be tantamount to recognising the Greek Cypriot government. Other important conditions were included in the 'Negotiating Framework for Turkey', which had been drawn up previously by the Commission. These included the stipulation that negotiations could be broken off if there were 'a serious and persistent breach in Turkey of the principles of liberty, democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms and the rule of law', although reaching such a decision required stringent conditions to be met. 28 The Framework Agreement also allowed for the possibility of permanent restrictions on the freedom of movement of workers to the rest of the EU (a topic of particular sensitivity in Germany) and on access to EU structural and agricultural funds for future member states. For Turkey, the most ominous clauses were those stating that although the 'shared objective of the negotiations is accession', the negotiations 'are an open-ended process, the outcome of which cannot be guaranteed beforehand' and that the process 'will take into account ... the absorption capacity of the Union'.29 In fact, the first provision stated the obvious, since there would be no point in engaging in negotiations if the outcome were guaranteed. However, 'absorption capacity' was a new and undefined element. On this basis, the Turkish side suspected that even if Turkey met all the political and economic conditions defined in the Copenhagen criteria, the EU might renege on the deal on the grounds that it did not have sufficient 'absorption capacity' (whatever that was) to accept Turkey. On all these grounds, the Brussels decisions caused disappointment in Ankara, and apparently caused some loss of enthusiasm for the EU project on Tayyip Erdogan's part. His apparent change of attitude reflected a loss of enthusiasm for the EU project among the Turkish public, with opinion polls suggesting a decline in public support from 67.5 per cent in 2004 to 57.4 per cent in 2005 and 32.2 per cent in October 2006. 30 Conservative Muslims in Turkey were also disappointed in November 2005 by the rejection of an appeal lodged in the European Court of Human Rights

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(ECHR) by Leyla ~ahin, who had been excluded from the medical faculty of Ankara University in 1998 for her refusal to remove her headscarfin class. Strictly speaking, as an organ of the Council of Europe, the ECHR was institutionally separate from the EU, but most ordinary citizens of Turkey could not be expected to make this distinction. Although the judgment was not commented on by the government, it was likely to be affected by these changing views among many grassroots supporters of the AKP.31 More materially, the climate of opinion in Europe also appeared to turn more negative in September 2005, when the CDU-CSU emerged as the biggest party in Germany's general elections and Angela Merkel became Chancellor. However, since her party did not have an overall majority in the Bundestag, she was forced into a coalition with the Social Democrat Party of Germany (SPD), which supported the idea of full EU membership for Turkey. Hence, she stuck to the line that she could not go back on commitments accepted by the previous SPD-Green coalition government. Meanwhile, the most urgent task facing the Turkish government was to sign the additional protocol extending the customs union agreement to the ten new EU members. This was achieved in July 2005, but with the proviso that this would 'not amount to any form of recognition of the Republic of Cyprus'.32 Moreover, the government failed to submit the protocol for approval by parliament, so that it remained inoperative. As 3 October, the target date for starting accession negotiations drew nearer, there was further opposition from the French Prime Minister, Dominique de Villepin, and the Austrian government. Objections from Vienna were only overcome at the last minute, apparently as part of a bargain to start accession negotiations with Croatia.33 Accordingly, agreement was reached in the early hours on 4 October 2005, and the negotiations with Turkey were symbolically begun. To complete the process of accession, which was expected to last until 2014 at the earliest, Turkey was required to accept and implement the 35 categories, or chapters, which make up the acquis communautaire - the body of EU legislation, which all member countries are required to apply: (the term 'negotiation' seems inappropriate, since the most Turkey, as a candidate state, could effectively do would be to negotiate some postponements). As part of the 4 October decisions, talks on six chapters were officially opened, but only one chapter, on science and research, was officially opened and 'closed' (or completed) in June 2006. Moreover, the government continued to be under strong pressure from Olli Rehn, who had succeeded Gunter Verheugen as the EU Commissioner responsible for Enlargement, to enact further improvements to its human rights regime. 34 A particular point of criticism, both in Turkey and the EU, was Article 301 of the new Penal Code, under which dissident writers and intellectuals could be prosecuted for alleged 'insults' to 'Turkishness' or state institutions. Prominent victims of this draconian and vaguely defined statute included the Nobel prize-winning novelist Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, and the novelist Elif ~afak. 3S

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Meanwhile, in January 2006, the government tried to tackle the issue of the customs union by proposing that it would be willing to allow access to Cypriot ships and aircraft if the EU made good its undertaking to end the economic isolation of the TRNC. Predictably, the plan was rejected by President Papadopoulos. Although the idea was welcomed by Olli Rehn, on behalf of the Commission, as well as the British and Italian governments, they were unable to overcome Greek Cypriot objections. 36 At a meeting in Brussels on 14-15 December 2006, the European Council refused to support demands by Papadopoulos that the accession process be broken off altogether, but agreed that negotiations on eight chapters of the acquis affecting the free movement of goods and related issues 37 should be suspended. Talks on other chapters could be continued, but no chapters could be closed until the Turkish parliament approved the contentious protocoI.J8 Admittedly, this did not bring the accession talks to a halt, but it strengthened the impression in Turkey that anti-Turkish opinion in France and elsewhere was using the disagreement over trade with Cyprus as a means of derailing the whole accession process. As a result, there were marked signs of 'Euro-fatigue' on the part of the AKP, with little progress in further political liberalisation and renewed complaints on this score from the EU Commission.39 The following year brought further problems in the Turkey-EU relationship. The election of Nicolas Sarkozy as President of France in May 2007 was a blow to Turkey'S European ambitions since, unlike his predecessor Jacques Chirac, he was not prepared to sideline the demand from the ruling UMP party that Turkey should be offered 'privileged partnership' rather than full membership of the EU. In Turkey, the government was preoccupied by the presidential election crisis of May 2007 and the consequent general elections in July (see pp. 39-40). Hence, it took no steps to resolve conflicts with the EU over the Cyprus question or enact further human rights improvements. In June 2007, in the worsening climate of Turkey-EU relations, President Sarkozy blocked discussion of a Chapter of the acquis affecting economic and monetary policy, although he did allow talks on two more chapters to start. 40 Two months later, it appeared that he might be prepared to soften his stance, saying that he would be willing to proceed with the accession negotiations if a panel of 'wise men' were established, to decide the future boundaries of the EU (which, he apparently assumed, would exclude Turkey). However, at a meeting in Brussels in December 2007, the European Council kicked this idea into the long grass, when it agreed to set up what was now referred to as a 'reflection group', under the former Spanish premier Filipe Gonzalez, with the proviso that its 'reflections' were not to include Europe's future borders. 41 In return, President Sarkozy agreed that the accession process could continue, with the opening of talks on two more chapters of the acquis. 42 Over the following months, unexpected events had both negative and positive implications for Turkey'S bid to join the EU. The opening of a closure case in the Constitutional Court against the AKP in March 2007

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Turkey

(see pp.74-5) caused mixed reactions in Europe. For those who opposed the idea of Turkish accession in principle, or misunderstood the complex situ!ltion within Turkey, it appeared to strengthen arguments that Turkey was not democratic or stable enough to qualify for EU membership. Hence, there were suggestions from the European Parliament that closure of the AKP could lead to the suspension of the accession process. 43 Against this, the EU Commission took a critical line towards the closure case. As Olli Rehn pointed out, in democracies political questions should be decided at the ballot box, not in the court room.44 As an encouragement, the EU agreed to open talks on two more Chapters of the acquis in June 2008. 45 In response, in April-May 2008, the government pushed two important reforms through parliament by revising the notorious Penal Code Article 301 to make prosecutions more difficult, and passing a bill authorising the state broadcaster TRT to set up a 24-hour Kurdish TV channel, both of which had long been demanded by the EU.46 On 30 July, the decision of the Constitutional Court that the AKP would not be closed down caused huge relief on both sides. For the EU, it was a welcome signal that Turkey could solve its domestic political problems in an orderly and democratic fashion, which was expected to put the accession process back on track. However, as Olli Rehn emphasised, to achieve this, the government would need to resume the political and economic reform process with renewed vigour.47 There was also a potentially positive development in the Cyprus dispute in February 2008 when Tassos Papadopoulos was unexpectedly defeated in the Greek Cypriot presidential elections by Dimitris Christofias, leader of the nominally communist Progressive Party of Working People (AKEL) party. Since AKEL, though internally divided, took a more conciliatory line than Papadopoulos on the inter-communal question, hopes for a final settlement were better than they had been for the previous four years. Following the elections, President Christofias and Mehmet Ali Talat (who had succeeded Rauf Denktash as President of the TRNC in April 2005) met on 21 March 2008 and agreed to re-start negotiations under UN auspices, with technical committees established from both sides to prepare the details. At a second meeting on 1 July, the two Presidents confirmed. that any settlement would involve a single state, with common citizenship for all Cypriots. All going well, fully fledged talks could be expected to begin later in the year. 48 This left a whole host of knotty problems as yet unsolved. Nevertheless, there seemed to be a good chance that the Cyprus problem could finally be resolved. If this roadblock could be removed, then Turkey'S prospects of further progress in its quest for EU membership would be.much improved, even though the outcome was still uncertain and there were still many bridges to be crossed.

Turkey, the United States and Iraq Besides its bid to join the EU, the imminent US-led invasion of Iraq was the most urgent foreign policy question facing the AKP in November 2002.

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It presented the new government with a classic dilemma - that of balancing internal political pressures with external demands. It also produced the most

serious collision between Ankara and Washington since the Cyprus crisis of 1964. This was not the result of a basic difference of world views, since Turkey and the United States saw eye-to-eye on most other international issues. During the late 1990s, Turkish-American relations were at a high point of cordiality. After the terrorist attacks on Washington and New York of 11 September 2001, Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit sent messages of full support and sympathy to President Bush. In the following month, a motion to send Turkish troops to support the coalition in Afghanistan was passed by the Turkish parliament with a large majority. Subsequently, in June 2002, Turkey took over term command of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan with a contingent of 1,400 soldiers.49 It was only when it appeared that Iraq would be the next target in the proclaimed war against terrorism, that Ecevit expressed serious reservations. His parting message to Abdullah Gul, just before the latter took .over the premiership, was not to get involved in Iraq.so Essentially, the new AKP government was faced with a choice between two evils. On the one hand, domestic opinion was strongly against the invasion of Iraq or assisting it. pubiic-opinion polls-suggesteatnai--ine vast majority of Turks opposed the invasion for much the same reasons as the public in most European countries and elsewhere - that is, it was judged unnecessary, illegitimate and disruptive. The fact that Iraq is a neighbour of Turkey and that the original US war plans called for American troops to use Turkish territory to invade Iraq across its northern frontier naturally made the opposition more acute than in other more distant countries. However, opposition to the invasion could not be ascribed to pan-Islamist sentiment, since the war was as strongly opposed by secularist parties like the Republican People's Party (CHPYaiid iheDemocratic Left" Party (DSP) is-itwas--by the ~etiesover -national securitY added torliis opposirioii:-SaCloam Hussein had few supporters in Turkey, and was a ruthless and unpredictable neighbour, but the government and military were worried by the prospect that if he were overthrown Iraq would collapse into chaos, and that the Kurds of northern Iraq would sieze the opportunity to establish an independent state. This would exacerbate Turkey's internal Kurdish problem. Hence, there was serious opposition in parliament, both on the government and opposition benches, to the American plan. This had grave implications since, under Article 92 of the constitution, parliament would have to pass a special resolution to allow foreign troops to enter Turkish soil, or to send Turkish troops abroad, unless this were required by 'international treaties to which Turkey is a party' (in effect, the North Atlantic Treaty, which would clearly not be the case in this instance). On the other hand, Turkey could ill afford an open break with its most powerful ally, the United States. Broadly, it needed to convince Washington that it could still playa vital role in regional security, even though the Cold

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War was over. Since it became clear that the Bush administration was· determined to invade Iraq anyway, and there was nothing that TUrkey or other NATO allies could do to stop it, there was a powerful argument for joining the Americans rather than opposing them. As part of the deal, the Turkish military also insisted that if US forces used Turkish soil and Turkish bases to invade Iraq, then Turkish troops should also be inserted into northern Iraq, so as to exercise some leverage over the Iraqi Kurds and the United States itself. While divided cousels on the Turkish side helped to bring about the collision, US policy-makers, especially those in the Pentagon, were also to blame. Neo-conservatives like Secretary of State for Defence Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, who were effectively driving policy, failed to appreciate the strength of opposition to the US invasion plan in Turkey. They assumed that their traditionally strong links with the Turkish military would enable them to push the policy through regardless of public misgivings. For the State Department, Secretary of State Colin Powell thought that the 'northern front' invasion plan was pushing Turkey too far. He and other high-level representatives failed to visit Ankara to argue the case in favour of the US plan.52 As a result, the United States neglected public diplomacy. Those in the driving seat in Washington ignored the political opposition to the plan in Turkey, whereas those who were aware of it failed to direct policy or speak up publicly in opposition. For the AKP, the first clear indication of what the US government was proposing came on 3 December 2002, when Paul Wolfowitz visited Ankara and outlined a three-stage plan to Prime Minister Gul. During the first stage, the US military would inspect communications and bases in Turkey. This would be followed by a ·'site preparation stage', in which communications and air bases would be improved, as necessary. During the third stage, US air and land forces would move into southern Turkey, in preparation for the planned opening of the 'northern front'. Although Wolfowitz subsequently claimed that 'Turkish support is assured' and that 'Turkey ... will be with us', Gul agreed to implement only the first stage (which did not require parliamentary approval) without committing Turkey to the other twO. 53 There was further confusion after Tayyip Erdogan visited Washington for talks with President Bush on 10 December - a significant step by the White House, given that he had no official position in the government at the time. From this meeting, the American side formed the impression that Erdogan favoured the American plan;s4 although he stated later that he had not given any firm commitments. This reflected strong opposition to the plan from Deputy Premier Ertugrul Yal~mbaYlr and the parliamentary Speaker, Bulent Ann~, among many other members of the AKP.ss For his part, President Sezer, like others in Ankara, took the view that Turkey could not support the invasion unless it had 'international legitimacy' - by implication, clear backing from the United Nations. Since UN Security Council Resolution 1441, passed on 8 November 2002, merely threatened

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'serious consequences' if Saddam Hussein failed to meet his disarmament obligations, without specifically authorising the use of force, it failed to meet this standard. 56 Nevertheless, in a memo to the government issued on 23 December, the General Staff advised that although an invasion would be most unwelcome, the United States seemed determined to launch it, so Turkey should not stand aside.57 On 28 December, the NSC in Ankara elaborated on this, by demanding that Turkish troops should occupy a 'buffer zone' 30-40 km in depth in northern Iraq if the US plan went ahead (although this had not yet been accepted by the United States).58 In effect, the General Staff had concluded that, like it or not, Turkey would be better off inside the American tent than outside it. This effectively became the government's position, albeit internally contested. Later, on 31 January 2003, the NSC recommended that, although the Council still opposed the idea of invasion, the government should table a resolution in parliament allowing the reception of foreign troops in Turkey and the despatch of Turkish troops abroad 'to protect Turkey's national interests'. However, it still added that an undefined 'international legitimacy' would be required. A week later, on 6 February, parliament passed a resolution allowing US military personnel to upgrade communications in Turkey ('stage two' of the plan) although, significantly, around 50 AKP deputies failed to support the proposal. The personnel and their equipment started landing at Turkish ports and airfields on 12 February 2003. 59 During January and early February, Abdullah Gul was heavily involved in last-ditch attempts, in collaboration with other Middle Eastern governments, to head off the prospective invasion of Iraq, by persuading Saddam Hussein to fully comply with UN disarmament resolutions or (better still) to step down from power, in which case Turkey would guarantee his personal security. These efforts included a visit to Baghdad by Minister of State Kuqad Tuzmen on 11 January, a six-nation meeting in Istanbul including the Foreign Ministers of Turkey, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Egypt on 24 January, and a secret visit to Ankara on 3 February by Saddam's deputy Taha Hassan Ramadan and his Foreign Minister Naji Sabri.60 Gul has been criticised for wasting time with this hopeless quest, when he should have been firming up a clear response to the expected American action. 61 Against this, it can be argued that the government had to show it had done what it could to prevent a war if it was to win the support of its own backbenchers for Turkish involvement. It was only on 24 February that the cabinet finally agreed to submit a resolution to parliament under Article 92 of the constitution (in Turkish, tezkere) and even then up to half its members were said to have opposed it. A memorandum of understanding with the United States was not agreed untill March. This provided that 62,000 US troops, supported by 255 war planes would be allowed into Turkish territory, with 60,000 Turkish troops occupying a 30 km 'buffer zone' in northern Iraq.62 Apart from the internal opposition, two factors helped to explain this delay. The first was that,

132 isiamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey remembering the economic losses which Turkey had suffered in the first Gulf war of 1991, and the fact that the Turkish economy had only just recovered from the economic crash of 2001 (see p. 101), the government demanded as much as $92 billion in aid from the United States as a condition for supporting the operation. This demand was dismissed by Colin Powell as ridiculous, and it was not until 26 February that the US government agreed to allow $6 billion in grants and $24 billion in loan guarantees. 63 In the meantime, Turkey had been subjected to ridicule in the American press, on the grounds that a supposedly faithful NATO ally had been trying to sell its support for as much money as it could get. 64 Second, there were clear signs that the KurdistanRegional Government (KRG), the virtually autonomous rulers in northern Iraq, would strongly oppose any movement of Turkish troops into their territory, threatening the possibility of a 'war within a war' between Turkish forces and the KRG's peshmerga militias if the plan went through. 65 This was reported to have produced lastminute second thoughts on the part of the Turkish military leaders on the wisdom of supporting the operation.66 These doubts were crucial, since the government decided to delay a parliamentary vote on the tezkere until after a meeting of the NSC scheduled for 28 February. Its hope evidently was that it could thus oblige the military chiefs to shoulder the blame for what it knew would be an unpopular decision. In the event, the NSC refused to do this, stating simply that the proposal had been 'evaluated', without issuing a recommendation. 67 The result was that when the tezkere was debated in parliament on 1 March, 264 deputies supported the motion, with 250 opposing and 32 abstentions and absentees. Although the 'yes' votes outnumbered the 'noes', the motion had to be declared lost, since parliament's rules required an absolute majority of the whole House (i.e., 267 votes) if it were to be carried. It was calculated that around 100 AKP deputies had failed to support the motion, with around 68 actually voting against. This result naturally caused fury in Washington where Paul Wolfowitz, among others, described it as 'a big, big mistake'.68 In effect, Turkey had collided head-on with its most important ally. It also provoked sharp criticisms of Prime Minister Giil, on the grounds that he should have made support for the motion the subject of a 'group decision' (the Turkish equivalent of a three-line whip) with open voting, rather than allowing an anonymous electronic ballot, which permitted dissident AKP deputies to vote against without revealing their identities. The most likely explanation is that Giil did not want to advertise the splits at the top of the AKP on this issue by allowing an open ballot. 69 Some critics go further, by arguing that there was a deep division between Giil and Erdogan - that Giil did not want to support the US plan, whereas Erdogan favoured it. However, this contention is impossible to prove/a The parliamentary vote of 1 March 2003 left Turkey without an effective response when the US-led invasion of Iraq began on 20 March. On the same

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day, parliament passed a second resolution allowing coalition air forces to use Turkish air space, but this was no more than other NATO members, some of whom opposed the war, had agreed to, and hardly compensated for the failure of the 1 March tezkere. 71 Later, on 24 June, the government issued a decree allowing the United States the use of the vital NATO air base at incirlik, near Adana, and the nearby port of Mersin, for logistical support for US forces in Iraq, with a land bridge to the Iraqi frontier. 72 Meanwhile, in October 2003, the Turkish parliament had attempted to achieve a more active involvement in operations in Iraq, when it passed a third tezkere allowing Turkish troops (expected to be around 10-12,000 in number) to join the international 'stabilisation force' in Iraq". Although this plan had originally been supported, if not initiated, by Washington, it was later rejected by the Iraqi Provisional Governing Council (the temporary government in Iraq, appointed by the Americans) and by Paul Bremer, Administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority. Hence, it was quietly dropped by mutual agreement. 73 Although, in retrospect, Turkey had been saved from being sucked into a military and political quagmire in Iraq, it was left unable to exercise more than marginal influence over the subsequent situation, and particularly over the Iraqi Kurds, who were now America's closest allies in the region. 74 On the ground, a fierce row between Turkey and the United States exploded on 4 July 2003 when 11 soldiers of the Turkish Special Forces (a small detachment which had been stationed in northern Iraq since 1997, originally to monitor a ceasefire between warring Kurdish factions) were arrested by US forces for 'disturbing activities' - according to the US State Department - and taken off for interrogation with sacks over their heads. Although Donald Rumsfeld later expressed 'regret' over the affair, it caused a storm of protest in Turkey. The Chief of the General Staff, General Hilmi Ozk6k, claimed it had caused 'the biggest crisis of confidence' between Turkey and the United States.75 Later, events in Iraq intensified the war of words between the two sides, with fierce criticisms of the United States in the Turkish media after the revelation of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in April-May 2004 and the US attack on Fallujah the following November, in which more than 2,000 people were reported to have been killed. Abdullah Giil, now Foreign Minister joined in the verbal attacks on "America over the Fallujah offensive, which he described as an 'excessive use of force'.76 Turkish novelists and film makers went further, with runaway successes for the novel Metal Storm, portraying a war between the United States and Turkey, and the film Valley of the Wolves - Iraq, on a similar theme. 77 The US media responded in kind, most notably in an article in the Wall Street Journal of 16 February 2005, in which one of the paper's editorial team, Robert J. Pollock, concluded that 'Turkey could easily become just another second-rate country; small minded, paranoid, marginal'.78 U nothing else, these conflicts demonstrated a serious lack of effective public diplomacy on both sides, with the United States failing to

134 Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey explain to the Turkish public what it was trying to do in Iraq and the Turkish government failing to criticise the Turkish media for some of their excesses. The verbal boxing match between Turkey and the United States was not just a matter of media hype, but overlay some important conflicts of interests. The most important of these was that the US authorities in Iraq could not afford a conflict with the virtually autonomous Kurdish Regional Government, and its President, Massoud Barzani. Under the KRG, northern Iraq enjoyed a level of peace and security unknown in the rest of the country. Moreover, the Iraqi Kurds were the only community in Iraq that fully supported the US invasion, and detachments of the Kurdish peshmerga assisted the United States in trying to bring law and order to other parts of the country. On the other hand, Kurdish political ambitions clearly conflicted with those of Turkey. Although the US government proclaimed that it supported the territorial integrity of Iraq, Barzani frequently suggested that he had not abandoned the dream of establishing an independent Kurdish republic. Suspicious Turks worried that the United States might not be prepared to prevent this. 79 There was particular conflict over the status of Kirkuk city, which was not included in the area controlled by the KRG, but claimed by Barzani as 'the heart of Kurdistan'.8o The future of the city was critical, partly because it had historically had a mixed population of Kurds, Arabs and Turcomans, but mainly because the region contained important oilfields. If they controlled Kirkuk, it was argued, the Iraqi Kurds would have the economic resources to support an independent state. Turkish authorities tried to organise resistance by the relatively small community of Turcomans of northern Iraq, who could claim ethnic affinities with the Turks. However, the Iraqi Turcoman Front (ITF) supported by Turkey was not well regarded by the important community of Shi'ite Turcomans, who opted for Arab-based Iraqi Shi'ite parties, and the ITF was of limited value to Turkey.81 A second and more immediate cause of conflict between Turkey and both the United States and the Iraqi Kurds was the fact that, after their enforced withdrawal from Syria in 1998, the armed militants of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) (see p. 142) withdrew their main base to northern Iraq, from where they could carry out terrorist attacks on Turkish territory. In September 2003, the PKK unilaterally ended the ceasefire, which it had proclaimed in 1999, causing scores of deaths among civilians and the security forces over the following years. The Turkish government constantly complained to the US authorities in Iraq, but the latter took no effective action. In the summer of 2006, the two governments appointed two retired Generals, Joseph Ralston for the United States and Edip Ba§er for Turkey, as 'special coordinators', to tackle the problem, but their discussions got nowhere. General Ba§er was dismissed by the government in May 2007, after complaining about the lack of progress, and General Ralston resigned his· post in the following October. 82 On the ground, Turkish forces along the border with Iraq were

Foreign policy and the AKP 135 strongly reinforced during the spring of 2007. Amidst rising tension on other issues between the army and the AKP government (see p. 90) the Commander of Land Forces General ilker Ba~bug and the Chief of the General Staff General Ya~ar Bliylikamt both suggested that Turkey might take unilateral military action against the PKK in Iraq, although the idea was opposed both by Prime Minister Erdogan and the US government. 83 During January-February 2007, Turkish-US relations were further exacerbated when a resolution was tabled in the US House of Representatives declaring that the deaths of up to 1.5 million Armenians during the First World War constituted genocide by the former Ottoman government. This was a claim rejected by virtually all parties in Turkey, and re-ignited a longrunning source of conflict between Turkey and pro-Armenian members of Congress. 84 While unrelated to the arguments over Iraq, it further damaged Turkish-US relations at a critical moment. Following a loss of congressional support for the motion, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced in October 2007 that it would be shelved, but its subsequent endorsement by the Democratic Party candidate Barack Obama threatened to bring this thorny issue back onto the agenda in 2009. 85 Meanwhile, the most immediate problem for the AKP government was the continued PKK presence in northern Iraq. With the inaction on the American side, the PKK raised the stakes by launching a new series of assaults in Southeastern Anatolia in the autumn of 2007, killing seven 'village guards' (that is pro-government Kurdish militiamen) and another five civilians on 29 September, and 13 soldiers in an ambush on 8 October. After months of stalling, the government tabled a motion in parliament allowing military operations in Iraq, which was passed with full opposition support on 17 October. However, this did not prevent another PKK attack near the border with Iraq on 21 October in which a further 12 soldiers were killed and another eight abducted. 86 Moreover, parliament's decision to allow Turkish forces to attack PKK bases in Iraq was in practice inoperable without the assent of the United States, as the occupying power. It was not until 5 November, when Tayyip Erdogan paid a long-planned visit to Washington, that the Bush administration appeared to recognise the urgency of the problem. After 90 minutes of talks with the Prime Minister, the President undertook that the United States would supply the Turkish forces with 'real-time' intelligence on PKK bases and movements in Iraq. There would be a tripartite (i.e., US-Turkish-Iraqi) coordination mechanism against the PKK, which Bush described as an enemy of both Turkey, Iraq and the United States. 87 In effect, America would now give a green light to Turkish operations in northern Iraq, provided they were limited to attacks on the PKK and did not cause unnecessary civilian casualties. The result was a series of targeted bombing raids by the Turkish air force on PKK bases in northern Iraq on 16,22-23 December 2007 and 16 January 2008, followed by a major land and air incursion on 21-29 February 2008, in which the Turkish armed forces claimed that 240 PKK militants had been

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killed, against 27 casualties on the Turkish side. Throughout these operations, the US government insisted that they must be of limited duration, and avoid hitting non-combatant targets. The unexpectedly early ending of the February raid evidently carne under strong US pressure, although the Turkish military command maintained that the withdrawal had been pre-planned and the operation had fulfilled its objectives. 88 Politically, the most important gain for Turkey, apart from the damage inflicted on the PKK, was the fact that the Turkish forces had avoided clashes with the Kurdish peshmerga in northern Iraq and had re-cemented their relations with the United States. As a sign of this, when President Gi.il visited Washington in January 2008, both sides re-affirmed their 'strategic partnership'. As Gi.il put it, there had been 'some turmoil in relations in past years', but now 'a climate of confid!!nce has emerged'. 89 Turkey'S relations with the Iraqi Kurdish leadership and the re-established government of Iraq also played an important part in this story. In October 2005, the Turkish government gave full support to the new constitution of Iraq, although this provided for a federal structure, and hence a fairly wide degree of autonomy for the Kurdish region. 90 In effect, Turkey had to accept that it had no right to tell the people of Iraq what sort of constitution they should hav~, and that the Arab majority, like Turkey, opposed the foundation of an independent Kurdish state. Hence, there were regular contacts between the two governments, with a landmark visit to Ankara by the Iraqi President, Jelal Talabani (himself a Kurd) in March 2008. Talabani used the opportunity to confirm his opposition to the PKK presence in his country, although in practice his government was not able to do anything effective to eliminate it. Turkey and Iraq, he said, should build a 'lasting, solid, strategic relationship' - an idea reciprocated on the Turkish side. 91 More critically, during the spring of 2008, Turkish officials also entered into a direct dialogue with the Iraqi Kurdish leaders, although the idea had been strongly criticised by the military when it had first been suggested in February 2007.92 The future of Kirkuk, meanwhile, remained the main unresolved issue on the agenda, with both the Turkish and Iraqi governments strongly opposing Kurdish attempts to take over control of the city.93

Turkey and the wider world: Russia, Transcaucasia and the Middle East While its relations with the EU and the United States and the ongoing problem of Iraq were the AKP government's main foreign policy concerns, they were far from exhausting the list of priorities. In regional politics, a striking change was the re-emergence of Russian power under Vladimir Putin after 2000, and the realisation of both the Ecevit and AKP governments that they had to corne to terms with it. While there were still serious suspicions between Ankara and Moscow, both sides sought to avoid conflicts by not supporting movements hostile to the other - the PKK in the case of Russia,

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and Chechen separatists in the case of Turkey - despite some domestic pressures to the contrary. On both sides, there appeared to be a substantial recognition of their interdependence. A crucial feature of the new Turkey-Russia relationship was the economic sphere. As late as 2000, Russia accounted for about only 5.5 per cent of Turkey's total foreign trade. By 2007, the proportion had almost doubled, to 10.2 per cent, or $28.2 billion in absolute terms, making Russia Turkey's second most important trading partner - just behind Germany, which accounted for $28.7 billion, or lOA per cent of the total. However, there was a huge imbalance in Turkish-Russian trade, since Turkey's exports to Russia, at $4.7 billion in 2007, were dwarfed by its imports, nearly all of which were accounted for by natural gas and crude oil, whieh reached $23.5 billion in the same year. Economic interdependence was increased by investments by Turkish firms in Russia: these had reached $5.6 billion by 2007, with Turkish contractors having construction contracts in Russia to the value of $26 billion. In return, Russian firms were said to have investments in Turkey of around $6 billion. 94 The most important element of Turkey's dependence on Russia was in natural gas, of which Turkey has very limited reserves. Its imports were largely supplied by two pipelines from Russia - one, via Bulgaria, opened in 1987, and the second, running under the;: Black Sea to the Turkish port of Samsun, opened in 2003. Although Turkey had succeeded in diversifying some of its sources of supply, primarily by building alternative pipelines from Iran, and from Azerbaijan via Georgia (see p. 141), in 2007, Russia still accounted for about 23.1 billion cubic metres or 63 per cent of its natural gas imports. This was crucial, since by 2007 natural gas accounted for 31 per cent of Turkey's total primary energy consumption. 95 As in the case of central European countries, this put a huge premium on the maintenance of stable relations with Moscow, although Russia would also have suffered if it had lost its gas market in Turkey. These economic linkages were reflected in the political domain. In line with policies which had been begun by the previous Ecevit administration, Abdullah Giil, as Foreign Minister, visited Moscow in February 2004. This was followed by a return trip by President Vladimir Putin to Ankara (the first by a Russian head of state since 1972) in December of that year. Putin's visit was marked by the signature of a joint declaration on the 'Deepening of Friendship and Multidimensional Partnership' between the two countries. The following year was a high point in top-level contacts, in which President Putin and Prime Minister Erdogan met no less than four times. There was a second visit by Putin.to Istanbul in June 2007 and another trip to Moscow by Foreign Minister Ali Babacan in February 2008.96 Supporters of this entente pointed out that Turkish and Russian policies converged at several points, even if they conflicted with those of the United States, notably on such issues as policies towards Iran, Syria, US policy in Iraq, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Turkish parliament's refusal to suppornhe

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US invasion of Iraq removed what could have been a serious point of conflict with Russia and demonstrated to Moscow that Turkey was not just a puppet of the United States. This new orientation was demonstrated by the fact that Turkey generally supported Russian strategies for preventing penetration by the western powers into the Black Sea region. Thus, for instance, both countries cooperated in a multinational naval task force, known as BLACKSEAFOR, set up in 2001, as an alternative to a direct NATO presence in the Black Sea. Similarly, Turkey was reluctant to support proposals for NATO membership by Georgia and the Ukraine, to which Russia was adamantly opposed.97 At its high point, this alignment caused those who were doubtful about Turkey's links with the United States and EU to suggest that Turkey had a 'Eurasian option', as an alternative to alignment with the western powers.98 Too much should not be read into this, however. In March 2002, when General Tuncer Kdm~, the Secretary of the NSC, appeared to suggest that Turkey should seek an alternative alliance with Russia and even Iran, he was promptly slapped down by Prime Minister Ecevit, President Sezer and the then Chief of the General Staff, General Hiiseyin Klvnkoglu. 99 While anxious to build on better relations with Russia, the AKP government adhered to the same line. Effectively, the Ankara-Moscow relationship was the mirror image of that between Ankara and Washington or Brussels. When Turkey's relations with the western powers were tense, then Turkey tended to move towards Russia, and vice versa. However, even at the low point of Turkish-US relations during 2003-07, this never reached the point of a break with NATO. Experience of Russian policy also demonstrated its limits. Although Turkey made friendly moves towards Russia - over, for instance, the question of Black Sea security - these were not reciprocated by the Russian side on other questions important to Turkey. Striking illustrations were Russia's refusal to lift its veto of a UN resolution to lift the economic blockade on the Turkish Cypriots (see p. 124) and its continued support to Armenia. Although the two countries established a regular military/defence working group, this failed to produce any tangible results in, for instance, the supply of military equipment by Russia. loo Finally, the Russian attack on Georgia in August 2008 undermined the credibility of the 'Eurasian option' as an alternative to alliance with the West. This effect was reinforced by the fact that it coincided with an improvement in Turkey'S relations with both the United States and the EU. While the crisis of August 2008 shifted attention to the future of Georgia, Turkey'S longest-running concern in Transcaucasia was the ongoing conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Armenian-inhabited enclave of Nagorno-Karabagh, within Azerbaijan. Fighting between the Azeris and Armenians, which resulted in the Armenian occupation of about one fifth of Azerbaijan'S territory, was ended by a Russian-brokered ceaseflre in 1994. However, this left the Nagorno-Karabagh problem as one of the region's 'frozen conflicts', with serious consequences for Turkey.lol

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Turkish public opmlOn favoured the Azeris, as a fellow-Muslim and 'Turkic' nation, and Turkey's links with Azerbaijan were enhanced in 2006 by the opening of the BTC (Baku-Tifllis-Ceyhan) pipeline to bring Azeri oil from the Caspian to Turkey's Mediterranean coast via Georgian territory, bypassing Russia. This was followed by a parallel gas pipeline from ~erbaijan's Shah Deniz field, linking with Turkey's interrial pipeline system in the eastern city of Erzurum, which opened in 2007. However, to avoid a head-on military collision with Armenia (and hence with Russia), Turkey avoided direct involvement in the conflict over Nagorno-Karabagh, limiting itself to joining Azerbaijan in closing its frontier with .Armenia and refusing to open diplomatic relations with it until the Armenians withdrew from Azeri territory. Under the AKP government, the stand-off with Armenia continued. Its most serious immediate side effect was a continued campaign by the Armenians to persuade parliaments in third countries to pass resolutions classifying the deaths of the Ottoman Armenians during the First World War as an act of 'genocide', such as that tabled in the US Congress at the beginning of 2007 (see p. 135). After 2002, there were some positive signs, such as the beginning of regular passenger flights between Armenia and Istanbul (although the land frontier remained closed) and the development of some informal trade links, via Georgia, but these failed to break the deadlock. In April 2005, Tayyip Erdogan attempted to defuse tpe dispute over the alleged genocide by proposing that the two countries should set up a historical commission to examine the archives. This proposal was supported by President Bush, but rejected by Robert Kocharian, then the President of Armenia, who suggested instead that the two sides should set up an intergovernmental commission to examine all issues between them, including opening the border.Iol After the inauguration of Serzh Sarkisian, Kocharian's successor as Armenian President, in April 2008, Erdogan and his Foreign Minister, Ali Babacan, noted the need for a new 'dialogue' with Armenia, eliciting the response that Armenia sought to normalise relations with Turkey 'without preconditions'. The problem for Ankara was that the government had tied the idea of normalisation of relations with Armenia to Armenian withdrawal from occupied Azeri territory. Hence, it had effectively made progress dependent on a settlement of the Nagorno-Karabagh problem - or at least, substantial moves to that end. However, this was an issue on which it had little influence over either side. Io3 In the Middle East, apart from Iraq and the United States, the most crucial actors for Turkey were Iran, Syria and Israel. On the first score, potential conflicts between revolutionary Islamist Iran and western-aligned Turkey were abated during the 1980s, as Iran was at war with Iraq and depended on Turkey for trade links with the outside world. After the Iran-Iraq war ended in 1988, the predicted tensions resumed, as Iran was blamed for sponsoring the murder of several leaders of secularist opinion in Turkey, whereas Iran blamed Turkey for sheltering the Iranian organisation

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Mujahiddbt-i Khalq, which was attempting to overthrow Ayatollah Khomeini's regime. Further clashes occurred in 1999, when the PKK reportedly used Iranian territory for attacks in Turkey, and the Turkish air force reportedly bombed Iranian border villages. Fortunately, the crisis of 1999 forced the two sides to pull back from the brink, and a mutual security agreement was signed. Subsequently, a cautious entente continued, which survived even the election of the Islamic 'neo-conservative' Mahmud Ahmadinejad as President of Iran in] une 2005. 104 After 2002, three issues headed the Turkish-Iranian agenda. The first derived from Iran's apparent attempt to develop its own nuclear weapons. Consistently, the AKP government supported attempts, led by the EU, to persuade Iran to drop its programme for uranium enrichment, the essential step towards nuclear weapons production. Like its predecessors, it favoured a completely denuclearised middle east - by implication, covering Israel and Iran. It was cautious about this, however, and opposed hints from the United States and Israel that military action could be taken against Iranian nuclear sites. Turkish observers frequently remarked that, since 1999, Turkey had had no important bilateral disputes with Iran - in fact, the two countries have not fought a war against one another since the eighteenth century - so Iran would be most unlikely to attack Turkey, unless Turkey was allowing its territory to be used by a third party to attack Iran (the United States and Israel being the most obvious candidates for this). In facing up to the possibility of a nuclear-armed Iran, the few Turkish strategic analysts who have addressed the issue point out that Turkey survived the long years of the Cold War as a neighbour of the USSR, but was protected by the NATO nuclear umbrella, and could do so again. 105 Nevertheless, even if Iran did not use nuclear weapons against Turkey, it could use its possession of them as an element in diplomatic bullying. In response, Turkey was extremely unlikely to develop its own nuclear weapons, since this would cause an irreparable rupture with its western allies and the EU. It would anyway be pointless so long as Turkey was protected by NATO. However, by 2008, the Turkish air force was investigating the possibility of acquiring an anti-missile defence system - probably the US-made Patriot system or the S300/S400 system produced by Russia - or becoming part of that currently being planned by the United States for eastern Europe, provided this were integrated into the NATO alliance. 106 This would aim to protect Turkey against the Shahab-3 missile already developed by Iran. Diplomatically, Turkey was· also ttying to persuade Iran to accept western conditions for a cessation of its uranium enrichment programme. On 14-15 August 2008, President Ahmadinejad paid a controversial visit to Istanbul, at which President Giil tried to persuade him to accept a 'double freeze' plan put forward by the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany. This envisaged that, in return for a suspension of uranium enrichment by Iran, UN sanctions against it would be suspended and a package of help would be made available to Iran to develop a civilian nuclear

Foreign policy and the AKP 141 power industry. However, Ahmadinejad, who had rejected the plan when it had first been put to him by the EU's representative, Javier Solana, in June 2008, remained unmoved, leaving this an ongoing source of tension. lo7 On the other hand, a point of convergence for both Turkish and Iranian policies was the situation in Iraq. As in the case of Russia, the Turkish parliament's refusal to support the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 removed what could have been a serious point of conflict between Ankara and Tehran. Both governments were opposed to the territori~l breakup of Iraq. Iran was also challenged by Kurdish insurgents of the 'Free Life Party of Kurdistan' or PEJAK, operati"ng from northern Iraq. This appeared to have close links with the PKK and had a base near that of the PKK, near the Qandil mountain in northern Iraq, which is close to both the Turkish and Iranian borders. During 2007, violent clashes were reported, with serious casualties on the Iranian side, and the loss of two helicopters. These attacks continued into 2008. 108 Iran claimed that PEJAK was supported by the United States, but this was hotly denied by US authorities. Turkey and Iran had a common interest in defeating PKKlPEJAK and in April 2008 held talks on 'security cooperation'. However, this apparently only extended to the exchange of intelligence, since it was most unlikely that the staunchly secularist Turkish military would want to draw close to Iran. 109 A more positive cOInmon interest between Ankara and Tehran was Turkey's interest in acquiring increased supplies of natural gas from Iran, although this led it into direct conflict with the United States, which opposed strengthening of economic relations with Iran. The main motive was to reduce Turkey's reliance on Russia for natural gas. It also aimed to act as a major conduit for non-Russian gas to central and Eastern Europe, via the planned 'Nabucco' pipeline project. 'Nabucco' was originally expected to draw gas from Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, but there were doubts about how much could be drawn from these sources, for both political and technical reasons. For several years, Turkey had imported part of its gas needs from Iran, via a pipeline which began operating in December 2001. This accounted for about 17 per cent of its gas imports in 2007,110 although there had been several interruptions, due to disagreements over the price, and technical problems on the Iranian side. However, in July 2007, Turkish and Iranian ministers signed an unexpected memorandum of understanding under which a new pipeline would be built, to carry 30 billion cubic metres of gas per year from Iran to Turkey and Europe. Most of the gas would originate from Iran, but some would come by another existing pipeline to Iran from Turkmenistan. To help achieve this, the Turkish state petroleum corporation (TPAO) would develop Iran's South Pars gas field, planned to produce 20 billion cubic metres per year. I II Expectations that President Ahmadinejad would use his visit to Istanbul in August 2008 to sign further agreements on the project failed to materialise, although whether this was due to diplomatic pressure from Washington or disagreements over the terms of the deal was disputed. III

142 Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey Of the several instances of fence mending, Turkish diplomats were likely to point to their relationship with Syria as the most successful. Until 1998, the two countries were at odds on almost every international issue that concerned them both. The breakthrough in the relationship carne in October of that year when, under threat of possible military action by Turkey, the Syrian dictator Hafiz ai-Assad expelled the PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, who had been hosted and supported by Syria since the 1980s. As a result, the two countries signed a security agreement, known as the 'Adana Protocol', to prevent cross-border threats, which have been mutually adhered to (Ocalan, meanwhile, was convicted by a Turkish court in 1999 and has been in prison in Turkey ever since). Turkish governments seized the opportunity to neutralise a country that had previously been a fierce opponent. Syria, bereft of its most important external supporter by the dissolution of the USSR, was anxious to develop the relationship with Turkey as an opening to the West. Following Hafiz al-Assad's death in June 2000, and his succession as President of Syria by his son Bashar, President Sezer visited Damascus for the state funeral- the first visit by a Turkish President since the foundation of the Syrian republic in 1946. This succession of official visits on both sides continued under the AKP government. It was accompanied by a growth in trade between the two countries, from $729 million in 2000 to $1,174 million in 2007, when a free-trade agreement was signed. l13 On the political side, Syria's claim to the province of Alexandretta (Hatay), which was annexed by Turkey in 1939, was effectively shelved, and the two sides even made progress in settling their long-running dispute over the division of waters of the Euphrates, which flows from Turkey into Syria. 114 The rapprochement with Syria was critical for Turkish policy-makers because it had to be pushed forward in tandem with a close relationship with Israel. For the Israelis, this was important mainly as a means of overcoming their regional isolation, despite their peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan. For Turkey, it was valued primarily as a means of strengthening its relations with the United States, given the power of the pro-Israel lobby in Washington, and as a means of obtaining advanced military hardware. This had been cemented by an agreement on 'Military Training and Cooperation' signed in 1996. The relationship was not problem-free, however, since Turkey supported UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, calling for full Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967, and had longstanding links with the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). In 2002, this had led to sharp criticisms by BiilentEcevit of Israeli attacks on PLO positions in the West Bank, which were continued by Tayyip Erdogan following Israel's military drive into the Gaza Strip in 2004. 115 A serious crisis in Turkish-Israeli relations erupted in February 2006 when Khaled Mashaal, the exiled leader of the Palestinian Islarnist party Harnas, paid what was described as an unofficial visit to Ankara, in which he had talks with Foreign Minister Abdullah Giil. Given that Hamas, which had won the Palestinian parliamentary elections in the previous month, had been responsible for numerous terrorist attacks

Foreign policy and the AKP 143 in Israel, the visit appeared to undermine the Turkish government's claim that it would have no truck with terrorists, notably the PKK. Protests from Israel were met by the argument from Ankara that Gul had tried to persuade Mashaal to accept Israel's right to exist within its pre-1967 frontiers, and reject the use of violence. 116 As it was, the row over the Mashaal visit turned out to be a low point of the Turkey-Israel relationship. This recovered in the following two years, mainly because the Israelis, as well as those on the Arab side who sought an end to their seemingly everlasting conflict, began to see Turkey as a possible go-between. The AKP government was keen to advance Turkey's role as a potential peacemaker. Against some domestic opposition, in September 2006, it secured parliamentary approval for the despatch of Turkish troops to join the UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, following the unsuccessful Israeli attack on the Lebanon of July-August 2006.117 In a dramatic gesture, the Israeli and Palestinian Presidents, Shimon Peres and Mahrnud Abbas, made a joint visit to Ankara in November 2007, both addressing the Turkish parliament and expressing a common hope for peace. President Peres successfully supported Turkish participation in the Annapolis conference on Middle East peace, held shortly afterwards, for which Turkey also pushed successfully for Syrian participation. 118 Hopes that the Annapolis conference might re-start the Arab-Israeli peace process and (on the Turkish side) that Turkey could play an important role in achieving it, proved too optimistic. However, the AKP government was able to use the improved links, which it had established with both Israel and Syria, to serve as a go-between in negotiations aiming at the eventual return to Syria of the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel since 1967. Following President al-Assad's announcement in April 2008 that Israel had offered to withdraw from the Golan in return for a peace treaty with Syria, it was announced that indirect talks between Syrian and Israeli officials were being held in Istanbul, with Turkish officials shuttling between them. The talks continued into July, with more discussions expected later. Turkey's mediating role won plaudits from Washington, in contrast to previous tensions over Turkish links with Syria. tt9 More broadly, the idea that Turkey, as a western-allied Muslim nation with a secular constitution and a working democracy, could act as an example to other Muslim countries and could serve as a mediator between the West and the Muslim world, began to gain currency under the AKP government. Turkey had (with some reservations) become a member of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) in 1969, but acquired a higher profile in the organisation in 2005 when a Turkish scholar of Islam, Professor Ekrneleddin ihsanoglu, became its Secretary General for a four-year term. As Foreign Minister, Abdullah Gul used the occasion of an OIC meeting in Tehran in May 2003 to urge that the Muslim countries should look at themselves, by adopting a 'fresh and new vision' which would embrace 'transparent and accountable government, prioritising basic rights and equality in freedoms

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between men and women' .110 The proposal that Turkey could serve as a democratic model for the Muslim world was also advanced by President Bush, who, on a visit to Istanbul in June 2004, told his audience. that 'your country, with 150 years of democratic and social reform, stands as a model for others'.121 In the event, the President's 'Broader Middle East Initiative' (it had a number of alternative titles) fell by the wayside over the next few years, mainly because America's difficulties in establishing stable and effective democratic government in Iraq created less ambitious priorities. The AKP government also stressed that it did not want to be a 'model' for anyone.1ll Later, Prime Minister Erdogan claimed that the 'Broader Middle East Initiative' had failed because the G-8 nations had not given suffic~ent support. 123 Instead, he proposed that 'Turkey will be a symbol of the harmony and cultures and civilisations of the 21st century,.m Erdogan emphasised Turkey's links with both the West and the. Muslim world as a way of enhancing its international image and· disproving the Huntingtonian notion of a 'Clash of Civilisations' between the twO.12S Stressing Turkey'S role as a mediator between Europe and the Middle East also strengthened its claim for membership of the ED, according with the liberal notion of an open, multicultural future for Europe; as the British premier, Tony Blair, put it in 2005, 'Europe will benefit from opening up [by admitting Turkey], not from being introverted'.126 Acting on this principle, Erdogan joined the Spanish Prime Minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, in co-sponsoring the 'Alliance of Civilizations' initiative launched by the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in 2005, to 'explore the roots of polarisation between societies and cultures today, and to recommend a programme of action'.127 This prepared an 'Implementation Plan', which was presented to Annan's successor, Ban Ki-moon in 2007. Other aspects of the AKP's attempt to raise Turkey'S profile included a campaign to become a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council for the term 2009-10. To advance its case, it launched a determined attempt to build up links with African and other countries with whom Turkey had previously had little contact, hosting a 'Turkey-African Cooperation Summit' with heads of state and other senior representatives from 50 African states in Istanbul in August 2008.128

Assessments and expectations The architects of the AKP's external strategies criticise the period of the 1990s as a "'lost decade" for Turkey, without a systematic approach to its foreign policy' .129 Instead, they urge the application of the principles outHned at the beginning of this chapter - adopting more independent policies exploiting Turkey's 'strategic depth', and working for 'zero problems' with neighbouring states. More ambitiously, they attempted to re-position Turkey as a global actor, emphasising 'soft power' rather than securitised or militarily oriented approaches. How successful were they, and what problems had they encountered in practice?

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At the general level, by 2008 it had become dear that, in spite of the new orientations, there were still serious limits to Turkey's ability to act independently of its western allies, especially the United States, and that its soft power - such as it was - was of little value in crucial situations. Turkey's problems in Iraq were the most striking example of this. Five years after the US-led invasion, the argument that Turkey should have supported it, which had bedevilled Turkish-US relations at the time, seemed irrelevant. Like it or not, America was in Iraq: Turkey's immediate problem was to help ensure that the country did not fall apart and prevent the PKK using its ~erritory as a base for attacks in Turkey. Soft power was of little value in the violent politics of Iraq, and Turkey could only achieve its objectives in cooperation with the United States, since independent military action was not a realistic option. When Turkey was able to intervene effectively in northern Iraq against the PKK, it could only do so with US permission and assistance, following the Bush-Erdogan meeting in Washington of 5 November 2007. Soft power was more effective in Turkey's bid to join the EU, since the fact that it was a secular democracy with a Muslim population was one of its main arguments for eventual accession. However, it could not overcome resistance from conservative parties in countries like France and Germany, who were opposed to Turkish membership in principle. Between 2005 and 2008, the AKP government's failure to press ahead with further democratic reforms also strengthened the arguments of the opponents of Turkish accession. A remarkable feature of the AKP's foreign policy was that, apart from its higher profile within the Ole, and despite the Islamist origins of most of its leaders, there was nothing about its strategies that could be classed as 'Islamic'. The proposals of its chief foreign policy theorist, Ahmet Davutoglu, may have broken with the approaches of previous governments, but at no point did he suggest that religious attachments should be the basis of Turkish policies. Opposition to the invasion of Iraq was based on real security worries, not Muslim sentiment, and stretched across the political spectrum. Turkey'S relations with several Muslim countries were improved, but so were its links with distinctly non-Islamic states like Greece and Russia. While not problem-free, the cooperation with Israel was also preserved. Above all, EU accession remained one of the AKP's basic goals. Faced with a choice, it clearly opted for closer association with Europe and categorically rejected the 'us versus them' mentality of the Islamist world view. Opting for "'zero problems' with neighbours was far more realistic than treating them all as enemies. However, this was not a completely new initiative of the AKP, since the rapprochement with Greece had begun under the previous Ecevit administration in 1999. Similarly, relations with Bulgaria and Russia had been dramatically improved after the collapse of communism and the Warsaw Pact in 1989 and the dissolution of the USSR at the end of 1991 -long before the AKP came to power. Among Turkey'S other neighbours, the newly independent state of Georgia had never had any disputes with Turkey, whereas the dramatic turnaround in Turkish-Syrian

146 Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey relations had started with the expulsion of Abdullah Ocalan from Syria in 1998. The AKP government built on all these welcome changes~ but it had not initiated them. Its most dramatic change of policy was the decision to support the Annan plan for Cyprus in 2004, but in this case, progress was then blocked by the Greek Cypriots - demonstrating that the policy of 'zero . problems' could be stymied if the neighbour failed to reciprocate. This situation was duplicated by the Armenian government, in the dispute over the claimed genocide, and by Iran, over the nuclear question. Similarly, it was impossible to eliminate problems with neighbouring states if the neighbours had disputes with one another. Counting Russia, Israel and Azerbaijan as 'neighbours', this created serious headaches for Turkish diplomacy, thanks to the conflicts between Russia and Georgia, between Israel and the Arab states, and Azerbaijan and Armenia. In such cases, zero problems with one neighbour could lead to more problems with the other. Finally, better relations with some of Turkey'S neighbours, notably Syria and Iran, could add to tensions in its relations with the United States (the case of Iraq was a separate and unique one, since it was actually occupied by US forces). This did not mean that the 'zero problems' policy was wrong, but it could be hard to implement. On particular issues, the AKP's policies were not above criticism. Lack of an effective public diplomacy exacerbated Turkey'S quarrels with the United States during 2003-05, although there was an equal fault on the other side. The closure of the border with Armenia could be faulted, since it had failed to produce any important policy changes by Armenia. There was also a lack of clarity in Turkish policy on this issue. Was Turkey making the normalisation of relations with Armenia dependent on a settlement of the NagornoKarabagh problem and the withdrawal of Armenian forces from Azeri territory, on Armenian recognition of the existing border with Turkey (on which the Armenian position was rather unclear) or on the cessation of genocide recognition attempts in third countries? Would normalisation depend on a change of Armenian policy on all these issues, or just one of them - and in the latter case, which one? As Nigar G6ksel has pointed out, the 'red lines and positions [of both sides] towards important bilateral issues seem to shift regularly'. Additionally, as he suggested, 'freedom to debate the Armenian tragedy of the early twentieth century needs to be more widespread in Turkey'.llo Turkish policy towards Cyprus since 2005 has also been criticised on the grounds that that opening up Turkish harbours and airports to Geek Cypriot ships ahd aircraft would not be tantamount to recognition of the Greek Cypriot government (as the Turkish side argues), given that Turkey has allowed visa-free entry to Turkey by Greek Cypriot citizens since 2003. Turkey'S policy on this issue left it isolated in Europe, and it is argued that, after signing the additional protocol in 2005, the government should have implemented it. III In attempts to reach out to the Middle East and Africa, Turkey could also over-step the moral red lines of its western allies - examples being the visit of

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Khaled Mashaal in 2006, or that of the Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir to the 'Turkey-African Cooperation Summit' in Istanbul in August 2008. The invitation to al-Bashir caused particularly harsh criticism, since he had been indicted by the International Criminal Court (whose treaty had not been ratified by Turkey) for crimes against humanity in the Darfur province of Sudan.1J2 By actions of this type, Turkey alienated itself from global liberal opinion, to which it was trying to appeal. On the other hand, its ability to reach out to both sides in crucial international disputes paid some important dividends, most notably its role in bringing Israel and Syria together in negotiations over the Golan Heights. The enhanced political stability and economic growth which the AKP's government had brought - despite the upsets of the presidential election crisis of 2007, or the attempted closure case against the party in 2008 - also enabled it to playa more effective international role, and stood in contrast to the acute instability under previous governments. Among its instruments of soft power, a greatly strengthened economy was crucial, as countries like Syria, Iraq (including the Iraqi Kurds) and Georgia now looked to Turkey as a source of economic benefits, including investment, and sought to strengthen their relations with Ankara. As a result, the greater integration of Turkey into regional politics, especially in the Middle East, could be counted as a success for its strategies. By the end of 2008, the AKP government was still left with some urgent foreign policy tasks. In the crisis over Georgia, following Russia's military intervention, it had the difficult job of balancing its support for Georgia's independence and territorial integrity with the need not to antagonise Russia. In response, Prime Minister Erdogan launched proposals for a 'Caucasian Stability and Cooperation Platform' to include all the regional states (including Russia and Armenia) to promote regional peace and economic cooperation. What this would amount to, and whether it could make any headway in the face of fierce inter-state disputes in the region, was doubtful, however. In relations with the EU, the outlook seemed more promising. The decision of the Constitutional Court not to close down the AKP in July 2008 removed the danger of a breakdown in the accession process. However, to achieve real progress, the government would have to show more determination to complete the reform process than it had over the previous three years. Linked to this was the start of direct negotiations between the Turkish and Greek Cypriot leaders, in which Turkey would need to show continued flexibility, particularly over withdrawal or drastic reduction of its military presence in the island. Finally, the victory of Barack Obama in the US presidential elections raised some crucial question marks, over a possible revival of the Armenian genocide resolution in Congress, and the effects of a likely withdrawal of US forces from Iraq by 2011. Successfully dealing with a post-occupation Iraq would require careful policies, as well as collaboration with unpredictable Middle Eastern governments and a substantial helping of good luck. In these, as in other theatres, the AKP needed to adopt flexible policies, as well as adherence to its own basic principles.

Conclusions, assessments and expectations

In the Introduction to this book, it was suggested that it might be possible to classify the Justice and Development Party (AKP) as something like the Muslim equivalent of conservative parties in western democracies. While embracing faith-based values on a range of social, cultural and, perhaps, economic issues, it rejects the idea of establishing an Islamic state, whose laws and procedures could not be reconciled with basic democratic norms (p. xvi). The subsequent chapters have tried to illustrate the extent that, in the light of the experience of just more than six years of AKP government, this proposal holds good. To draw these points together, this chapter begins with an assessment of the party's performance in office, in view of the arguments of its critics. To broaden this, it then attempts to set the party in a comparative perspective, embracing Anglo-Saxon conservatism, continental European Christian democracy and Islamically based parties in other Muslim societies. Finally, it is argued that, after six years in power, the party appeared to stand at a crossroads, faced with a choice between continuing its commitment to iiberalism·and internationalism, or reverting to an accommodation with more nationalist and authoritarian currents, which still appeared to dominate in much of the Turkish state establishment.

The AKP and its critics: an assessment Needless to say, the AKP's claim that it respects democracy does not win universal credence. Among many other critics, Bassam Tibi suggests that, although the AKP rejects the Islamist label, 'its goal is concealment, not a sincere shift to a truly post-Islamist politics'.l Sharpening his criticisms, he likens the AKP's rule in Turkey to that of Hamas in Gaza, arguing that The inclusion of the Islamists there [in Turkey] has ended with them in the midst of a full takeover of all state institutions from their base in the parliament, wherein they predominate. The AKP is an Islamist party, and not (as it pretends) an Islamic conservative party.... The AKP is intolerant, .not only towards secularists ... but also towards ethnic and

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religious minorities such as the Kurds and the Alevis. The AKP may have come to power through democratic means, but it is not inclusive vis-a.-vis the non-Islamist other.2 There have also been strong criticisms of the AKP from American commentators, particularly among those who reacted sharply' to the Turkish parliament's refusal to support the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003 (pp. 131-2). Thus, in a round-table discussion published on the internet in May 2005, Daniel Pipes argued that Tayyip Erdogan was the 'anti-Atatiirk', out to 'undo the" entire Atatiirk revolution', and concluding that 'I do expect that when the Islamist AKP feel strong' enough and the circumstances are right they will go attempt to reverse the Atatiirkist state and impose the Shari'a in its full scope'.3 On later reflection, Pipes admitted that the AKP's intentions presented a 'sophisticated intellectual puzzle' with 'persuasive evidence in both directions', but he still accused it of 'privileging Islamic courts over secular courts', criticising its alleged 'reliance on dirty money and its bias against religious minorities as well as the persecution of political opponents'. Paradoxically, he argued that the AKP sought to gain European Union (EU) membership so as to weaken the power of the army, and thus ease 'the way to apply Islamic law' (how the EU was expected to accept the latter was left unexplained).4 tater, he even drew a parallel between Erdogan and Osama bin Laden, on the grounds that 'both seek to create a thoroughly anti-democratic, if not totalitarian, order'.s All these accusations reflected the arguments of the AKP's domestic opponents, which came out in the public campaign to prevent the AKP exercising its constitutional right to elect its own candidate to the presidency in 2007, or the judicial attempt to have the party closed down in 2008 (pp. 39-40, 74-5). Admittedly, as previous chapters have made clear, the AKP's performance was not above criticism on important points, and not all the accusations of its opponents were entirely without foundation. In proposing the re-criminalisation of adultery in fall 2004, the party leadership went too far in trying to meet the supposed wishes of its more religious supporters, in the face of domestic and European opposition (although, to be fair, the move was also supported by the strongly secularist Republican People's Party). Thanks to this opposition, the government backed down and did not resurrect the idea (pp. 70-71). Similarly, its attempt to allow graduates of the Schools for imams and Preachers to apply for university places on equal terms with other students had to be dropped, following opposition from President Sezer and the military (pp. 68-70). In its attempt to alter the constitution so as to allow women university students to wear the Islamic headscarf in class, the AKP could reasonably argue that it was responding to a legitimate demand, supported by a clear majority of the Turkish people (pp. 71-4). However, it arguably made a strategic mistake by not combining the amendment with a broad raft of constitutional changes improving

150 Islamism, DemocraCy and Liberalism in Turkey human rights as a whole, which would have had liberal-secularist as well as conservative support. Local municipalities controlled by the AKP also came under fire from secularists for forbidding the sale of alcoholic drinks in bars and restaurants in several districts. In its defence, however, the AKP could always point out that such restrictions - and sometimes outright bans - are quite common in a number of democratic, non-Muslim countries, whereas Kemal Atatlirk's government itself officially banned the sale of alcoholic drinks during 1923-24.6 In his approach to the Kurdish question, Tayyip Erdogan made some important goodwill gestures, going further than previous governments in giving official recognition of the Kurdish identity. However, as suggested earlier, the AKP failed to develop or implement a coherent policy on this issue (pp. 76-7), which would have met the legitimate demands of the Kurdish community while preserving Turkey's territorial integrity. Similarly, in reaction to the modest demands of the Turkish Alevis, the AKP government preferred to opt for the 'politics of avoidance', rather than taking concrete positive steps (pp. 78-9). Failure to act effectively on both these issues can be seen as part of the serious slowdown in the party's original programme of liberalising reforms, which is returned to in the last part of this chapter. The AKP also made mistakes in other areas of public policy, although these had virtually nothing to do with Islamism. In foreign policy, these included the failure to develop a more effective policy towards the US occupation of Iraq, following the rejection by the Turkish parliament of the government-backed resolution of 1 March 2003, and the refusal to allow the Greek Cypriots to use Turkish airports and harbours, without recognising the Greek Cypriot government, which would have cleared away a serious obstacle in Turkey's projected path to EU membership (pp. 126-7, 132-4). The revival of the economy after 2002 was a notable feather in the government's cap, but there were reasonable criticisms that it had failed to develop a coherent social welfare programme, and the handouts to needy families by municipalities were criticised by religious scholars and secular commentators (p. 107). Whether it had effective policies to deal with the expected global economic depression in 2009 was still uncertain when this book was being completed at the end of 2008. On the other hand, the claims by its harshest critics, like Bassam Tibi and Daniel Pipes, are mostly unsubstantiated and, in many cases, grossly exaggerated, if not downright false. Suggesting that the AKP is in the same camp as Hamas or Osama bin Laden is a grotesque distortion, since the AKP never attempted to remove its opponents by brute force (as Hamas did in Gaza) or further its aims by terrorist attacks on innocent civilians. Tibi's claim that the AKP was taking over 'all state institutions' is patently false, given the opposition it faced from the judiciary, the armed forces and parts of the state bureaucracy, which is related at length in the preceding chapters. It was quite beyond Tayyip Erdogan's power to 'undo the entire Atatiirk revolution' as Pipes claims, even if he had wanted to (which seems highly doubtful). The AKP could not privilege 'Islamic courts over secular courts',

Conclusions, assessments and expectations 151 since there are no Islamic courts in Turkey, and its supposed reliance on 'dirty money' is an unproven allegation. Above all, the claim that the AKP had an undercover plan to destroy democratic government so as to establish an Islamic state is not persuasive, given that, by the end of 2008, it had enjoyed six years in office, and had won two general elections with substantial majorities in which its militantly secularist opponents were allowed free and fair participation. If it had seriously sought to turn Turkey into an Islamic state, it would surely have taken some clear steps to that end during its relatively long stay in power. Instead of undermining democracy, it had done more to widen civil liberties than any preceding government since the 1960s (pp. 55-62). As a result, there were those who argued that, in the Turkey of the new century, the real reactionaries were the state-centred secularist nationalists of the Republican People's Party. Militant secularism was not now as modern as they seem to have imagined, but pluralism was. The AKP reflected this, even though its opponents often found it hard to come to terms with the change. In ihsan Dagl's view, the hard-line Kemalists had lost their claim to represent modernity:7 they had used a drive for 'westernisation' as a means of re-establishing and reinforcing the power of the central state against the periphery (pp. 33-4), which had become a hegemonic discourse used by the elite against society as a whole. This model had failed, however, since Turkey'S bid to enter the ED meant that 'westernisation' now implied democratisation, ceasing to be a means of controlling society at large. Thus, the previously assumed alignment, with the secularists supporting westernisation and the religious conservatives opposing it, had now been turned on its head. 8 The AKP in comparative perspective In the attempt to delineate the AKP's ideas and policies, an obvious comparison is with Islamist parties in other Muslim nations, or its more Islamist predecessors in Turkey, notably the Welfare Party (RP). As earlier chapters of this book have indicated, a clear distinction is that, although the AKP draws on the support of Muslim conservatives in Turkey, its popular support base is not limited to this constituency, but extends across a wide part of Turkish society, both socially and geographically (pp. 36-8). Similarly, economic factors appear to be far more important than religious ones in determining the mass vote (p. 99). By steering clear of the idea of establishing a state based on Muslim law and the sovereignty of God, the AKP distinguishes itself quite clearly from Islamist parties in most of the rest of the Muslim world, both radical and reformist {p. xvi).9 Although most of the AKP's leadership was drawn from the RP, they made a clear choice to break with the 'national outlook' tradition established by Necmettin Erbakan, opting instead for pluralism, with a fringe of faith-based values on cultural and social issues on the basis of 'passive secularism' (p. 22). This included an explicit commitment to pushing forward Turkey'S bid for ED membership,

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which had been strongly opposed by Erbakan (pp. 6, 23). In other theatres of foreign policy, their approaches were not too different from those of previous centre-right, and some centre-left governments in Turkey - or, if they differed (as in the cases of the Cyprus problem, or more active engagement with neighbouring states), appeared to have little to do with religion. There was very little definable as 'Islamic' in the AKP's economic policies, which accepted Turkey's integration into the global economy and were shaped in large part by the need to reach accommodations with the powerful private sector in Turkey, as well as with the IMF and the EU (pp. 102-4). Only in the AKP's confrontations with the military and the judiciary did the battle between secularism and religious conservatism acquire salience, and even here a tentative live-and-let-Iive relationship seemed to have been established by 2008 (pp. 93-5). As has been suggested earlier, the AKP's shift away from an Islamist agenda can partly be explained by its desire to avoid the fate of the Welfare Party following the '28 February process'. This was reinforced by the rise of· new social forces such as the Anatolian bourgeoisie, which combined attachment to traditional moral values with a commitment to neo-liberal economic policies, as well a~ a large ex~rural working class in the big cities, and important changes in the attitudes of Islamist intellectuals (pp. 28, 38). In the international context, Gareth Jenkins also argues convincingly that, whereas Islamists in other countries treat the 'age of felicity' (asr-i saadet) of the Prophet Muhammad and the first four Caliphs, in which the classic Islamic state was established, as their primary reference point, for Turkish Muslims, this is only secondary. For them, the 'primary historical reference point is the Ottoman Empire - or at least their perception of the empire as a paradigm of peace, tolerance and social harmony'. This perception, .which may indicate some absorption of the 'Turkish-Islamic synthesis' (p. xx) gives them a far less legalistic approach to Islamic tradition, he argues. Hence, the AKP's understanding of Muslim identity has prioritised lifestyle rather than legislation, seeking to allow pious Muslims to live according to their beliefs, without imposing the lifestyle on the population as a whole. 10 In this way, historical legacies peculiar to Turkey, as well as popular cultural values, can be held to have shaped the AKP's attachment to 'conservative democracy', rather than Islamism. Given the wide differences between the AKP and Islamist parties in other Muslim societies, a comparison between the AKP and other established conservative parties, especially in Britain and the United States, may be more illuminating. Here, one encounters the problem noticed earlier (p. 25) that conservatism is hard to categorise, since its adherents appear to have a clearer understanding of what they oppose than what they favour; like the AKP, they have tended to form catchall parties, suspicious of abstract or doctrinaire approaches and emphasising pragmatism rather than ideology. The forms conservatism takes have also differed quite widely at different historical periods and in different societies. However, the Anglo-Saxon {as

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opposed to the post-revolutionary French) version of conservatism can be said to rest heavily on the principle enounced by Edmund Burke of 'change in order to conserve' - a principle adopted by Robert Peel when he effectively re-founded British conservatism in the 1830s. This is clearly reflected in Tayyip Erdogan's advocacy of a 'modern conservatism open to innovation, in place of the conservatism of the past which was built on the status quo' (p. 24). The idea that those in power have a moral responsibility for the welfare of the poor, part of Benjamin Disraeli's 'one nation' conservatism in nineteenth-century Britain, is· also clearly part of the AKP's platform, although the AKp· also has a much larger working-class constituency than the British Conservative Party has normally enjoyed. The AKP's amichment to the idea of an organic society, rather than a class based one, or the idea that society is merely composed of utility:-maximising individuals, also reflects the values of classic 'one nation' conservatism in Britain. The perceived need to preserve 'traditional' moral values, and family life, is a salient part of both Anglo-Saxon conservatism, and that of the AKP. Like Anglo-Saxon conservatives, the AKP can be seen as nationalist, but as its attitude towards the Kurdish question suggests, its conception of national identity can be seen as 'civic' or 'territorial', in the Anglo-Saxon tradition, rather than one based on ethnicity. In fact, a striking aspect of many of its proposals is that they quite clearly draw on Anglo-Saxon rather than French or German models, which seem to have dominated most non-Islamist political discourse in Turkey during the twentieth century. On the other hand, there are clearly two important differences between the AKP's attachments, and those of the British Conservatives, in particular. First, although the Anglican Church used to be described as 'the Conservative Party at prayer', few people would now accept this, in either body, since today's British Conservatives support tradition without needing to argue that it has divine origins. Hence, religious attachments are far less important in the formation of the modern Conservative Party's popular support base than in that of the AKP (the parallel is perhaps closer in the case of the US Republican Party, although there are also important differences between the attitudes of most Muslim Turks and those of evangelical Christians in the United States). Second, by moving away from 'one natic;m' conservatism, towards an individualism which, it is suggested, owes more to classic nineteenth-century liberalism, Margaret Thatcher's version of conservatism, which re-shaped her party during the 1980s, is not mirrored by that of the AKP. Perhaps, significantly, the monograph The AKP and Conservative Democracy by Tayyip Erdogan's advisor Yal~m Akdogan, referred to earlier (p. 24) includes positive references to Edmund Burke and Robert Peel, but not to the 'New Right' of Margaret Thatcher or Ronald Reagan. . In a perceptive article published in 1998, Barry Rubin suggested that 'Islamists could become the equivalent of Christian Democratic parties of Europe or Latin America, or·the religious parties in Israel. In other words, the party would focus on pushing certain specific issues and protecting the

154 Isiamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey interests of its supporters, rather than seeking to transform the society as a whole'.l1 Although its leaders are quick to dismiss the idea that the AKP is the Muslim equivalent of a Christian Democrat party,12 the evidence advanced in this book suggest that the AKP corresponds quite closely to Rubin's prediction. Since the comparison between the AKP and European Christian Democrat parties has been elaborated at some length by one of the present writers in another context,13 the argument will only be summarised here. By stressing faith-based values (without defining them as such) in such fields as education and morality, the AKP exhibits clear parallels with Christian Democrat parties in western and central Europe, although the terrain of debate is not identical in the two cases. For instance, in Catholic Europe disputes over divorce, abortion and artificial birth control have been high on the agenda of Christian Democrat parties, but are much less politically significant in Turkey, whereas the headscarf issue has occupied a far more important position on the Turkish agenda. Like Christian Democrat parties in Europe, which originally sought to promote a 'third way' between untrammelled capitalism and state socialism, rejecting the 'materialism' of both, the AKP puts more emphasis on social welfare than Anglo-Saxon conservatism, and is less class-based. Like Christian Democrat parties, the AKP has an important support base among a variety of non-governmental organisations, such as trade unions, business associations and social welfare societies, although Turkish law prevents it from having organisational links with them, as in the case of some European countries. 14 The main differences between the two derive partly from differences between the institutional structures of Islam and Christianity. In Europe, Christian democrats have sometimes been accused of being the long arm of the Vatican (although in Germany the Christian Democratic Union has many Protestant members). No such problem occurs for the AKP, since there is nothing similar to the Papacy in the Muslim world, the Caliphate having been abolished in 1924. During the post-war period in particular, European Christian Democrat parties were primarily launched as anti-communist or anti-socialist movements. This orientation is pointless in Turkey, as the Turkish Left has been too weak to offer an effective challenge to the state since the 1980s. Instead, as noted earlier, the AKP sees its main opponents as the advocates of authoritarian ultra-secularism and centre-directed 'social and political engineering' {p. 24 ).IS Historical circumstances have also created a further profound difference between the AKP and conservative parties in Britain and continental Europe. In the latter case, conservatives acted primarily as defenders of the status quo (even if they were prepared to adapt to changing conditions). In effect, they were defending the castle of the state establishment, while the opposition, the revolutionary Jacobins and socialists, were attacking it from the outside. In Turkey, the positions were reversed, as the Kemalist revolution had meant that the fortress of the state was occupied by those who saw themselves as the vanguard of Jacobin reformism, imposed from the top.

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Against this, the 'outsiders' were mobilised in the name of cultural conservatism, populism, and civil liberties. Tayyip Erdogan was able to project himself as a symbol of this popular revolt - a 'man of the people', who had risen from a humble background, suffered imprisonment for his beliefs, and then launched a successful challenge to the state establishment. Whether the AKP would continue in this mode was a leading question as this book was being completed at the end of 2008. The price of power: the AKP at the crossroads? At the beginning of 2009, after six years in powe~ it appeared that the AKP was faced with a choice between continuing to act as a liberal, reformist force or making its peace with a conservative state establishment. Although the fear that it might turn Turkey into an Islamist autocracy was still apparently pervasive in the Republican People's Party, the armed forces and the judiciary, this seemed less realistic than the opposite perception - that the AKP might slip down the same road as previous centre-right parties, shifting back to authoritarianism and isolationist nationalist attitudes, perhaps even as part of a Faustian pact with its former opponents to prevent the launch of another closure case against it. 16 More specifically, there was a general agreement among Turkish and foreign observers that the AKP government's zeal for democratic and EU-related reforms had slackened since 2005. These doubts strengthened during 2008. In the aftermath of the 22 July 2007 parliamentary elections, the AKP's position seemed to be more solid than ever (pp. 40-41). Following the elections, the AKP was able to get its candidate, Abdullah Gill, elected as the President of the Republic, a powerful post in the Turkish constitutional system, with the support of the ultra-nationalist Nationalist. Action Party (MHP). Thus, it finally overcame the persistent efforts of the Republican People's Party, as the major opposition party (CHP) and the military establishment to prevent the election of Gill as President. As related earlier, in February 2008, the AKP majority in parliament, again with the support of the MHP and the Kurdish nationalist DTP, adopted a constitutional amendment aiming to abolish the ban on headscarves at universities (pp. 71-4). In its election platform, the AKP promised to make a new civilian and democratic constitution that would raise human rights standards to a universally acceptable level and reorganise the structure of government in accordance with the principles of a genuine parliamentary system. A draft was prepared by a committee of constitutional scholars at the request of Prime Minister Erdogan. The draft was debated in the AKP councils in the autumn of 2007, and it was expected that it would be publicly announced by the end of the year. Unfortunately, the government then failed to act decisively to put its promises of further legal and constitutional reforms into effect. In fact, it appeared that the AKP might have become the victim of its own successes. Its consolidation of its power increased the frustrations and fears of the

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secularist establishment which had always been suspicious of the AKP's supposed 'secret agenda' and its 'hidden aims' of transforming Turkey into an Islamic republic. Thus, the election of Giil as President was seen as the fall of the last citadel of the secular republic, at which the CHP, the military, and the secularist media expressed their displeasure in not-too-subtle ways. The results of the 2007 elections showed the difficulty of ousting the AKP government by electoral means. The project of a new constitution was seen as the AKP's plan to get rid of the controls of the military and the judiciary, and turn the political system into a majoritarian dictatorship, thus eventually paving the way for an Islamic regime. Finally, to remove the headscarf ban on female university students through a constitutional amendment was seen as an unmistakable proof of such intention. The resulting sense of panic and frustration triggered a direct attack on the AKP in the form of the closure case. In the case of closure, this would probably have meant a five-year political ban for Erdogan and scores of leading AKP politicians. As explained above, the Constitutional Court finally decided not to close down the AKP, but to deprive it of half of its state subsidies. In fact, the party was saved from closure by a hair's breadth majority: six judges out of 11 voted for closure, but this was one vote short of the constitutionally required majority of the three-fifths. Even more ominously for the AKP, the Court decided by a ten-to-one majority that the party had become a focal point of anti-secular activities. The Court's ruling was interpreted by many as a politically motivated compromise, a sword of Damocles hanging over the head of the AKP (pp. 74-5). A second line of attack on the AKP was the annulment by the Constitutional Court of the constitutional amendment designed to repeal the headscarf ban at universities" As related earlier (pp. 73-4), this ruling, based on extremely dubious legal grounds, practically closed the road to constitutional amendments unless the Court agrees with them. Both decisions, together with an earlier one on the quorum to elect a President of the Republic (see pp. 39-41 above), were widely regarded as examples of the 'judicialisation of politics' or a move toward 'juristocracy', a trend that had been observed in Turkish politics for some yearsY These potentially fatal attacks on the AKP seem to have created a sense of doubt and uncertainty in the party, a feeling of being besieged. This may explain, perhaps better than anything else, the AKP's change of course observed in the second half of 2008. The EU-related reform process seems to have come to a halt. The reform moves in 2008 remained limited to the adoption of a more liberal law on charitable foundations that has improved the status of minority (i.e., non-Muslim) charitable foundations, the partial liberalisation of the notorious Article 301 of the Criminal Code, the assignment of a channel of the state-owned TV to broadcasting in Kurdish, and attempts to broaden the freedom of religion for the minority (heterodox) Alevi sect (pp. 75-9). The project for a new liberal constitution seemed to have been silently shelved without any official explanation. Perhaps most

Conclusions, assessments and expectations

157

importantly, the AKP's discourse on the Kurdish issue had noticeably hardened and became almost identical with those of the two major nationalist opposition parties and of the military. Prime Minister Erdogan frequently repeated the nationalist slogan 'single state, single nation, single flag', and in a visit to Diyarbaklr, he was reported to have reacted to Kurdish protestors by saying 'love it or leave it' (although he later denied that he had ever said this). J8 The AKP's new approach to the Kurdish question seemed to be a replica of the old official policy of reducing it to the problem of terror (i.e., fighting the PKK) and the economic underdevelopment of the southeastern region. For the pessimists, the best proof for the convergence between the AKP and the nationalistic bloc (i.e., the CHP, MHP and military) were the words uttered by Erdogan during the 2009 budget debates in parliament that he 'shared the words of Bahc;e1i' (the leader of the MHP).19 The slowdown of the democratic reform process led to the weakening of liberal support for the AKP. The liberal community in Turkey, never strong in quantitative terms, nevertheless performed an invaluable service to the AKP in bolstering its domestic and international legitimacy. Now, it seemed to have developed second thoughts. Thus, Ahmet Altari, a leading novelist and columnist, compared the experiences of the AKP and ANAP (Motherland Party) both of which started out as reformist and pro-change parties but eventually fell victim to a status quo conservatism.20 Even more caustically he remarked that 'there is no longer any need to close down the AKP, because Erdogan now does it himself'.21 Another influential author and columnist, Cengiz Aktar, argued that even though the AKP government energetically pursued reform policies during its first two years, 'now they seem to have become out breath; i:heir vision [only] went so far. Or they might have got panicky about how to manage so many djinns'.22 A crucial aspect of the slowdown of the reform process was its effect on its foreign relations - in particular, with the EU. The European Commission made the point clearly in November 2008, when its annual report on Turkey's progress towards accession strongly criticised the government for its failure 'to put forward a consistent and comprehensive programme of reforms', with the Commissioner for Enlargement, OlIi Rehn, making it clear that 'the pace of negotiations will match the pace of reforms in Turkey'Y Admittedly, the fault was not purely on the Turkish side, since EU leaders were sending mixed signals to Ankara, with President Sarkozy and Chancellor Merkel, among many others, voicing the idea that Turkey could never gain full EU membership (pp. 122, 127). Cyprus remained as a serious obstacle in relations between Brussels and Ankara, although the AKP government could reasonably argue that it had done everything it could to reach a resolution of the problem by accepting the Annan plan in 2004. Hence, many Turks felt that if the EU was not serious about the accession negotiations, there was no reason why they should be. This in turn weakened the impetus for further political reforms. Against this, it was pointed out that the Turkish application still enjoyed solid support among many EU members,

158

Isiamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey

and that Turkey should not give up. As Professor Ersin KalayclOglu urged, the government should 'revive the reform process so the supporters of Turkey in the EU will find ammunition in their hands to defend Turkey against the non-supporter camp'.24 Much the same message was echoed by one of the AKP's own deputies, Haluk Ozdalga, who, in pressing for a more active and well coordinated push for EU membership by the government, reminded his party's leadership that its main slogan in the 2007 election campaign had been 'no stopping, keep moving ahead'; he concluded that the AKP 'could do no better than to follow the lead of these brief and striking words'. 2S For all their strength, these criticisms should not be taken as implying that Turkey'S quest for EU membership was bound to fail, or that there was no hope of a return to the reformist programme. Given the renewed effort by the leaders of the Greek and Turkish Cypriots to find a solution to the longstanding differences between the two communities, there was some prospect of clearing away this obstacle during 2009. Within the EU, even French and German attitudes were not carved in stone and could change eventually. Moreover, there was a powerful case for reforming Turkey'S political system anyway, regardless of the effects on its foreign relations. On several occasions, Foreign Minister Ali Babacan repeated that Turkey was 'fully determined' to pursue the goal of EU membership, and that he expected a new momentum in the reform process, once local elections had been completed in March 2009.26 This message was repeated by the deputy premier and government spokesman Cemil <;icek in January 2009. Although the idea of a new constitution had apparently been dropped, a draft programme, which had been drawn up by the foreign ministry and would be discussed by the cabinet during January, was expected to include a new commercial code and public procurement law (both high on the EU's agenda), the establishment of a political ethics commission, and amendments to the Political Parties Law 'in the light of the Venice criteria' {implying that parties could only be closed down if they advocated violence).27 Critics were still entitled to respond that the proof of the pudding would be in the eating, and that the programme, as outlined, did not go far enough, but there was at least some sign that the government would take its reformist credentials more seriously than in the recent past. Summing up, it appeared that at the beginning of 2009 the AKP was at a crossroads. It might either return to its old policy of vigorously pursuing the reformist path with the ultimate aim of becoming an EU member, or to compromise with the state elites and accept the status quo perhaps with some minor improvements. Both strategies involve serious pitfalls. The former might lead to renewed conflict with the state establishment, in the shape of the military and the judiciary, and even to a new closure case. The latter would allow the party to sail in reasonably safe waters, but at the risk of losing its original elan and becoming a conventional centre-right party in the tradition of the DP, Justice Party and ANAP, and eventually losing a good part of its electoral popularity. It was still unclear which way the cat would jump. Clearly, the story of the AKP was far from finished, although its future was quite uncertain.

Notes

Introduction: Islam, democracy and the Turkish experience 1. Samuel P. Huntington, 'The Clash of Civilizations', Foreigll Affairs, Vol. 72, No.3 (1993), p. 42. 2. Elie Kedourie, Democracy alld Arab Political Culture (London and Portland OR, Frank Cass, 1994) pp. 5-6. 3. See, e.g., Yahya Sadowski, 'The New Orientalism and the Democracy Debate', Middle East Report, July-August 1993, p. 16. 4. P. J. Vatikiotis, Islam alld the State (London, Croom Helm, 1987) p. 94. 5. Sadowski, 'New Orientalism', pp. 17-18. 6. Tamara Cofman Wittes, 'Islamist Parties: Three Kinds of Movements', Joumal of Democracy, Vol. 19, No.3 (2008) p. 8; Bassam Tibi, 'Islamist Parties: Why they Can't be Democratic', in ibid, p. 45. 7. Ayatollah Seyyed Ruhollah Khomeyni, t1: M. Kotobi and B. Simon, Towards all Islamic Govemmellt (Paris, Fayolle, 1979), Ch. 2. 8. Tim Niblock, Saudi Arabia: Power, Legitimacy alld Survival (Abingdon and New York, NY, Routledge, 2006), pp. 12-13. 9. See Rashid Rida, in Henri Laoust, ed., The Caliphate in the Doctrine of Rashid Rida: Aimotated Trallslation of The Caliphate or the Supreme Imamate (Beirut, Memoires de l'Institut Fran~ais de Damas, Tome VI, 1938), pp. 17-27; ~erif Mardin, The Gellesis of Young Ottomall Thought (Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press, 1962, repr 2000), pp. 293-7, 308-13 (on Namik Kemall; Muhammad Asad, The Principles of State and Govemment in Islam (Berkeley and Los Angeles CA, University of California Press, 1961) esp. Chs. 2,4. For comment on these and similar proposals, see Gudrun Kramer, 'Islamist Notions of Democracy', Middle East Report, July-August 1993, pp. 2-8; John L. Esposito and James P. Piscatori, 'Democratization and Islam', Middle East Journal, Vol. 45, No.3 (1991), esp. pp. 434-5, 438; Abdou Filali-Ansary, 'Muslims and Democracy', in Larry Diamond, Marc F. Plattner, and Daniel Brumberg, eds., Islam and Democracy ill the Middle East (Baltimore MD and London, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), p. 195. 10. This suggestion is most explicitly stated by the IndianlPakistani theorist and politician Abul KIa Maududi, although he admits that his proposed system of 'theo-democracy' is 'the very antithesis of secular Western democracy': Abul Kia Maududi, The Islamic law and Constitution (2nd edn, Lahore, Islamic Publications, 1960), pp. 131, 132, 142-3. 11. Kramer, 'Islamist Notions', pp. 5-7; Esposito and Piscatori, 'Democratization', pp. 434-5; Niblock, Saudi Arabia, pp. 106-9; Olivier Roy, tr. Carol Volk,

.160

12.

13.

14. 15. 16.

17. 18.

19. 20.

21. 22.

23. 24. 25. 26. 27. ~

...:d 29.

Notes The Failure of Political Islam (London and New York, 1. B. Tauris, 1994), pp.44-5. Gudrun Kramer, 'Liberalization and Democracy in the Arab World', Middle East Report, January-February 1992, p. 25; Tarek Masoud, 'Islamist Parties: Are they Democrats? Does it Matter?' Joumal of Democracy, Vol. 19, No.3 (2008), p. 20. See, e.g., Raymond Hinnebusch, 'Authoritarian Persistence, Democratization Theory and the Middle East: an Overview and Critique', in Frederic Volpi and Francesco Cavatorra, eds., Democratization in the Muslim World: Changing PatteTlls of Power and Authority (Abingdon and New York, NY, Routledge, 2007), pp. 11-33; John Waterbury, 'Democracy Without Democrats?: the Potential for Political Liberalization in the Mjddle East', in Ghassan Salame, ed., Democracy Without Democrats? The Renewal of Politics ill the Muslim World, (London, I. B. Tauris, 1994) pp. 24-47; Ali R. Abootalebi, 'Civil Society, Democracy, and the Middle East', Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA), Vol. 2, No.3 (1998); (published on internet at meria.idc.ac.i1; no pagination). There is much other literature on this. Bassam Tibi, Political Islam, World Politics and Europe: Democratic Peace alld Euro-Islam versus Global Jihad (Abingdon and New York, NY, Routledge, 2008), p. 84. Ibid., p. 70 (quoting from Robert Hefner, Civil Islam: Muslims alld Democratizaioll ill I11do11esia [Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press, 2000] p. 20). Abdolkarim Soroush, tr. Mahmoud and Ahmad Sadri, Reason, Freedom, and Democracy in Islam: Essential Writings of Abdol Karim Soroush (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 131, 135, 152-3; quotations from pp. 128, 141. Robin Wright, 'Two Visions of Reformation', in Diamond, Plattner, and Brumberg, eds., Islam and Democracy p. 226. For the updated English text of the Turkish constitution, see the website of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (www.tbmm.gov.tr). Siyasi Partiler Kanunu, No 2820, 23 April 1983. Text from Mustafa Everdi, ed., Se9im Mevzuatl (Istanbul, 21 YiizyIi YaymlarI, n.d.), pp. 96-159. A1evi-ism may be crudely described as the Turkish version of Shi'ism, although it al~o draws on many other cultural strands. The Turkish A1evis are quite distinct from the A1awis (Nusayris) of Syria. For an expert recent study, see David Shankland, The Alevis in Turkey (Abingdon and New York, NY, Routledge, 2003). See also pp. 78-9, below. ~erif Mardin, 'Center Periphery Relations: A Key to Turkish Politics?' Deadalus, Vol. 2, No.1 (1973), pp. 169-90. See Frederic W. Frey, The Turkish Political Elite (Cambridge MA, MIT Press, 1965) Passim and Ergun Qzbudun, 'State Elites and Democratic Culture in Turkey', in Larry Diamond, ed., Political Culture and Democracy in Developing Countries, (Boulder CO and London, Lynne Rienner, 1993), pp. 247-268. See Gareth Jenkins, Political Islam ;,Z Turkey: Running West, Heading East? (Basingstoke and New York, NY,.Palgrave Macmillian, 2008), pp. 117-20. See William Hale, Turkish Politics and the Military (Abingdon and New York, NY, Routledge, 1994), pp. 171-5. . Tanel Demirel, The Justice Party: Ideology and Policy (Istanbul, lleti§im, 2004), pp. 286-7,322-7,336; quotation from p. 322. Ibid., pp. 166, 169-70, 185; quotation from p. 166. Ibid., pp. 189-91; quotation from p. 194. See Paul Magnarella, 'Desecularization, State Corporatism and Development in Turkey', Joumal of Third World Studies, Vol. 6, No.2 (1989), pp. 32-49. See note 18, above.

Notes

161

30. Udo Steinbach; quoted, Hasan Cemal, The Ozal Story (Ankara and Istanbul, Bilgi; 1989), p. 179. 31. See Kenan Evren's memoirs, serialised in Milliyet newspaper, 3, 20, 27, 28 July 1991. This appears in Volume 5 of Kenan Evren, Ke11a11 Evren'in AllllaTl (Istanbul, MiIliyet, 1991). 32. Jenkins, Political Islam, pp. 149-51. . 33. For the details of this attempt, see ibid, p. 150. It was significant, given the AKP government's later moves on this issue; see below, pp. 17-4. 34. Ibid., p. 152. 35. See, for instance, his ~~atement at a press conference of 9 March !989, quoted at length in Cemal, Ozal, pp. 161-2, and M. Sait YazlclOglu! 'Ozal's Ullderstallding of Islam alld Religious Freedoms', in Ihsan 5ezal and Ihsan Dagl, eds., Oza/: Politics, Ecollom)~ Melltality (Istanbul, Boyut, 2001), esp. pp. 203-4. 1 The history of Islamist parties in Turkey: from the National Order Party to the Justice and Development Party.(AKP) . 1. The first Islamist-oriented party in multi-party years was the Islamic Democratic Party established in 1951 under the leadership of Cevat RIfat AtJlhan. However it lasted for only six months: Birol A. Ye~i1ada, 'The Virtue Party', in Barry Rubin and Metin Heper, eds., Political Parties ill Turkey (London-Portland, Frank Cass, 2002), p. 63. . 2. Hakan Yavuz, Islamic Political Idelltity ill Turkey (Oxford-NewYork and Oxford University ~to03), pp. 14pU7j Ru~en-<;al
4. Tlie European CoiIftof Human Rights found the prohibition of the RP consistent with the European Convention on Human Rights; European Court of Human Rights, Case of Refah Partisi (the Welfare Party) and others v. Turkey, Applications nos. 41340/98,41342/98,41343/98 and 41344/98. 5. Ru~en <;akIr and Fehmi <;almuk, Recep Tayyip ErdogalZ: Bir DOlZu§umun Oykusu (Recep Tayyip Erdogan: The Story of a Transformation) (istanbul, ~etis, 2001), pp. 92-6. 6. Ihsan Da~, Kimlik, Soylem ve Siyaset: Dogu-Batz AYTlmmda Refah Partisi Gelellegi (Identity, Discourse and Politics: The Welfare Party Tradition in

162 Notes

7. 8. 9. 10.

11. 12. 13.

14. 15.

16. 17.

18. 19. 20.

21. 22. 23.

East-West Distinction) (Ankara, imge, 1998), pp. 22-41; YavllZ, Islamic Political Identity ill Turkey, pp. 223-4; Hasan Hiiseyin Ceylan, Erbakall lie Turkiye'llin Temel Meseleri (Ankara, Rehber, 1996), pp. 35-7,40-43,89-92, 147-9. Ceylan, Erbakall ve Turkiye'nill Meseleri, p. 210. Ibid., pp. 159-60, 165, 170-72. Ibid., pp. 27-8, 34-5, 51-2, 88-9; Dagl, Kimlik, Siyaset ve Soylem, pp. 51-6S. Dagl, Kimlik, Siyaset ve Soylem, pp. 76-85; Ceylan, Erbakall ve Turkiye'nin Meseleleri, 232, pp. 241-2; YavllZ, Islamic Political Identity, 236; <::aktr, Ne Seriat Ne Demokrasi, pp. 161-77. Interestingly, Erbakan's foreign visits during his brief tenure as prime minister were all to Asian and African, mostly Muslim, countries, such as Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Egypt, Libya and Nigeria; Dagl, Kimlik, Soylem ve Siyaset, pp. 114-17. Ceylan, Erbakall ve Turkiye'nin Meseleri, 51, 200; Dagl, Kimlik, Siyaset ve Soylem, pp. 32-6, 70-73. Quoted by YavllZ, Islamic Political Identity, p. 237. Dagl, Kimlik, Siyaset ve Soylem, 15, 31; Binnaz Toprak, Islam and Political Development ill Turkey (Leiden, E. J. Brill, 1981), pp. 100-01. Mehmet Metiner, Yemye§il Seriat, Bembeyaz Demokrasi (Green Sharia and White Democracy) (istanbul, Dogan Kitap, 2004), pp. 73-4, 175-81. <::aktr, Ne Seriat Ne Demokrasi, pp. 116, 128-9; interview with R. T. Erdogan, MiIliyet (daily), 14 July 1996; see also, Haldun Giilalp, 'The Poverty of Democracy in Turkey: The Refah Party Episode', New Perspectives on Turkey, Vol. 21 (Fall 1999), pp. 37-38. For examples of the RP's use of 'popular councils' as informal deliberative bodies in municipal governments, see <::aktr, Ne Seriat Ne Demokrasi, pp. 179-80. YavllZ, Islamic Political Identity ill Turkey, 225. Erbakan's speech at an RP rally on 13 May 1990 is a good case in point, in which he said: 'If you don't serve the Refah Party, none of your prayers will be accepted ...We, the entire community of believers, shall obey the orders of Refah and join this army. Those who don't join [are not Muslim, but they] belong to the potato religion ... Refah is the army. You will work for the growth of this army. If you dont't, then you belong to the potato religion. It is your religious duty to obey this call for jihad': Giinalp, 'The Poverty of Democracy in Turkey', 40. <::aktr, Ne Seriat Ne Demokrasi, pp. 128-9. Ceylan, Erbakan ve Turkiye'nilt Meseleleri, 90. Ergun Ozbudun, 'islam and Politics in Modern Turkey: The Case of the National Salvation Party', in Barbara Freyer Stowasser, ed. The Islamic Impulse (London and Sydney, Croom Helm, 1987), p. 148; Toprak, Islam and Political Development, 102; Binnaz Toprak, 'The State, Politics, and Religion in Turkey', in Metin Heper and Ahmet Evin, eds., State, Democracy and the Military: Turkey in the 1980s (Berlin-New York, Walter de Gruyter, 1988), 125, pp. 128-9; Jacob M. Landau, 'The National Salvation Party in Turkey', Asialt and African Studies XI (1976, no. 1): pp. 1-57. Ali Ya§ar Sanbay, Turkiye'de Modemle§me, Dilt ve Parti Politikast (istanbul, Alan, 1985), pp. 122-5; Hasan Biilent Kahraman, Turk Sagl ve AKP (Turkish Right and the AKP) (Istanbul, Agora, 2007), 69, pp. 70-71. Serdar ~en, Refah Partisinin Teori ve Pratigi (Theory and Practice of the Welfare Party) (istanbul, Sarmal, 1995). Sencer Ayata, 'Patronage, Party, and State: The Politicization of Islam in Turkey', Middle East ]oumal, 50 (Winter 1966), p. 51. <::aktr, Ne Seriat Ne Demokrasi, pp. 131-49; YavllZ, Islamic Political Identity i1l Turkey, pp. 221-2. Perhaps one of the most controversial, and most alarming, aspects of the proposed economic order was that prospective entrepreneurs would be required to receive a document of praise from their 'moral community' before they can embark on a business: Giinalp, 'The Poverty of Democracy m Turkey', p. 41.

Notes

163

24. <;aklr, Ne Seriat Ne Demokrasi, pp. 84-5. At the Fifth Congress of the RP, Erbakan tried to appeal to the centre-right voters: Milliyet (daily), 14 October 1996. 25. Menderes <;mar, 'Rebuilding the Center: Mission Impossible', Private View, Vol. 1 (Autumn 1997) p. 74. See also Binnaz Toprak, 'Islam and Democracy in Turkey', pp. 173-6. 26. <;akrr and <;almuk, Recep Tayyip Erdogall, pp. 50-67, 139-40; <;aklr, Ne Seriat Ne Demokrasi, pp. 76-9,82-83. 27. <;aklr and <;almuk, Recep Tayyip Erdogall, pp. 112-23,211-13. 28. Yavuz, Islamic Political Idelltity ill Turkey, p.' 226. 29. Daniel Brumberg, 'Rhetoric and Strategy: Islamic Movements in the Middle East', in M. Kramer, ed., The Islamism Debate (Tel Aviv, 1997), quoted by Oni§, 'Political Islam at the Crossroads', p. 283. . 30. Oni§, 'Political Islam at the Crossroads', pp. 284, 287-8. 31. On these differences, see Oni§, 'Political Islam at the Crossroads', pp. 287-8, 291; ihsan D. Dagl, 'Transformation of Islamic Political Identity in Turkey: Rethinking the West and Westernization', Turkish Studies, Vol. 6, No.1 (March 2005), pp. 21-37, 27-9; Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity ill Turkey, pp. 248-9; Omit Cizre and Menderes <;mar, 'Turkey 2002: Kemalism, Islamism and Politics in the Light of the February 28 Process', South Atlantic Quarterly, Vol. 102, issue 213 (Spring/Summer 2003), pp. 323-5. (322 Dagl, 'Transformation of Islamic PoliticaUdentity.-in...Inrkey,:"g, 28~ ""--.33. Oni§, 'Political Islam at the Crossroads', p. 288. J~ Dagl, 'Transformation of Islamic Political Identity in Turkey', pp. 28-9. ~) Yavuz, Islamic Political Idelltity ill Turkey, pp. 248-9, 263. 36. Oni§, 'Political Islam at the Crossroads', p. 291. See also Saban TamYlcl, 'Transformation of Political Islam in Turkey: Islamist Welfare Party's pro-EU Turn', Party Politics, vol. 9, No.4 (2003), pp. 463-83; R. Quinn Mecham, 'From the ashes of virtue, a promise of light: the transformation of political Islam in Turkey', Third World Quarterly, Vol. 25, No.2 (2004), pp. 345-50. l7. Cizre and <;mar, 'Turkey 2002', p. 326. @ Fulya Atacan, 'Explaining Religious Politics at the Crossroad: AKP-SP', Turkish Studies, Vol. 6, No.2 Gune 2005), 187-99 at p. 194. 39. Ozbudun, 'Islam and Politics in Modem Turkey: The Case of the National Salvation Party', pp. 151-4; Ergun Ozbudun, 'Voting Behavior: Turkey', in Jacob M. Landau, Ergun Ozbudun, and Frank Tachau, eds., Electoral Politics ill the Middle East: Issue, Voters alld Elites (London and Stanford, Croom HelmHoover Institution Press, 1980), pp. 107-43; Ergun Ozbudun and Frank Tachau, 'Social Change and Electoral Behavior in Turkey: Toward a "Critical Realignment"?', Illtematiollal Joumal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 6 (October 1975), pp. 460-80; Sarlbay, Turkiye'de Modemle§me, Din ve Parti Politikast, pp.143-77. 40. Ozbudun, 'Voting Behaviour: Turkey', pp. 116, 119. 41. Ibid., pp. 125-28. 42. Oni§, 'Political Islam at the Crossroads', pp. 289-90; <;akrr, Ne Seriat, Ne Demokrasi, pp. 216-28; Jenny B. White, Islamist Mobilization ill Turkey: A Study ill Vemacular Politics (Seattle and London, University of Washington Press, 2002), 115; Haldun Giilalp, 'Globalization and Political Islam: The Social Bases of Turkey'S Welfare Party', IlItematiollal Joumal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 33 (2001), pp. 434-5, 444-5. 43. Oni§, 'Political Islam at the Crossroads', 282; Gillalp, 'Globalization and Political Islam', pp. 435-42. 44. Ziya Oni§, 'The Political Economy of Islamic Resurgence in Turkey: The Rise of the Welfare Party in Perspective', Third World Quarterly, Vol. 18, No.4 (1997),

164

45.

46.

47.

48. 49. 50. 51.

52. 53. 54. 55.

56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61.

Notes p. 747. Yllmaz Esmer examines and refutes two hypotheses frequently used to explain the rise of the RP, namely the 'protest vote' and 'rise in Islamism' hypotheses: 'At the Ballot Box: Determinants of Voting Behvior', in Sabri Sayan and Ydmaz Esmer, eds., Politics, Parties alld Electiolls in Turkey (Boulder, CO and London, Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2002), pp. 91-114. On the rise of identity politics in Turkey, see also Ay§e Ayata, 'The Emergence of Identity Politics in Turkey', New Perspectives 011 Turkey, Vol. 17 (fall 1997), pp. 59-73; Ay§e Giine§-Ayata and Sencer Ayata, 'Ethnic and Religious Bases of Voting', in Sayan and Esmer, eds., Politics, Parties and Electiolls ill Turkey, pp. 137-55. The authors· conclude that 'the parallelism between the decline of the left-right division and the rise of religious and ethnic voting has now become a well-established trend in Turkish politics', (153). On the center-periphery cleavage in Turkish politics, see ~erif Mardin, 'CenterPeriphery Relations: A Key to Turkish Politics', Deadalus (winter 1972) pp. 169-90; Ergun Ozbudun, Social Challge and Political Participation ill Turkey (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1976), chapter 2; Metin Heper, The State Traditioll in Turkey (Huntingdon, Eothen, 1985); Levent Giiven~, '2000'li Yillarda merkez-~evre ili§kilerini yeniden dii§iinmek' (Rethinking centerperiphery relations in' the years 2000), Toplum ve Bilim, Vol. 15 (2006), pp. 129-52; Menderes <::mar, 'Kiiltiirel Yabancda§ma Tezi Dzerine' (On the cultural alienation thesis), ibid., pp. 153-65. The excluded groups on the periphery are sometimes humorously referred to as 'the black Turks', as opposed to the highly educated, Westernized, and staunchly Kemalist 'white Turks'. See for example, Yavuz, 'Cleansing Islam from the Public Sphere', passim. ruSES (Tiirkiye Sosyal Ekonomik Siyasal Ara§tlrmalar Vakfl; Social, Economic, Political Research Foundation of Turkey), Turkiye'de Siyasi Parti Sefmelerilzin Nitelikleri, Kimlikleri ve Egilimleri (Characteristics, Identities, and Tendencies of Party Voters in Turkey) (Ankara, TUSES, 1996, hereafter TUSES) pp.l06-16. . Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity in Turkey, 219. Esmer, 'At the Ballot Box: Determinants of Voting Behavior', pp. 101-02. ruSES, pp. 67-76, pp. 118-19. PIAR (Piyasa Ara§trrmalan Merkezi; Market Research Corporation), Siyasal islamm Ayak Sesleri (Footsteps of Political Islam)(unpublished report), pp. 4, 14,16,19,31. Ibid., pp. 9,12,21. M. Hakan Yavuz, 'Cleansing Islam from the Public Sphere', Joumal ofIntemational Affairs, 54, no. 1 (Fall 2000), p. 31. <::akrr, Ayet ve Slogan, pp. 88-99. Ibid., pp. 105,290. Yavuz states that 'Giilen's neo-Nur movement evolved into a more moderate and open movement as it participated in the cultural, economic, and social domains, becoming a national-level civic movement inspired by Islamic ideas of social responsibility': Islamic Political Identity in Turkey, p.184. Ibid., 202; <::akIr and <::almuk, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, pp. 172-3. MiIliyet (daily), 18 April 1997. Milliyet (daily), 6 September 1998. <::akrr, Ayet ve Slogall, pp. 291-2. Ibid., pp. 37,48-54. Maurice Duverger, Political Parties: Their Organization and Activity in the Modem State (New York, Wiley, 1959); Sigmund Neumann, 'Toward a Comparative Study of Political Parties', in Sigmund Neumann, ed. Modem Political Parties: Approaches to Comparative Politics (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1956), pp. 395-421.

Notes 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70.

71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83.

165

<;aklr, Ne Seriat, Ne Demokrasi, p. 51. Ibid.,pp. 51-52. White, Islamist Mobilizatioll ill Turkey, p. 180, 198. Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity ill Turkey, p. 228. <;aklr, Ne Seriat, Ne Demokrasi, pp. 52, 72. . Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity in Turkey, 228. White, Islamist Mobilization in Turkey, 19. See also Ye§im Arat, Political Islam ill Turkey alld Women's Organizatiolls (Istanbul, TESEV, 1999). Ibid., 27; see also pp. 7,21, 122, 165,210,261-2. For examples of such collaboration in the Umraniye district of istanbul, ibid., chap. 6. . Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity in Turkey, pp. 229-33. White also observes that in the Umraniye district, the RP acted 'as champions of economic justice': Islamist Mobilization in Turkey, pp. 123-5. <;aklr, Ne Seriat, Ne Demokrasi, p. 185; White, Islamist Mobilization in Turkey, pp. 181-6. Sencer Ayata, 'Patronage, Party and State: The Politization of Islam in Turkey', Middle East Journal, Vol. 50 (Winter 1996), pp. 50-51. <;aklr, Ne Seriat, Ne Demokrasi, pp. 51-2, 71-3; see also Sen, Refah Partisinill Teori ve Pratigi, pp. 79-101. <;aklr and <;almuk, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, p. 170; Metiner, Yemye§il Seriat, Bembeyaz Demokrasi, p. 365. <;akIr and <;almuk, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, pp. 92, 96-100. Milliyet (daily), 1 May 2000. Milliyet (daily), 2, 10, 11 May 2000. Milliyet (daily), 12 May 2000. Milliyet (daily), 10 May 2000. Milliyet (daily), 14,21 August 2001; Zaman (daily), 22 August 2001. Milliyet (daily), 16 August 2001. Zaman (daily), 18 August 2001.

2 The AKP's ideology: Conservative democracy 1. Ak Parti Tuziigu (The Constitution of the AKP) (Ankara, AI< Patti Yaymlafl, 2002), art. 4 (an English translation of the party constitution is also available). 2. Ak Parti Kalklllma ve Demokratikle§me Programl (The AKP Development and Democratization Program) (Ankara, AI< Parti Yaymlan, 2002), pp. 13-16, 24-27 (an English translation of the Program is also available). 3. Her§ey Tarkiye ifill, AK Parti Sefim Beyamlamesi (Everything is for Turkey, AI< Party Election Platform) http:www.akparti.org.tr/beyanname.doc.pp.11-12; Nice Ak Ylllara: Gavell Ve istikrar hinde Durmak Yok Yola Devam (To Many Bright Years: Non-stop ahead in Confidence arid Stability) (Ankara, Ak Parti, 2007). 4. Ak Parti Kalklllma ve Demokratikle§me Programl, pp. 4-15. 5. Ahmet T. Kuru, 'Reinterpretation of Secularism in Turkey: The Case of the Justice and Development Party', in M. Hakan Yavuz, ed., The Emergellce of a New Turkey: Democracy alld the AK Parti (Salt Lake City, The University of Utah Press, 2006), p. 137 and passim; also his 'Passive and Assertive Secularism: Historical Conditions, Ideological Struggles, and State Policies toward Religion', World Politics, Vol. 59, no. 4 Guly 2007), pp. 568-94. For the peculiarities of Turkish secularism, see also Orner Ta§pmar, Kurdish Natiollalism a1ld Political . Islam ill Turkey: Kemalist Identity ill Tra1lsitio1l (New York and London, Routledge, 2005), Ch. 1; Ergun Ozbudun, 'iki Laiklik AnlaYl§l' , Zama1l (daily), 26 and 27 May 2008. Some Turkish authors also refer to this distinction

166 Notes

6.

7. 8.

9. 10. 11.

12.

as '/aiklik' (secularism) as opposed to '/aik{:ilik' (secularist ideology or laicism) describing the current situation in Turkey as conforming to the latter. See also the Constitutional Court's decision concerning the headscarf issue: E. 198911, KJ 1989112, 7.3.1989, Allayasa Mahkemesi Karar/ar Dergisi (Constitutional Court Reports), Vol. 25, pp. 147-8. In this Decision the Court ruled that 'the Turkish Revolution acquired its meaning through secularism. Secular~ ism has separated religiosity and scientific mentality; it accelerated the march toward civilization by preventing the replacement of science by religion. Indeed, [the meaning of] secularism cannot be limited to the separation of religion and the affairs of the state. It is a milieu of civilization, freedom and modernity, whose dimensions are larger and whose field is broader. It is Turkey's modernization philosophy, its method of living humanly. It is the ideal of the humanity ... The supreme and effective power in the state are reason and science, not religious rules and injunctions. Religion is an act of faith between God and the human being, taking its place within his conscience. It is inconceivable for religion, as the regulating principle of the world of the inner beliefs of the individual, to have a say in the state affairs and to serve as the source and the basis of legal regulations, replacing law and contemporary values.' Kuru, 'Reinterpretation of Secularism in Turkey', pp. 142-3,154. Yal~m Akdogan, Muhafazakar Demokrasi (Conservative Democracy) (Ankara, AI< Parti Yaymlan, 2003). Quotations from Erdogan are from the enlarged version of the document on the website of the AKP: www.AKParti.org.tr/Muhafaz. doc. Erdogan's views are also repeated in I1Ztematiollal Symposium 011 Conservatism alld Democracy, 10-11 January 2004 (Ak Parti Publication), pp. 1-12. Kalkmma ve Demokratikle§me Programz, pp. 16-22; Her§ey Tiirkiye l{:in, pp. 23-30; Nice AK Yzllara, 12. Kalkmma ve Demokratik/e§me Programz, pp. 33-4, 40-41; Her§ey Tiirkiye l{:ilt, pp. 32, 35,44-5, 65-7; Nice Ak Yzllara, pp. 28-30, 34. Her§ey Tiirkiye hilt, pp. 8-9, 33, 81-4; Kalkmma ve Demokratikle§me Programz, pp. 105-10; Nice AK Yz//ara, pp. 210-8. On the programmatic differences between the AKP and the predecessor Islamist parties, see also Serdar Sen, AKP Milli Gorii§{:ii mii? Parti Program/armda Milli Gorii§ (Is AKP a National Outlook Party? National Outlook in Party Programs) (istanbul, Nokta, 2004); Ahmet YlldlZ, 'Problematizing the Intellectual and Political Vestiges: From "Welfare" to "Justice and Development",' in Umit Cizre, ed., Secular altd Islamic Politics in Turkey: The Making of the Justice and Development Party (London and New York, Routledge, 2008), pp. 41-61. Ziya bni§, 'The Political Economy of Islam and Democracy in Turkey: From the Welfare Party to the AKP', in Democratization and Development: New Political Strategies in the Middle East, ed. Dietrich Jung (London, PalgraveMacmillan, 2006), pp. 114-15. bni§ argues that 'in certain respects, the AKP appeared to be more of a European-style social democratic party of the third way, compared to its main rival in the November 2002 elections, the Republican People's Party (the CHP). With its emphasis on the benefits of the market, the need to reform the state in the_direction of a post-developmental regulatory state, its concern with social justice issues, its commitment to multiculturalism and extension of religious freedoms and its transnationalism as exemplified by its commitment to EU membership and the associated set of reforms more than any other political party in recent Turkish society, the AKP projected the image of a political party of the third way more so than the CHP.' See also Ziya Oni§ and E. Fuat Keyman, 'A New Path Emerges', Joumal of Democracy: Vol. 14, no. 2 (April 2003), pp. 100-01. The authors describe the AKP's ideology as a 'synthesis of communitarian (or conservative) and liberal elements' aimed at the creation of a 'postdevelopmental' state.

Notes 13.

14. 15.

16. 17. 18.

19. 20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25. 26.

167

Yal~m Akdogan, Muhafazakar Demokrasi. Quotations from Erdogan's Introduction are from the enlarged version of the document on the website of the AKP: www.AKParti.org.tr/Muhafaz.docErdogan·sviews are also respected in International Symposium 01Z C01Zservatism a1Zd Democracy, pp. 1-12. See also the text of Erdogan's speech at the American Enterprise Institute, January 29, 2004, in which he expressed almost identical views on the university of human rights, on secularism, conservatism, and 'deliberative democracy': 'Conservative Democracy and the Globalization of Freedom', in Yavuz, ed. The Emergence of a New Turkey? Democracy a1Zd the AK Parti, pp. 333-40. For a fuller discussion of the concept 'conservative democracy', see Yal~m Akdogan, 'The Meaning of Conservative Democratic Political Identity', in Yavuz, ed., The Emergence of a New Turkey, pp. 49-65. Ibid., pp. 50-51. The same view is expressed by the author of the 'Conservative Democracy' manifesto: Yal~m Akdogan, Ak Parti ve Muhafazakar Demokrasi (The AKP and Conservative Democracy) (istanbul, Alfa Yaymlan, 2004), pp. 42-3, 105, 126-8. <;akrr and <;almuk, Recep Tayyip Erdoga1Z, pp. 145-6. International Symposium 01Z Conservatism alld Democracy, p. 9. Ak Parti 1. Olagall Buyuk Kongresi, Gellel Ba§kall R. Tayyip Erdogall'm KOllu§mas" 13 October 2003, AlIkara (The First Regular Grand Congress of the AKP, the speech by the Party Chairman R. Tayyip Erdogan) (Ankara, AI< Parti Yaymlan, 2003), pp. 4-7. See also Akdogan, Ak Parti ve Muhafazakar Demokrasi, pp. 15-17, 38-9,45-6. For a similar view, see Akdogan, 'The Meaning of Conservative Democratic Political Identity', pp. 54-5, 56-7. For a similar view, Taha Akyol, Gelellek ve Turk Aydzm (Tradition and the Turkish Intellectual) (istanbul, Kadim, 2006), pp. 65-6. For different understandings of conservatism in modern Turkish political thought and practice, see Modem Turkiye'de Siyasi Du§ullce, Cilt 5: Muhafazakarltk Political Thought in Modern Turkey, Vol. 5: Conservatism) (istanbul, ileti~im Yaymclhk, 2003), passim. For a similar view, see Ziya Oni~, 'The Political Economy of Turkey'S Justice and Development Party', in Yavuz, ed., The Emergellce of a New Turkey, p. 214; Hasan Bulent Kahraman, Turk Sag' ve AKP (Turkish Right and the AKP) (Istanbul, Agora, 2007), pp. 10-13,79-80,82,107,146-9. Sultan Tepe, 'A Pro-Islamic Party? Promises and Limits of Turkey'S Justice and Development Party', in Yavuz, ed., The Emergellce of a New Turkey, pp. 120-22. See also her, 'Turkey'S AKP: A Model 'Muslim-Democratic' Party?' Journal of Democracy, Vol. 16, no. 3 Guly 2005), pp. 75-7. Sultan Tepe, 'A Pro-Islamic Party?', pp. 122, 123-32. See also Burhanettin Duran, 'The Justice and Development Party's "new politics": Steering toward conservative democracy, a revised Islamic agenda or management of new crises?' in Dmit Cizre, ed., Secular alld Islamic Politics ill Turkey (London and New York, Routledge, 2008), pp. 91-2, 94-5. Ibid., 130. Kahraman similarly argues that the AKP has not yet defined its relationship with Islam, and has not been able to develop on ideology. In his view, conservatism is a political ideology, but the AKP has no such approach and it has not come face to face with the Islamic tradition: Turk Sag' ve AKP, pp. 107, 124-5,147-9,151-4. Cizre and <;mar, 'Turkey 2002: Kemalism, Islamism, and Politics .. .', p. 327. Simten Co§ar and Aylin Ozman, 'Centre-right politics in Turkey after the November 2002 general election: neo-liberalism with a Muslim face', Contemporary Politics, Vol. 10, no. 1 (March 2004), pp. 64-7.

168

Notes

27. Same view, Akdogan, 'The Meaning of Conservative Democratic Political Identity', pp. 52, 63-4; also his Ak Parti ve Muhafazakiir Demokrasi; pp. 104-06; M. Hakan Yavuz, 'The Role of the New Bourgeoisie in the Transformation of the Turkish Islamic Movement', in Yavuz, ed. The Emergellce of a New Turkey, p. 3; <::aklr and <::almuk, Recep Tayyip Erdogall, pp. 218-22,232-5. 28. Ali Ya~ar Sarlbay, 'AKP Kimliksizlige Mahkum' (The AKP is bound to lack an identity), quoted by A. Yildlz, 'AK Parti'nin Yeni Muhafazakar Demokrathgl' (The new conservative democracy of the AKP), Liberal Du§ullce vol. 9, no. 34 (Spring 2004), pp. 41-47. Hakan Yavuz argues in the same vein that 'the AKP's identity and ideology resembles a fabric that changes colour depending on the light. This eclectic aspect of the party is the reason for its broad appeal. It is simultaneously Turkish, Muslim and Western. This pluralist aspect is also very much a political necessity, given the diverse lifestyles in the country. It seeks to provide a framework of civic peace in which various groups can live together': Islamic Political Identity ill Turkey (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 260. 29. <::aklr and <::almuk, Recep Tayyip Erdogall, pp. 130-6. 30. Cizre and <::mar, 'Turkey 2002: Kemalism, Islamism and Politics', p. 326. 31. Hakan Yavuz observes that 'Turkey's Euro-skeptic: conservative Muslims became Europhiles almost overnight after the 1997 coup. Many realized that domestic forces did not have the necessary resources and ability to end the military'S power and antireligious authoritarianism and recognized the Copenhagen criteria as the only way of rolling back those in the military and bureaucratic establishment who interpreted Kemalism in a militant and anti-Islamic fashion': 'The Role of the New Bourgeoisie in the Transformation of the Turkish Islamic Movement', 17. 32. ihsan Dagl, 'Rethinking Human Rights, Democracy, and the West: PostIslamist Intellectuals in Turkey', Critique: Critical Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 13, no. 2 (Summer 2004), pp. 142-3; see also his 'The Justice and Development Party: Identity, Politics, and Human Rights Discourse in the Search for Securiry and Legitimacy', in Yavuz, ed., The Emergellce of a New Turkey, pp. 96-8; Oni~, 'The Political Economy of Turkey's Justice and Development Party', pp. 212-14; Soli Ozel,. 'After the Tsunami', Journal of Democracy, Vol. 14, no. 2 (April 2004), p. 89,93. 33.,pagl, 'Rethinking Human Rights, Democracy, and the West', 140. 34.;-Yavuz, Islamic Political Idelltity ill Turkey, 215. 35,\ Yavuz, 'The Role of the New Bourgeoisie in the Transformarion of the Turkish - Islamic Movement', pp. 1, 4-7, 15. In the same direction, Giilalp, 'Globalization and Political Islam: The Social Bases of Turkey's Welfare Party', pp.438-41. 36. Oni~, 'The Political Economy of Turkey's Justice and Development Party', 212; also his 'The Political Economy of Islam and Democracy in Turkey: From the Welfare Party to the AKP', pp. 106-7. 37. Dagl, 'Rethinking Human Rights, Democracy, and the West: Post Islamist Intellectuals in Turkey', pp. 145-50; on the changing attitudes of the Islamist intellectuals, see also Kenan <::aYlr 'The Emergence of Turkey'S contemporary "Muslim democrats",' in Cizre, ed., Secular alld Islamic Politics ill Turkey, pp. 62-79. 38. Burhanettin Duran, 'The Justice and Development Party's 'new politics': Steering toward conservative democracy, a revised Islamic agenda or management of new crises', in Cizre, ed., Secular and Islamic Politics in Turkey, 86. 3. The AKP's social bases: A new centre-right coalition? 1. Ali <::arkoglu and Binnaz Toprak, Turkiye'de Din, Toplum ve Siyaset (Religion, Society and Politics in Turkey) (istanbul, TESEV, 2000), p. 14. For similar

Notes

2. 3. 4. 5. 6. . 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

12.

13.

14. 15. 16.

17.

18.

169

results, see also Ali <:;:arkoglu and Ersin KalayclOglu, Turkish Democracy Today: Electiolls, Protest alld Stability ill all Islamic Society (London and New York, I. B.Tauris, 2007), pp. 120-30. Ali <:;:arkoglu and Binnaz Toprak, Degi§ell Tiirkiye'de pill, Toplum ve Siyaset (Religion, Society and Politics in a Changing Turkey) (Istanbul, TESEV, 2006), pp. 38-9, 41, 74. <:;:arkoglu and Toprak, Tiirkiye'de Dill, Toplum ve Siyaset, p. 18. <:;:arkoglu and Toprak, Degi§ell Tiirkiye'de, Dill, Toplum ve Siyaset, p. 75. Tiirkiye'de Siyasi Partiterill Yallda§ISefmell Profili (The SupporterNoter Profiles of Political Parties in Turkey) (istanbul, ruSES, 2002), pp. 22-3. <:;:arkoglu and Toprak, Tiirkiye'de Dill, Toplum ve Siyaset, p. 16; in the same vein, Metin Heper, 'The Victory of the Justice and Development Party in Turkey', Mediterralleall Politics, vol. 8 (2003), 130. . <:;:arkoglu and Toprak, Degi§en Tiirkiye'de Dill, Toplum ve Siyaset, pp. 73-4, 58. Ibid., p. 90. Ibid., p. 51. <:;:arkoglu and Toprak, Tiirkiye'de Dill, Toplum ve Siyaset, p. 59. <:;:arkoglu and Toprak, Degi§ell Tiirkiye'de Dill, Toplum ve Siyaset, pp. 47-53, 79. ~erif Mardin, 'Center-Periphery Relations: A Key to Turkish Politics?' Daedalus (Winter 1972), pp. 169-90; Ergun Ozbudun, Social Change alld Political Participation ill Turkey (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1976), ch. 2; Metin Heper, 'Center and Periphery in the Ottoman Empire with Special Reference to the Nineteenth Century', Illtematiollal Political Sciellce Review, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1980), pp. 81-105. Other authors referred to the same cleavage by different terminologies. For example, Emre Kongar argues that the fundamental cleavage in Turkish politics is berween the statist-elitist and the traditionalist-liberal fronts: Tiirkiye'llill Toplumsal Yaptst (The Social Structure of Turkey), Vol. 1 (istanbul, Remzi Kitabevi, 1985). idris Ki.i~i.ikomer sees the cleavage berween the Islamist-Eas~ernist and the Westernist-Secularist fronts. However, contrary to the generally accepted view, Ki.i~i.ikomer characterizes the Islamist-Easternist front as leftist, and the Westernist-Secularist front as rightist: Diizellin Yaballctla§masl: Battla§ma (The Alienation of the Order: Westernization) (istanbul, Ant Yaymlan, n.d.), p. 82. For a fuller discussion, see Ergun Ozbudun, 'The Ottoman Legacy and the Mid~ die East State Tradition', in L. Carl Brown, ed. (Imperial Legacy: The Ottoman Imprillt on the Balkalls alld the Middle East (New York, Columbia University Press, 1996), pp. 133-57. Ersin Kalaycloglu, 'Elections and Party Preferences in Turkey: Changes and Continuities in 'the 1990s', Comparative Political Studies, vol. 27 (October 1994), p. 403. Ibid., p. 407. <:;:arkoglu and Toprak, Degi§en Tiirkiye'de Din, Toplum ve Siyaset, pp. 40, 42, 76. <:;:arkoglu and KalayclOglu argue that religiosity is significant in differentiating the AKP and the CHP, but not significantly different among the right-wing . parties: Turkish Democracy Today, pp. 190-2. Menderes <:;:lOar, 'The Justice and Development Party and the Kemalist EstabIishment', in Dmit Cizre, ed., Secular alld Islamic Politics ill Turkey (London and New York, Routledge, 2008), pp. 112-20. See also Ihsan Dagl, Turkey Between Democracy alld Militarism: Post Kemalist Perspectives (Ankara, Orion Publications, 2008). Ydmaz Esmer, 'At the Ballot Box: Determinants of Voting Behavior', in Sabri Sayan and Ydmaz Esmer, eds., Politics, Parties, and Electi01ls in Turkey (Boulder and London, Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2002), pp. 99, 103.

170

Notes

19. Arend Lijphart, Democracies: Patterns of Majoritarian and COllsellsus Governmellt ill Twellty-Olle Coulltries (New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1984), p. 129. 20. For example, Esmer's questionnaire does not include a single item on socioeconomic issues: 'At the Ballot Box'. 21. Ibid., p. 102. 22. Ibid., pp. 100-01. 23. Almost three decades ago a leading Turkish economic historian asserted that the Islamist-Easternist camp represented the Left, and the Westernist-Secularist camp represented the Right in terms of their positions on socioeconomic issues: Kiic;iikomer, Diizenin Yabancrla§masl: Batlla§ma, p. 82. 24. Ziya Oni§, 'Conservative Globalists versus Defensive Nationalists: Political Parties and Paradoxes of Europeanization in Turkey', Joumal of Southem Europe and the Balkalls, vol. 9, No.3 (December 2007), pp. 247-60. For a perceptive analysis of the alliance between religious conservatives and secular liberals, see Haluk Sahin, Libera/ler, Ulusalcllar, islamcllar ve Otekiler (Liberals, Nationalists, Islamists, and the Others) (istanbul, Sat YaYlOlan, 2008). 25. <::arkoglu and Toprak, Degi§en Tiirkiye'de Dill, Toplum ve Siyaset, p. 85. 26. Hakan Ydmaz, 'Tiirkiye'de Muhafazakarhk, Aile, Din, Batt' (Conservatism, Familly, Religion, the West in Turkey), March 2006 (unpublished report), pp. 10-11,49. 27. Ali <::arkoglu, 'The New Generation Pro-Islamists in Turkey: Bases of the Justice and Development Party in Changing Electoral Space', in Yavuz, ed., The Emergence of a New Turkey, p. 174. 28. Tiirkiye'de Siyasi Partilerin Yallda§ / Se~mell Profili (1999-2002) (The Supporter I Voter Profiles of Political Parties in Turkey) (istanbul, ruSES, 2002), pp. 70-71. 29. Taha Akyol, 'AKP'nin Arkasmda Ne Var?' (What is behind the AKP), MilIiyet (daily), 19 October 2002. See also Yllmaz Esmer, '3 Kaslm Analizi' (The Analysis of 3 November), Milliyet (daily), 18 November 2002. Esmer estimates that a quarter of former DSP voters voted for the AKP in 2002. 30. <::arkogIu, 'The New Generation Pro-Islamists in Turkey', pp. 163-71; quotations are from pp. 164, 171. 31. Oni§, 'The Political Economy of Turkey'S Justice and Development Party', pp. 207, 211-12. 32. Yavuz, 'The Role of the New Bourgeoisie in the Transformation of the Turkish Islamic Movement', pp. 1, 4-7, 15; see also Hakan Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity in Turkey (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 255-6. 33. Ahmet insel, 'The AKP and normalizing democracy in Turkey', South Atlantic Quarterly, vol. 102, Nos. 2-3 (2003), pp. 297-9. 34. Oni§, 'The Political Economy of Turkey's Justice and Development Party', 212. 35. Esmer, '3 Kaslm Analizi', Milliyet (daily), 17 November 2002. 36. <::arkoglu, 'The New Generation Pro-Islamists in Turkey', pp. 171, 173. 37. <::arkogIu and Toprak, Degi§ell Turkiye'de Dill, Toplum ve Siyaset, pp. 87-91. 38. Constitutional Court decisio!1,. E. 2007/45, K.2007/54, 1 May 2007, Resmi Gazete (Official Gazette), 27 June 2007, no. 26565. 39. Constitutional Court decision, E. 2007/72, K.2007168, 5 July 2007, Resmi Gazete (Official Gazette), 7 August 2007, no. 26606. 40. Ergun Ozbudun 'Why the Crisis over the Presidency?' Private View, No: 12 (August 2007), pp. 48-51. The tense political atmosphere in the spring and summer of 2007 and the threat perceptions of the state elites are vividly described and analysed by a leading journalist, Osman qlagay, AKP Ger~egi ve Laik Darbe Fiyaskosu (The AKP Reality and the Fiasco of the Secularist Coup) (istanbul, Dogan Kitap, 2008).

Notes

171

41. Yiiksek Sec;im Kurulundan Duyuru (Announcement by the Supreme Electoral Board). 42. Ulugay, AKP Gerfegi, p. 15. 43. Yilmaz Esmer, 2007 Milletvekili Genel Sefimleri Sefmen Davram§I ve Tercihleri Sefim Somasl Ara§tlrmasl (The Post-election survey on voting behavior and voters' choices in the 2007 general parliamentary elections) (unpublished paper), pp. 15-17. 44. Ali <::arkoglu and Ersin KalayclOglu, Sefim 2007: Devam eden Egilimler mi? Yoksa yeni ba§lang,flar ml? (Elections 2007: Continuing trends or new beginnings?) (istanbul, AC;lk Toplum Enstitiisii-Sabancl Universitesi, 2007), 26. For an overall analysis of the 2007 elections, see also Ali <::arkoglu, 'A New Electoral Victory for· the "Pro-Islamists" or the "New Center-Right"? The Justice and Development Party Phenomenon in the Juiy 2007 Parliamentary Elections in Turkey', South European Society and Polities, Vol. 12, No.4 (December 2007) pp. 501-19. 45. Esmer, 2007 MilIetvekili Genel Sefimleri, pp. 13-15. 46. KONDA, Sefim'07: Siyasal Egilimier Ara§tlrmaiarz Ozet Rapor (Elections 07: Research on Political Tendencies, Summary Report), 18 July 2007, pp. 16-22. 46. Ibid., 22-23; <::arkoglu and KalayclOglu, Sefim 2007. 48. Ha§im Soylemez, 'AK Parti'nin zaferi DTP'yi <::atlatlyor' (The AKP's victory leads to a schism within the DTP), Aksiyon (weekly), 30 July 2007, pp. 34-7. 49. Tanju Tosun, 'The 22 July Elections: A Chart for the Future of Turkish Politics', Private View, No. 12 (Autumn 2007), pp. 53-54; also Vatan (daily), 23 July 2007. 50. Tosun, 'The 22 July Elections', pp. 54-55; also, MilIiyet (daily), 27, 28, 29 July 2007. 51. MilIiyet (daily), 7 June 2007; Vatan (daily), 7 June 2007, 27 July 2007. 4 Party organisation

1. AK Parti Tiiziigii [The Constitution of the AKPJ (Ankara, AK Parti Yaymlarl, 2002), Art. 4. (An English translation of the party constitution (statute) is also available.) 2. Ozbudun, Contemporary Turkish Politics, pp. 92-3. 3. I gratefully acknowledge the information provided by Mr. Dengir Mir Melunet FIrat, Vice-President of the AKP, at two interviews that took place on 13 July 2005 and on 27 May 2008. The information presented below is mostly based on this interview unless indicated otherwise. 4. Tiirkiye'de Siyasi Parti Sefmenierinin Nitelikleri, Kimlikleri ve Egilimieri (Characteristics, Identities, and Tendencies of Political Party Voters in Turkey) (Ankara, ruSES, 1996), p. 93. 5. I gratefully acknowledge the information provided by Mr. Cahit Altunay, the chairman of the AKP's Gaziosmanpasa sub-province organisation, at an interview that took place on 15 August 2007. 6. Sefim Rehberi (Guide to Elections) (Ankara, AK Parti YaYIDl, 2002) (reprinted in 2004). 7. 28 Mart 2004 Yerel Sefim KIlavuzu (Guide to the Local Elections of 28 March 2004) (Ankara, AK Parti Yaymlan, 2004). 5 Democratising reforms and constitutional issues 1. For an overview of the harmonisation packages, see Esin Oriicii, 'Seven Packages towards Harmonisation with the European Union', European Public Law, Vol. 10, No.4 (2004) pp. 603-621.

172

Notes

2. Levent Gonen<;, 'Recent Developments in the Field of Freedom of Expression in Turkey', European Public Law, Vol. 11, No.2 (June 2005), pp. 251-5. 3. Gonen<;, 'Recent Developments', p. 249. 4. Millutes of the GNAT, Period 22, Legislative Year 5, Vol. 155, Session 102 7 May 2007, and Session 105, 10 May 2007. ' 5. Serap Yazlcl, Ba§kalllzk ve Yan-Ba§kanlzk Sistemleri: Tiirkiye hill Bir Degerlelldirme (Presidential and Semi-Presidential Systems: An Assessment for Turkey) (istanbul, istanbul Bilgi Oniversitesi YaYlOlan, 2002), pp. 159-63. . 6. Sezer's statement, 25 May· 2007, 311281, Minutes of the GNAT, Period 22, Legislative Year 5, Vol. 159, Session 113,26 May 2007. 7. Ibid., Session 118, 31 May 2007. 8. Constitutional Court decision, E. 2007172, K. 2007168, 5 July 2007, Resmi Gazete (Official Gazette), 7 August 2007, No. 26606. 9. Minutes of the GNAT, Period 23, Legislative Year 1, Session 6, 28 August 2007. Yuksek Se<;im Kurulu (Supreme Board of Elections) Decision No. 873, 30 October 2007, http://www.ysk.gov.tr/yskldocs/genelge/2007/200-873.htm 11. Constitutional COl!Ct Decision, E. 2007199, K. 2007/86, 27 November 2007, Resmi Gatete (Official Gazette), 19 February 2008, No. 26792. . 12. Ergun Ozbudun, 'Etrafta U<;u~an Anayasa Senaryolan' (Constitutional Scenarios Flying Around), Zaman (daily), 29 May 2007; 'Anayasa Sava~lan' (Constitutional Battles), Zaman (daily), 23 August 2007; 'Halkoylamasl Kaos Yaratlr ml?' (Would the Referendum Lead to a Chaos?) Zaman (daily), 6 October 2007. 13. Nice Ak YtlIara: Giiven ve istikrar hillde Durmak '/.ok, Yola Devam (To Many Bright Years: Non-stop Ahead !n Confidence and· Stability) (Ankara, AK Parti, 2007), p. 12. . . 14. The committee was composed of the following law professors: Ergun Ozbudun (Chairman), Zuhtu Arslan, Yavuz Atar, Faztl Husnu Erdem, Levent Koker and Serap YaZlCI. . 15. The text of the draft is available in Legal Hukuk Dergisi. 16. Tiirkiye Cumhuriyeti Anayasa Ollerisi (Ankara, Tiirkiye Barolar Birligi, Ekim 2007).

10:

6 Cultural policies: Creeping Islamisation or politics of avoidance? 1. S.ii1eyman Demirel, islam, Demokrasi, Laiklik (Islam, Democracy, Secularism) (Istanbul, 1991), pp. 189-90; TV interview, .'Abbas Gu<;lu i1e Gen<; Bala~', 28 December 2005, quoted in AK Parti'nin Iddianameye Cevabt (The AKP's Response to the Indictment) (Ankara, Elips Kitap, MaYls 2008), pp. 83-4. For a comprehensive study of Imam Hatip schools, their hist'?ry and current problems, see Ru~en <;alar, Irfan Bozan and Balkan Talu, Imam Hatip Liseleri: Efsaneler ve Gerfekler (Imam Hatip High Schools: Myths and Realities) (istanbul, TESEV YaYlOlan, November 2004), with an English language summary. On~ of the important findings. of the study is that an.overwhelming majority of the IHL students choose these schools not to become religious functionaries, but in order to .learn more about their religion. Another such finding is that 65 per cent of the IHL buildings were built totally by private donations, indicating that these schools were a response to a real popular demand (pp. 17-19). Interestingly, the decision to reopen the junior high school grades of these schools (closed after the military intervention of 1971) was taken by the Ecevit government of CHP and MSP. Even more interestingly', it was the military government of 1980-83 that allowed the graduates of the lHL's to join any departments of universities (p. 15).

Notes

173

2. Ahmet T. Kuru, 'Reinrerpretation of Secularism in Turkey: The Case of the Justice and Developmenr Party', in M. Hakan Yavuz, ed., The Emergence of a New TItrkey: Democracy and the AK Parti (Salt Lake City, The University of Utah Press, 2006), p. 151. 3. Cumhurba§kanhgl, SaYI: B. 01. KKB. 01-18/A-2-2004-615, 28/05/2004. 4. Belgellet, 7 May 2004, quoted in Serap Yazlcl, 'TUrk Silahh Kuvvetlerinin Yetki ve AYClcahklaCl: Siville§meye Yonelik Anayasal ve Yasal Reformlar' (Powers and Privileges of the Turkish Armed Forces: Constirutional and Legislative Reforms toward Civilization), Hukuk ve Adalet, Vol. 1, No.4 (OctoberDecember 2004) pp. 249-50. 5. Milliyet (daily), 3 July 2004, quoted by Sultan Tepe, 'A Pro-Islamic Party? Promises and Limits of Turkey'S Justice and Developmenr Party', in Yavuz, (ed.), The Emergence of a New Turkey, p. 127. 6. C)zlem Sogukdere, cnnrurk.com, 27 June 2005. 7. T. C. Yargttay Cumhuriyet Ba§savctltgt, iddiallame (Indictment by the Chief Public Prosecutor of the Court of Cassation), 14 March 2008, pp. 70-72; 76-7. 8. For Erdogan's statements, see Milliyetand Radikal (dailies), 3, 4 and 8 September 2004. However, on September 23, Erdogan promised the EU authorities in Brussels that his government would not bring the adultery issue back onro the agenda (Ibid., 24,25 September, 2004). 9. Milliyet and Radikal (dailies), 4 and 11 September 2004. <;i<,;ek's statements, ibid., 29 August, 1 September 2004; Ak§it's statement, 4 September 2004; Akdag's statemenr, 12 September 2004. 10. Milliyet and Radikal (dailies), 31 August, 3 September 2004. For the DYP's position, ibid., 1 September 2004; for the MHP's position, ibid., 12 September 2004. 11. Milliyet and Radikal {dailies),4, 9, 10, 11,20 September 2004. 12. For examples, see ibid., 3,10,11,12,13,14,18, September 2004. 13. Ibid., 4 September 2004. 14. Ibid., 14, 15 September 2004. 15. Ibid., 15 September 2004. 16. Ibid., 17 September 2004. 17. Constitutional Court decision, E. 1989/1, K. 1989/12, 7 March 1989, AMKD (Constitutional Court Reports), No. 25, pp. 133-65, quotation is from p. 147. 18. Constitutional Court decision, E. 1990/36, K. 1991/8, 9 April 1991, AMKD (Constitutional Court Reports), No. 27, Vol. 1, pp. 285-323. For a critigue of the Constitutional Court's decisions, see Mustafa Erdogan, Anayasa ve Ozgurluk (The Constitution and Liberty) (Ankara, Yetkin YaymlaCl, 2002), pp. 111-26. 19. <;arkoglu and Toprak, Degi§ell Tiirkiye'de Din, Toplum ve Siyaset, p. 71. 20. Mil/iyet (daily), 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 January 2008. 21. Mil/iyet (daily), 30 January 2008. 22. Minutes of the GNAT, Period 23, Legislative Year 2, Vol. 13, Session 59, 6 February 2008. 23. MiIliyet (daily), 10 February 2008. 24. The reasoned decision of the Constitutional Court was published on.22 October 2008: E. 2008116, K. 2008/116, 5 June 2008, Resmi Gazete (Official Gazette), 22 October 2008, No. 27032. . 25. Constitutional Court decision, E. 2008/1, K. 2008/2, 30 July 2008, Resmi Gazete (Official Gazette), 24 October 2008, No. 27034. 26. Mete Tun<,;ay, Tiirkiye Cumhuriyeti'nde Tek-Parti Yonetimi'nin Kurulmast, 1923-1931 (The Establishmnt of the Single-Party Rule in Turkey, 1923-1931) (Ankara, Yurt YaymlaCl, 1981), p. 447. See also Omer Ta§pmar, Kurdish Nationalism and Political Islam in Turkey (New York and London, Routledge, 2005), pp.52-66.

174

Notes

27. Ibid., pp. 119-20. 28. Betigiil Ercan Argun, 'Universal Citizenship Rights and Turkey's Kurdish Question', Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, Vol. 19, No.1 (April 1999) p. 89. On the growing recognition of the problem by the mainstream media, see Murat Somer, 'Resurgence and Remaking of Identity: Civil Beliefs, Domestic and External Dynamics, and the Turkish Mainstream Discourse on Kurds', Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 38 (2005), pp. 591-622. Islamists' interest in the Kurdish question was not limited to the RP. Islamist writers and intellectuals also showed greater awareness .:md recognition of Kurdish identity claims than their secular counterparts. See Umit Cizre Sakalhoglu, 'Kurdish Nationalism from an Islamist Perspective: The Discourses of Turkish Islamist Writers', Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, Vol. 18, No.1 (April 1998) pp. 73-89. 29. Burhanettin Duran, 'Approaching the Kurdish Question via Adil Diizen: An Islamist Formula of the Welfare Party for Ethnic Coexistence', Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, Vol. 18, No.1 (April 1998) pp. 113-17. See also, Ru§en <;akIr, 'RP'den AKP'ye Kiirt SorwlU' (Kurdish Question from the RP to the AKP), Vatan (daily), 27-9 December 2007. 30. Duran, 'Approaching the Kurdish Question via Adil Diizen', pp. 118,120. 31. M. Hakan Yavuz and Nihat Ali Ozcan, 'The Kurdish Question and Turkey'S Justice and Development Party', Middle East Policy, Vol. xm, No.1 (Spring 2006) p. 103. 32. AK Parti Kalkmma ve Demokratikle§me Programl (AK Party Development and Democratization Programme), p. 28. 33. Yavuz and Ozcan, 'The Kurdish Question .. :, pp. 103-04, 115. 34. Ibid., 110. 35. Zaman (daily), 12 August 2005; MiIliyet (daily), 'Kimlik Degi§imi' (Change of Identity), http://www.milliyet.com.tr/2005112113/siyaset/axsiy02.html. 36. Yavuz and Ozcan, 'The Kurdish Question .. :, pp. 112-13. 37. Robert Olson, 'From the EU Project to the Iraq Project and Back Again? Kurds and Turks after the 22 July 2007 Elections', Mediterraneall Quarterly, Vol. 18, No.4 (2007) 33. 38. Interview with Ertugrul Ozkok, Hurriyet (daily), 19 June 2007. 39. Yavuz and Ozcan, 'The Kurdish Question .. :, p. 114. 40. Mehmet Demiray, 'Understanding the Alevi Revival: A Transnational Perspective', unpublished master's thesis, Bilkent University, February 2004, p. 57. 41. Emrah Goker, 'Reconstructing the Political: A Study on Contemporary Alevi Politics from a Generative Structuralist Perspective', unpublished masters's thesis, Bilkent University, July 1999, 100. The growing body of literature on Alevis includes Altan Gokalp, Tetes rouges et bouches lIoires: Ulle cOllgrerie tribale de l'ouest anatolien (Paris, Recherches sur la Haute Asie, 1980); Tord Olsson, Elizabeth Ozdalga and Catharina Raudvere (eds.), Alevi Identity: Cultural, Religious and Social Perspectives (Istanbul, Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul, 1988); David Shankland, Islam and Society in Turkey (Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, The Eothen Press, 1999) ch. 6; Taha Akyol, Osmanll'da ve irall'da Mezhep ve Devlet (Sect and State in the Ottoman Empire and Iran) (istanbul, AD Kitap~lhk, 1999). Karin Vorhoff provides a comprehensive bibliography on the Alevis: 'Academic ~nd Journalistic Publications on the Alevi and Bektashi of Turkey', in Olsson, Ozdalga, and Raudvere (eds.), Alevi Idelltity, pp. 40-50. 42. Ay§e Ayata, 'The Emergence of Identity Politics in Turkey', New Perspectives on Turkey, No. 17 (fall 1997), pp. 59-73; Tahire Erman and Emrah Goker, 'Alevi Politics in Contemporary Turkey', Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 36, No.4 (October 2000), pp. 99-118.

Notes

175

43. Hurriyet (daily), Zaman (daily), Radikal (daily) pp. 10-15, December 2008. 44. See Hasan Ce~al, 'Aleviler', Milliyet (daily), 14 October 2004, based on his interview with Izzettin Dogan, President of the Cern Foundation. See also 'Biz de Randevu istiyoruz', Hurriyet (daily), 15 January 2008. 7 The AKP government and the military 1. In a poll conducted in June 2008 by the Metropoll organisation, asked to rate their trust in state institutions on a scale of one to ten, respondents gave the military an average score of 8.7, compared to 7.7 for the police and 4.4 for 'politicians'. Comparable polls conducted previously have almost always given similar results. °Metropoll Stratejik ve Sosyal Ara,§t1rma, 'Social and Political Situation in Turkey: Image of Political Leaders and Confidence in Institutions II: June 2008' (from www.metropoll.com.tr). 2. This point was obviously disputed by those they had removed from power, notably Siileyman Demirel, following the 'coup by memorandum' of 1971 and (less convincingly) the 1980 coup; see William Hale, Turkish Politics and the Military (London and New York, Routledge, 1994), pp. 185,240. Nonetheless, it enjoys broad acceptance. 3. Quoted, Metin Heper, 'The Justice and Development Party Government and the Military in Turkey', Turkish Studies, Vol. 6, No.2 (2005) p. 223. 4. See Hale, Politics and the Military, pp. 131-6, 139-47, 153-68, 185-93, 205-6. 5. After 1961, the military were unable to prevent the rise to power of the Justice Party, although this was widely identified as the successor to the Democrat Party, overthrown by the military in 1960. Similarly, Biilent Ecevit, who had consistently opposed the quasi-military regime of 1971-73, nonetheless became Prime Minister after the subsequent general elections of October 1973. 6. Soner <;agaptay, Secularism and Foreign Policy in Turkey: New Elections, Troubling Trends (Washington DC, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Policy Focus No. 67,2007) p. 15. 7. Heper, 'Military', p. 217. See also note 5, and Gareth Jenkins, 'Symbols and Shadow Play: Military-JDP Relations', in M. Hakan Yavuz, ed., The Emergence of a New Turkey: Democracy and the AK Parti (Salt Lake City, UT, University of Utah Press, 2006), p. 193. 8. Hurriyet, 4 August 2003. Earlier, in 2002, General KIlm\= had even suggested that Turkey should align itself with Russia and Iran rather than the western powers (see p. 138). 9. Quoted, Turkish Daily News, 28 August 2003. 10. Briefing (Ankara, weekly) 9 August 2004, pp. 10-11; Radikal and Hurriyet, 5 August 2004; Hiirriyet, 1 July 2008. After his retirement, General Yalman began a second career as a composer, writing two oratorios and an opera on patriotic themes; asked how he wanted to go down in history, he replied 'more as a musician, and less as a soldier'; Milliyet, 28 August 2008. 11. Radikal, 6 November 2002. 12. Quoted, Ay§e Ashhan <;elenk, 'The Restructuring of Turkey's Policy towards Cyprus: the Justice and Development Party's Struggle for Power', Turkish Studies, Vol. 8, No.3 (2007) p. 356. 13. Quoted, ibid, p. 356. ° 14. Quoted, ibid, p. 357. 15. The Turkish military was reported to be worried by American plans to pass on heavy weapons to the Kurdish peshmerga militia in northern Iraq, since this might lead to a 'war within a war' between themselves and the peshmerga; see

176

Notes

Bill Park, Turkey's Polic), towards Northern Iraq: Problems and Perspectives (London, International Institute for Strategic Studies, Adelphi Paper 374, 2005) p. 25. See also Fikret Bila, 'U<;:aksavarlar kime?', Milliyet, 26 February 2003. 16. Quoted, Fikret Bila, "Kiirtlere silah' krizi sonunda bitti!' Milliyet, 27 February 2003. 17. Hurriyet, 28 February 2003. 18. Quoted, Briefing, 12 May 2003, pp. 1-2. 19. Heper, 'Military', p. 218. 20. If we can equate this with support for the Republican People's Party in recent general elections, the proportion would appear to be about 20 per cent. 21. Radikal, 29 November 2002; Jenkins, 'Symbols', pp. 194-5. 22. Briefing, 28 April 2003, pp. 3-5; website of NfV television, Istanbul (www. ntvmsnbc.com) 24 April 2003. 23. Briefing, 28 April 2003, pp. 4-5; Radikal, and NTV website, 1 May 2003. 24. Heper, 'Military', p. 222. 25. Jenkins, 'Symbols', pp. 224-5, and Gareth Jenkins, Political Islam in Turkey: Running West, Heading East? (Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke and New York, NY, 2008) pp. 172-3; Hurriyet, 14 September 2003. 26. Quoted, Heper, 'Military', p. 225. 27. Ibid., p. 226: NTV website, 28 May, 1 June 2004 .. 28. Hurriyet, 19 May 2003; Radikal, 27 May 2003. 29. Radikal, 21 July, 15,20,25 August 2005. 30. Quoted, Omit Cizre, 'The Justice and Dev~.lopment Party and the Military: Recreating the Past after Reforming it?' in Umit Cizre, ed., Secular and Islamic Politics in Turkey: the Making of the Justice and Development Party (London and New York, Routledge, 2008), p. 155. 31. Ibid., p. 155; Hurriyet, 30 June 2006. 32. Hurriyet, 11 November 2005, 20 April 2006; Turkish Daily News, 6 March 2006; NfV website, 21 April 2006; BBC News website (http://news.bhc.co.uk) 4 May 2006; Cizre, 'Military', p. 152. The 'deep state' had first come to light in November 1996, at the time of the Susurluk incident; for the details, and the connections between the Susurluk and Ergenekon affairs, see Gareth Jenkins, 'Susurluk and the Legacy of Turkey's Dirty War', Terrorism Monitor, Vol. 6, No.9 (2008); (from www.jamestown.orglterrorism). 33. NfV website, 30 July 2003; for further details, see Cizre, 'Military', pp. 137-8, and Jenkins, 'Symbols', pp. 192-3. . 34. Hurriyet,4 May 2004; Briefing, 10 May 2004, p. 8. 35. Centre for European Security Studies (CESS), Turkish-Civil-Military Relations and the EU: Preparation for Continuing Convergence (Groningen, Netherlands, CESS, 2005), pp. 9, 17-18,25-9. 36. European Commission, Turkey 2005 Progress Report (COM (2005) 561 final} (Brussels, 9 November 2005) pp. 14-15: (from http://ec.europa/eulenlargementl candidate_countries/turkey/key_documents_en.htm). 37. European Commission, Council Decision of 18 February 2008 on the principles, priorities and conditions .contained in the Accession Partnership with the Republic of Turkey and repealing decision 2006135, p. 3: (from http://ec.europa/ eulenlargementlcandidatccountrieslturkey/key_documents_en.htm). 38. 'Ornek diaries', entry for 3 October 2003. For the full text of the alleged diaries, see http://www.ensonhaber.comlI3890010rnek-Pasanin-GUNLUGUTAM-METIN.htmi. General Hiiseyin KIvnkogI~J General Ozk6k's predecessor as CGS, later admitted that he had not wanted Ozk6k to succeed him in 2002, since 'I wanted someone who could better fight against fundamentalism to replace me', but he had evidently been overruled (Hurriyet, 11 March 2008; Turkish Daily News, 12 March 2008). According to the influential journalist

Notes

177

Mehmet Ali Birand, when he failed to prevent Ozkok's promotion, Klvnkoglu 'had· Ayta" Yalman appointed as commander of iand forces instead of Edip Ba~er and ~ener Eruygur as the commander of the gendarmerie, in order to fill the general staff with the 'tough' generals': Mehmet Ali Birand, 'Ergenekon Investigation Turns into Score Settling between Commanders', Turkish Daily News, 15 July 2008 (translated from his column in Posta, same date). 39 .. 'Ornek diaries' (see previous note), entry for 6 December 2003. 40. Ibid., entries for 3 February, 16 March, 24 April 2004. 41. Ibid., entry for 14 October 2004. 42. Radikal, 30 March 2007. Later, General Ya~ar Biiyiikamt, as CGS, stated that there was no trace of the 'diaries' in the General Staff archives; ibid, 13 April 2007. . 43. Today's Zaman, 27 March, 28 April,S June 2008: 44. Radikal, 8 August 2008. 45. Hiirriyet, 6 July 2008. 46. Fikret Bila, 'Hilmi Ozkok: Ne vardlr ne yoktur derim', Milliyet, 9 July 2008. According to the alleged diaries, Ozkok was fully aware of the plots at the time, and had documentation on them (entry for 16 March 2004). 47. Mehmet Ali Birand, 'Biiyiikamt Must Get Prosecutors to Act', Turkish Daily News, 16 July 2008 (translated from his column in Posta, same date). 48. Turkish Daily News, 2 August 2006. 49. Quoted, Jenkins, Political Islam, p. 181. 50. Ibid. 51. Turkish Daily News, 17,21 February, 2007; NfV website, 15 February 2007; Cizre, 'Military', p. 159. 52. Radikal, 11 March 2007. 53. Turkish Daily News, 13 April 2007; Radikal, 14 April 2007; NfV website, 25 May 2007. 54. Today's Zaman, 25 May 2007. 55. Website of CNNTurk television, Istanbul (www.cnnturk.com) 12 June 2007. 56. Radikal, 15, 30 April 2007; Hiirriyet, 15 April 2007. 57. Radikal, 13 April 2007. 58. Ibid. 59. Text from General Staff website (www.tsk.mil.tr) 27 April 2007. 60. On 1 May, a website supposedly representing members of the Ankara War College claimed that the 'e-memorandum' did not have the backing of General Biiyiikamt, but was put out by a dissident general who was due to retire in four months' time, although there was no proof of this: (www.harbiyeli.net. 1 May 2007). At a press conference on 30 July 2007 General Biiyiikamt stated that he stood behind what he had said on 12 April, but did not make any clear statement about the 'e-memorandum', except to say that he did not think it had influenced the general election results; Radikal, 31 July 2007. On the other hand, he did not specifically deny that he had authorised the memorandum. 61. Turkish Daily News, 28 April 2007; Hiirriyet, 29 April 2007. 62. Today's Zaman, 3, 4 May 2007. 63. Turkish Daily News, 25 July 2007. The leader of the Nationalist Action Party (MHP) Devlet Baht;eli appeared to echo Ozyiirek's criticism, albeit less clearly: for Biiyiikamt's statement on this, see note 60 above. 64. Ibid., 25 July 2007. 65. Hiirriyet, Milliyet, 5 May 2007. 66. Turkish Daily News, 29 August 2007; Today's Zaman, 2 October 2007. 67. The Economist (London, weekly) 30 August 2007. 6S. Ibid. 69. NfV website, 30 January 200S.

178 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75.

76.

77.

78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88.

89.

Notes Taraf and Today's Zaman, 21 June 2008: The Economist, 28 June 2008. Today's Zaman, 14 June 2008: Turkish Daily News, 16 June 2008. Murat Yetkin, 'Asker 'Kapanlsm' deseydi', Radikal, 1 August 2008. Today's Zaman, 29 June 2007, 23, 25, 30 January 2008. Ibid., 3, 4 July 2008; Hurriyet, 1 July 2008. Today's Zaman, 26 March 2008. On 3 July the CHP leader Deniz Baykal claimed that the detentions were not part of a judicial process, but of a 'political settling of accounts' (ibid., 4 July 2008). Prime Minister Erdogan suggested the opposite causation - that is, that the closure case was a reaction to the 'Ergenekon' arrests, but this is equally unproven (Hurriyet, 1 July 2008). Today's Zaman, 3 July 2008. An exception occurred on 3 September 2008, when the Garrison Commander in Kocaeli province visited ~ener Eruygur and HUqit Tolon, who were in prison in Kocaeli; however, an announcement by the General Staff maintained that 'the Turkish Armed Forces have complete respect and trust in the judiciary'. Prime Minister Erdogan also stated that the visit had had a purely 'humanitarian motive'; CNNTurk website, 3 September 2008. In particular, those into the Susurluk incident of November 1996; see Jenkins, 'Susurluk', passim. Hurriyet, 29 August 2008. Today's Zaman, 6, 8 September 2008. Ibid., 8 September 2008. Heper, 'Military', p. 215. Ibid., p. 227; italics in original. Cizre, 'Military', p. 134; for her periodisation, see ibid, p. 133. Ibid., p. 133. Ibid., pp. 161, 158. Gareth Jenkins, Context and Circumstance: the Turkish Military and Politics (Oxford, Oxford University Press for International Institute for Strategic Studies, Adelphi Paper 337, 2001), p. 44. Quoted, Heper, 'Military', p. 224. See Jenkins, Context, pp. 30-33. For a first-hand and more detailed account, see Mehmet Ali Birand, Bmret Komutamm (Istanbul, Milliyet, 1986) Chs. 1-8: English version, tr. Saliha Paker and Ruth Christie, Shirts of Steel: an Anatomy of the Turkish Armed Forces (London and New York, I. B. Tauris, 1991) Chs. 1-8. Jenkins, Context, p. 83

8 The AKP and the Turkish economy 1. Poll conducted by Yonelim Ara§trrma: see Ali E§ref Turan, Turk,ye'de Sefmen Davram§,: Onceki Km/malar ve 2002 Sefimi (Electoral Behaviour in Turkey: Previous Fragmentation and the 2002 Election) (Istanbul, Bilgi Universitesi Yaymlarl, 2004), p. 273, Table 68. . 2. Poll conducted by A & G Ara§trrma: see Tarhan Erdem, 'Iki patti se~meni AKP'ye gitti' ('Voters from two parties went over to the AKP'), Radikal, 6 November 2002. 3. Poll conducted by KONDA, reported in Radikal, 25 July 2007. 4. See Ru§en C;akrr, Ne Seriat, ne Demokrasi: Refah Partisi An/amak (Neither the Sharia, not Democracy: Understanding the Welfare Party) (Istanbul, Metis, 1994), pp. 131-9. 5. Her§ey Turkiye hin: Ak Parti Sefim Beyamlamesi (2002) (Everything for Turkey: AKP Election Manifesto) pp. 32, 35-6: from AKP website (www.akpatti. org.tr). . 6. AKP 2007 election manifesto. Nice Ak Y,llara: Guvelt ve Ist,krar ifinde Durmak Yok, Yola Devam (Towards More Bright Years: Continue on the Road

Notes

7. 8.

9. 10. 11.

12.

13. 14. 15.

16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23.

24. 25. 26. 27.

28.

179

without Stopping, in Security and Stability) pp. 28-9, 62: from AKP website (www.akparti.org.tr). Ziya Oni!l, 'Domestic Politics versus Global Dynamics: Towards a Political Economy of the 2000 and 2001 Financial Crises in Turkey', Turkish Studies, Vol. 4, No.2 (2003) p. 2. Ibid., p. 11; Hakan Tunc;:, 'The Lost Gamble: the 2000 and 2001 Turkish Financial Crises in Comparative Perspective', Turkish Studies, Vol. 4, No.2 (2003) pp.43-5. Briefing (Ankara, weekly) 26 February 2001, pp. 3, 6, 8 and 10; NTV website, 19 February 2001. Tunc;:, 'Lost Gamble', pp. 47-8. Economist Intelligence Unit, London (EIU), Turkey Country Report, October 2003,pp.28-9. GDP data according to the 1998 and 1987-based constant price data respectively, issued by the Turkish Statistical Institute (Turkstat); see below, p. 106 and note 340. Inflation and unemployment date also from Turkstat (www, tuik.gov. tr). Fikret Senses, 'Economic Crisis as an Instigator of Distributional Conflict: the Turkish Case in 2001', Turkish Studies, Vol. 4, No.2 (2003) pp. 99,101. EIU, Turkey Country Profile, 2005, p. 38. Oni§, 'Domestic Politics versus Global Dynamics', p. 17. An illustration occured in October 2001 when Kemal Dervi!l, then in Washington, was apparently having difficulty in persuading the IMF to extend new credits. On 5 October he made a direct approach to Vice-President Dick Cheney, following which the IMF agreed to the new stand-by agreement. See Biilent Aliriza, 'Turkey and the Global Storm', Insight Turkey (quarterly, Ankara) Vol. 3, No.4 (2001) p. 33. For the details, see the government's Letter of Intent to the IMF of 3 April 2002, from the IMF website (www.imf.orglexternaUnplloil2002ltur/02lindex.htm). Government's Letter of Intent to the IMF of 5 April 2003, from ibid (www.imf. orglexternaUnplloil2003/tur/01lindex.htm). Quotations from pp. 5, 9, 18. EIU, Turkey Country Report, April 2005, p. 20. 'Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies of the Government of the Republic of Turkey, April 26 2005': from IMF website (www.imf.orglexternaU nplloil2005/tur/042605.pdf). EIU, Turkey Country Report, October 2005, p. 20. Ibid., January 2006, p. 20; July 2006, p. 21; Hurriyet, 15 December 2006. Gareth Jenkins, Political Islam in Turkey: Running West, Heading East? (Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke and New York, 2008), p. 177. Strictly speaking, the New Turkish Lira (YTL). As from 1 January 2005 the currency was re-denominated by removing the last six digits: thus one million 'old' Liras (TL) became one New Turkish Lira (YTL). The 'New' was removed in January 2009, so that the currency once more became simply the 'Turkish Lira' (TL). EIU, Turkey Country Report, April 2006, p. 21; April 2007, p. 35; Hurriyet, 18 April 2006. EIU, Turkey Country Report, January 2006, pp. 21-2; July 2006, p. 24. Today's Zaman, 30 September 2008. Savings Deposit Insurance Fund, 2007 Annual Report, March 2008, pp. 32-3, 36 (from www.tmsf.org.tr). The Uzan family has faced scores of civil and lawsuits, alleging racketeering, fraud and libel. Like Bilgin, Cern Uzan, the leading member of the family, is a former media tycoon: he also founded and led the 'Youth Party' (Genf Parti) which competed unsuccessfully in the 2002 and 2007 elections. Today's Zaman, 30 September 2008.

180

Notes

29. For a valuable summary, see Radikal, 30 September 2008. In the global financial crisis of OctOber 2008, majority control of Fortis was taken over by the French bank BNP Paribas, which thus acquired 94 per cent of Fortis Bank Turkey in addition to the 50 per cent holding it had earlier acquired in Turk Ekonomi BankasJ (Toda),'s Zamall, 8 OctOber 2008). 30. Prime Ministry, Privatisation Administration, Tiirktye'de Ozel/e§tirme ['Privatisation in Turkey'] (www.oib.gov.tr). 31. Ibid., (www.oib.gov.tr/programluygulamalar). 32. EIU, Turkey COt/lltr)' Report, April 2004, p. 25; Hiirriyet, 9 May 2006. 33. EIU, Turkey COUlltry Report, April i007, p. 25; Hiirriyet, 30 May 2008. 34. This replaced the earlier national income series, going back to 1948, by using updated methodology and assumptions, and in accordance with European Union standards. Hence, figures shown here are inconsistent with the earlier series. The new data indicated that GDP was much higher, in both nominal and real terms, than. was previously apparent: thus current price GDP for 2005 was put at YTL758.4 billion, rather than at YTL576.3 billion according to the previous series. Data from Turkstat, Press Release No. 37 (8 March 2008) and Press Release No. 57 (31 March 2008); from Turkstat website (www.tuik.gov. tr). See also International Monetary Fund (ltVlF), Sevellth Reviewalld COllsultatioll ullder the Stalld-By Arrangement and Request for Waiver of Nonobservance of Performance Criteria, 28 April 2008 (WashingtOn DC, IMF, 2008), pp.6-7. 35. IMF, Seventh Review, p. 9. 36. Data from new national income series (see note 34). 37. Until 2000, population censuses were held at five (later ten) year intervals: all residents were required to stay at home on census day and the data was collected by local officials. However, it appeared that in many cases the figures were inflated by local authorities, so as to increase their claims for central government funding. Hence, the census returns exaggerated the actual population. In 2006 this was replaced by an address based registration system, with residents living in each address registered according to their identity card numbers, so as to eliminate duplication or under-coverage. The results, published in January 2008, recorded the tOtal population as of 31 December 2007 as just under 70.6 million, whereas estimates bases on the earlier data had assumed a population of around n.9 million for mid-2007: Turkstat; General Directorate of Population and Citizenship Mfairs, Press Release No.9 (21 January 2008): (www.tuik.gov.tr). 38. Prime Ministry, State Planning Organisation, Ninth Development Plall (20072013) (Ankara, State Planning Organisation, 2008), p. 46. 39. According to figures issued by the European Commission, Turkey's per capita GDP at purchasing power parities in 2006 in Euros was €6,900 ($8,664) compared with €8.700 ($10,923) for Bulgaria or €8,800 ($11,049) for Romania, the poorest EU countries, and €23,500 ($29,504) for the EU as a whole: European Commission, Eurostat, Europe in Figures: Eurostat Yearbook 2008 (Eurostat, Brussels, 2008), p. 99, T~blC;).1. The $/€ exchange rate from ibid., p. 123, Table 1.7. Using the revised national income data (see note 34) the IMF calculated per capita GDP for 2007 as slightly higher than that of Bulgaria and Romania: IMF, Seventh Review, p. 7. 40. Turkstat, Press Release No. 207 (25 December 2006). 41. By contrast, Italy and the United States have Gini coefficients of around 35, Germany and France around 27-28; The Ecollomist (London, weekly) 23 October 2008. Historical data from Turkstat. 42. Latvia, with a ratio of 7.9, and Portugal (6.8) were the only EU countries with a ratio close to that of Turkey; data from Eurostat website (http://epp. eurostat. ec.europa.eultgm).

Notes

181

43. Prime Ministry, State Planning Organisation, Ni1lth Developme1lt Pla1l (20072013), 2008 A1I1Iual Programme (Ankara, State Planning Organisation, 2008) p. 232, Table IV. 58. . ' 44. Data from Turkstat, Press Release No. 206 (26 December 2007). 45. NTV website, 10 December 2007. 46. Hiirriyet Daily News, 13,24 November, 27 December 200S .. 47. IMF, Seve1lth Review, pp. 11,15,22. 48. Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey, Fi1la1lcial Stability Report, August 2005, Chart I. 2.1.1, and ibid, May 2008, Table I. 2.3 (www.tcmb.gov.tr). 49. Admittedly, the 'consolidated primary balance' (i.e:, excluding interest payments) as calculated by the IMF was slightly lower than this, since it adjusted the figures show in Table S.3 by eliminating the effect of interest revenue and one-off non-tax earnings, and adding in the primary balances of off-budget parts of the public sector: see EIU, Turkey Country Report, July 2006, pp. 23-24. According to IMF calculations, the primary balance, as a proportion of GDP, was 5.1 per cent in 2005, or slightly below the benchmark of 6.5 per cent: International Monetary Fund, Press Release No. 051104, 11 May 2005. IMF figures for years later than 2005 were not available to the writer at the time of writing. 50. Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD Ec01l0mic Surveys: Turkey; Volume 200S/14, July 200S, pp. 90-91. 51. EIU, Turkey COU1Itry Report, January 2006, pp. 21-2; April 2006, p. 22; July 2006, p. 24. 52. Data from Turkstat (www.tuik.gov.tr).In 2008 Turkstat recalculated these figures according to the address based registration system (see note 37), reducing the total workforce for 2006 to 23.25 million, and giving a figure for 2007 of 23.5 million, suggesting an annual increase of around 0.25 million. However, this left the unemployment rate at 9.9 per cent for both years. 53. OECD Ecollomic Surveys: Turkey, July 2008, p. 22. 54. Data from Turkstat (www.tuik.gov.tr). See also note 52. 55. Foreign trade date from Table S.4; GDP data from Table 8.1 (as calculated in dollars at current prices). 56. Data from Turkstat (www.tuik.gov.tr). 57. Ibid. 5S. According to calculations by the Central Bank, the ex-ante annual real interest rate (that is, the nominal interest rate adjusted for expected inflation) between December 2003 and December 2007 fluctuated between a maximum of 14-16 per cent Uune-September 2006) and a minimum of around 8 per cent (December 2005 to March 2006). As of December 2007 it stood at around 10 per cent. Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey, Fillancial Stability Report, May 2007, Chart lli. 2.1.3 and ibid, May 200S, Chart lli. 19. 59. OECD Ecollomic Surveys: Turkey, July 200S, pp. 124-5. 60. In May 2004, ten new member states joined the European Union, to be followed by two more (Bulgaria and Romania) in January 2007, bringing the total membership to 27. For the sake of continuity, data in Table S.5 for previous years include trade with the new member states, although they were not yet in the EU at the time. 61. Exp'orts plus imports: data from Turkstat (www.tuik.gov.tr). 62. Ibid. 63. Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey, Intematiollal Illvestment Positioll Report, December 2007, Table Vlli. 64. See Geoffrey Pridham, Christian Democracy in Westem Germany. the CDUI CSU ill Goverllmellt alld Oppositioll, 1945-1976 (London, Croom Helm, 1977), pp. 31-2. 65. OECD Ecollomic Surveys: Turkey, July 200S, p. 11.

182

Notes

66. Turkstat, Press Release No. 147, 10 September 2008. 67. That is, the banks' capital as a percentage of their risk-weighted credit exposures. 68. That is, non-performing loans as a percentage of total loans. 69. Statement by Mehmet Slm~ek (Minister of State with special responsibility for the economy), in International Monetary Fund (IMF), Press Release No. 54, 13 October 2008. 70. NTV website, 15 December 2008; Hurriyet, 1 January, 9 January 2009. 71. IMF, Seventh Review (see note 34), pp. 20-21, and Table 13. 72. For instance, in mid-October 2008 the US bank holding company Morgan Stanley issued a report predicting a GDP growth rate of 2.7 per cent for 2008 and 2.5 per cent for 2009. However, it also predicted a fall in inflation to 6.6 per cent in 2009: Today's Zaman, 18 October 2008. 73. The Economist, 16 October 2008. 74. Hurriyet, 1 January 2009. 75. Radikal,24 September 2008: Hurriyet, 26 September 2008. 76. IMF, Seventh Review (see note 34), Table 3. 77. Hurriyet, 2 January 2009. 78. Ibid., 18 March, 19 June, 9, 10, 15 October 2008; Today's Zaman, 8, 9 January 2009. 79. Hurriyet, 7 May 2008; Radikal, 21 May 2008. 80. OECD Economic Surveys: Turkey, July 2008, pp. 149-50. 81. As calculated for a worker on the minimum wage, with two children; ibid., p. 150, Figure 4.5. 82. Today's Zaman, 11 January 2008. 83. Radikal, 21 May 2008. 84. IMF, Seventh Review p. 30; Hurriyet, 12, 18 March 2008: Today's Zaman, 18 March 2008. 85. Ziya Oni~, 'Conclusion: the Broader Ramifications of Turkey's Financial Crises', Turkish Studies, Vol. 4, No.2 (2003) p. 191. 86. Hurriyet Daily News, 3 January 2009.

9 Foreign policy and the AKP 1. Ahmet Davutoglu, 'The Clash of Interests; an Explanation of the World (Dis) Order', Perceptions (Ankara) Vol. 2, No.4 (1997-98). 2. Ibid. 3. Ahmet Davutoglu, Stratejik Derinlik: Turkiye'nin Uluslararast Konumu ['Strategic Depth: Turkey'S International Position'](Istanbul, Kiire Yaymiarl, 2000) esp pp. 183-208. See also Alexander Murinson, 'The Strategic Depth Doctrine of Turkish Foreign Policy', Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 42, No.6 (2006) pp. 945-55. 4. Ahmet Davutoglu, 'Tiirkiye Merkez Olke Olmah', ['Turkey should become a central country'] Radikal, 26 February 2002. See also his article 'Turkey's Foreign Policy Vision: an Assessment of 2007', Insight Turkey, Vol. 10, No.1 (2008) pp. 78-9. 5. Burhanettin Duran, ']DP and Foreign Policy as an Agent of Transformation', in M. Hakan Yavuz, ed., The Emergence of a New Turkey: Democracy and the AK Parti (Salt Lake City UT, University of Utah Press, 2006), p. 293. 6. See William Hale, Turkish Foreign Policy, 1774-2000 (London and Portland OR, Frank Cass, 2000), pp. 161-2, and Ali L. Karaosmanoglu, 'The Evolution of the National Security Culture and the Military in Turkey', Journal of btternational Affairs, Vol. 54, No.1 (2000) pp. 209-10.

Notes

183

7. Philip Robins, 'The 2005 BRISMES Lecture: a Double Gravity State: Turkish Foreign Policy Reconsidered', British Joumal of Middle Eastem Studies, Vol. 32, No.2 (2006) pp. 207-9. See also Graham E. Fuller, The New Turkish Republic: Turkey as a Pivotal State i1t the Muslim World (Washington DC, United States Institute of Peace Press, 2008), pp. 17-18. 8. See Tank Oguzlu, 'Soft Power in Turkish Foreign Policy', Australia1t Joumal of Imematio1tal Affairs, Vol. 61, No.1 (2007) pp. 92-5. 9. On Erbakan's policies, see Philip Robins, 'Turkish Foreign Policy under Erbakan', Survival, Vol. 39, No.2 (1997) pp. 82-100. For explanations of the AKP's adoption of a pro-EU position, see Erhan Dogan, 'The Historical and Discursive Roots of the Justice and Development Party's EU Stance', Turkish Studies, Vol. 6, No.3 (2005)" pp. 429-30, and Ali Usul Resul, 'The Justice and Development Party and the European Union: from Euro-skeptidsm to Euro-enthusiasm and Euro-fatigue', in 'Omit Cizre, ed., Secular a1td Islamic Politics i1l Turkey: the Maki1lg of the Justice a1td Development Party (London and New York, Routledge, 2008), pp. 179-81. 10. Website of NTV television, Istanbul (www.ntvmsnbc.com) 15, 18, 19,20,30 November and 5, 11 December 2002. 11. Ibid., 13 December 2002. 12. Ibid., 17 December 2002. 13. Briefi1lg (Ankara, weekly) 4 August 2003, p. 3; Turkish Daily News, 2 August 2003. 14. NTV website, 20 July, 23 August 2004; website of CNNTurk television, Istanbul (www.cnnturk.com) 27 August 2004. 15. See Ay~e Ashhan <;e1enk, 'The Restructuring of Turkey'S Policy towards Cyprus: the Justice and Development Party's Struggle for Power', Turkish Studies, Vol. 8, No.3 (2007) pp. 351-2, 356; Miige KmaclOgJu and Emel Oktay, 'The Domestic Dynamics of Turkey's Cyprus Policy: Implications for Turkey's Accession to the European Union', ibid., Vol. 7 No.2 (2006) pp. 263-6, and Clement Dodd, 'Constitutional Features of the UN Plan for Cyprus and its Antecedents', ibid, Vol. 6, No.1 (2005) pp. 44-5. For details of the Annan plan, see Dodd, 'Constitutional Features', pp. 45-9, and Kudret Ozersay, 'Separate Simultaneous Referenda in Cyprus: Was it a 'Fact' or an 'lliusion'?' Turkish Studies, Vol. 6, No.3 (2005) pp. 383-6. 16. HUTTiyet, 12 January 2004; NTV website, 12 January, 20 January 2004. 17. Turkish Daily News, 26 January 2004. 18. <;elenk, 'Restructuring', p. 357. According to the supposed 'Ornek diaries' (see p. 88) opposition to the government's policy on Cyprus was a major motive for the senior commanders who were allegedly plotting a coup in February 2004; for a summary, see Today's Zama1t, 3 July 2008. 19. Dodd, 'Constitutional Features', pp. 39-40,45. 20. Text supplied to the writer by the Cypriot High Commission in London. 21. Cyprus News (monthly, issued by the Republic of Cyprus) 30 April 2004. 22. NTV website, and The Times (London) 22 April 2004. 23. KmaclOgJu and Oktay, 'Domestic Dynamics', p. 270; Suat Kimkhoglu, The Anatomy ofTurkish-Russia1t Relatio1ts (Washington DC, Brookings Institution, 2006) p. 3. 24. BBC News website (http://news.bbc.co.uk) 25 April 2004. 25. James Ker-Lindsay, 'The Policies of Greece and Cyprus towards Turkey'S EU Accession', Turkish Studies, Vol. 8 No.1 (2007) pp. 74-6, 79-80. 26. NTV website,S November 2004. 27. CNNTurk website, 29 November 2004; HUTTiyet, 30 November 2004. 28. Text of the Negotiating Framework from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Washington DC (www.washingtoninstitute.orgldocuments).

184

Notes

29. Ibid. 30. Gareth Jenkins, Political Islam ill Turkey: RUllllillg West, Heading East? (Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke and New York, NY, 200S) p. 178. 31. See ibid., p. 17S. For details of the case, see European Court of Human Rights, Case of Leyla Sahill v. Turkey (Applicatioll 110. 44774): Judgment: Strasbourg, 10 November 2005 (from http://cmisk.echr.coe.intltkp197). Earlier, Abdullah Giil's wife, Hayrunnisa Giil, had lodged a similar appeal with the ECHR, but had withdrawn it before the judgment in the ~ahin case was delivered. 32. Associated Press report, 30 July 2005. 33. Hiirrtyet,4 October 2005. 34. See, e.g., Turkish Daily News, 24 January 2006; NTV website, 27 September" 2006; Hiirrtyet, 3 October 2006; Zaman, 3 October 2006. 35. In the event the cases against Orhan Pamuk and Elif ~afak were dropped (Zamall, 23 January 2006: Radikal, 22 September 2006) but the fact that they were even charged provoked widespread protests. Hrant Dink received a sixmonth suspended sentence, but was then faced with a second charge under the same article (Radikal, 26 September 2006). Tragically, he was murdered by Turkish nationalist fanatics in January 2007. 36. <;elenk, 'Restructuring', p. 360; NTV website, 25 January 2006; Hiirriyet, 2S January 2006; CNNTurk website 31 January 2006; The Ecollomist (London, weekly) 2S January 2006. 37. That is, the free movement of goods, transport, the customs union, agriculture, fisheries, foreign relations, financial services, and the right to establish businesses in other EU countries. 3S. CNNTurk website, 15 December 2006. 39. See Resul, 'The Justice and Development Party and the European Union', pp.1S5-6. 40. That is, on statistics, and financial control: Hiirriyet, 15 June 2007. 41. The Ecollomist, 22 December 2007. 42. Today's Zamall, 20 December 2007. 43. Ibid., 2 April200S; Hiirriyet, 20 June 200S. 44. Radikal, 16 March 200S. 45. Hiirriyet, 17 June 200S. 46. Ibid., 30 April, 31 May 200S. This followed a law improving the property rights of the non-Muslim communities, notably the Orthodox church, passed in February 200S (ibid., 21 February 200S). 47. Radikal, 31 July 200S. 4S. NTV website, 21 March 200S; Hiirriyet, 2 July 200S. 49. Anatolia Agency (Ankara) 11 September 2001; NTV website, 10 October 2001; Hiirriyet, 20 June 2002; Murat Yetkin, Tezkere: Irak Krizillin Gerfek Dykiisii ['The Resolution: the Real Story of the IKGQ Crisis'] (Ista~bul," Remzi, 2004, p. 39). For a more detailed account and analysis by the writer of events narrated in this section, see William Hale, Turkey, the US alld Iraq (London, Saqi Books, for London Middle East Institute, 2007), Chs". 4-6. SO. Fikret Bila, Sivil Darbe Giri~im(ve Ankara'da Irak Sava~lart ['An Attempted Civilian Camp and the ISRQ Wars in Ankara'} (Ankara, Omit Yaymclhk, 2003), p.l92. 51. See the polling results cited by Nasuh Uslu, Metin Toprak, ibrahim Dalml§ and Ertan Aydm, 'Turkish Opinion towards the United States in the Context of the Iraq Question', MERIA Joumal (http://meria.idc.ac.il)Vol.9,No. 3 (2005) pp. 2-3 and Table 14. 52. Philip Robins, 'Confusion at Home, Confusion Abroad: Turkey between Copenhagen and Iraq', Iutematioual Affairs, Vol. 79, No.3 (2003) p. 560; James E. Kapsis, 'The Failure of the US-Turkish Pre-war Negotiations: an Overconfident

Notes

185

United States, Political Mismanagement and a Conflicted Military', MERIA Joumal, Vol. 9, No.3 (2005) pp. 5-6, 9. 53. Bill Park, 'Turkey, the United States and Northern Iraq', in Paul Cornish, ed., The Conflict in Iraq, 2003 (Basingstoke and New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2004) p. 81: Yetkin, Tezkere, pp. 99-101; Kapsis, 'Failure', p. 1. 54. Philip Robins, 'The Opium Crisis and the Iraq War: Historical Parallels in US-Turkey Relations', Mediterranean Politics, Vol. 12, No.1 (2007) p. 20. 55. Robins, 'Confusion', p. 561; Yetkin, Tezkere, pp. 109, 120; Bila, Sivil Darbe, pp.I96-7. 56. Yetkin, Tezkere, pp. 90-91. Just before UNSCR 1441 was passed, Abdullah Gill took the same position (ibid., p. 90). 57. Ibid., pp. 116-7; Bila, Sivil Darbe, p. 198. 58. Milliyet, 29 December 2002. 59. Hiirriyet, 31 January, 12 February 2003; Radikal, 7 February 2003. 60. NTV website, 24 January -2003; Yetkin, Tezkere, pp. 131-2, 143-4; Bila, Sivil Darbe, p. 217. 61. Robins, 'Confusion', pp. 63-4. 62. For the text of the memorandum, see Bila, Sivil Darbe, Appendix 7. 63. Kapsis, 'Failure', p. 3; The Economist, 27 February 2003. 64. Bila, Sivil Darbe, p. 221. 65. This was made clear by Zalmay Khalilzad, President Bush's Special Representative in Iraq, in a visit to Ankara on 4 February, and by a spokesman for the Kurdistan Democratic Party on 24 February; Yetkin, Tezkere, pp. 146-7; NTV website, 24 February 2003. 66. Bila, Sivil Darbe, pp. 226-8. 67. Hiirriyet, 28 February 2003. 68. Quoted, Daniel Pipes, 'Turkey'S Radical Turn?' New York Post,S August 2003. Significantly, Colin Powell later said he did not think Turkey had anything to apologise for; NTV website, 7 May 2003. 69. Kapsis, 'Failure', p. 8. 70. Saban Karda~, 'Turkey and the Iraqi Crisis: JDP between Identity and Interest', in Yavuz, ed., Emergence ofa New Turkey, pp. 317-22. If Gill was as reluctant as Karda~ relates, then one has to ask why he tabled the tezkere as a government motion, and tried to persuade AKP deputies to support it. Nor did he subsequently admit that he had not wanted to support the tezkere. Erdogan later stated that he thought the refusal of parliament to support it was a mistake, although he did not do so publicly until September 2006, by which time the tezkere had long since been dead and buried (Hiirriyet, 7 September 2006). For-other explanations, see Kapsis, 'Failure',pp. 8-9, and Bila, Sivil Darbe, p.226. 71. Briefing, 12 May 2003, p. 3. 72. Hiirriyet, 24 June 2003. This arrangement was extended in May 2005 when President Sezer endorsed a second decree, under which the US could use incirlik for the support of forces in Afghanistan as well as Iraq; NTV website, 3 May 2005. 73. NTV website, 7 October, 24 October 2003; The Economist, 18 October 2003; Financial Times (London) 8 November 2003; Michael Rubin, 'A Comedy of Errors: American-Turkish Diplomacy and the Iraq War', Turkish Policy Quarterly, Vol. 4, No.1 (2005) p. 5. 74. See Bill Park, 'Iraq's Kurds and Turkey: Challenges for US Policy', Parameters, Vol. 34, No.3 (2004), p. 26 and Cengiz <;andar, 'Turkish Foreign Policy and the War on Iraq', in Lenore G. Martin and Dimitris Keridis (eds.), The Future of Turkish Foreign Policy (Cambrige MA and London, MIT Press, 2004), p. 49.

186

Notes

75. Yetkin, Tezkere, pp. 220-22; Hiirriyet, 5,8 July 2003; NTV website, 7,8,15, 17 July 2003; Bill Park, 'Between Europe, the United States and the Middle East: Turkey and European Security in the Wake of the Iraq Crisis', Perspectives on European Politics and Society, Vol. 5, No.3 (2004) p. 501. 76. Hiirriyet, 27 November 2004. 77. See Aylin Gliney, 'Anti-Americanism in Turkey: Past and Present', Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 44, No.3 (2008) pp. 482-3, and John C. K. Daly, US-Turkish Relations: a Strategic Relationship under Stress (Washington DC, The Jamestown Foundation, 2008), p. 8. 78. To be fair, not all Poll~ck's criticisms were unjustified -a point recognised by the editor of Radikal, Ismet Berkan, 'Anti-amerkanism ve paranoya toplumu', ['Anti-Americanism and the Paranoid Society'] Radikal, 18 February 2005. 79. See Bill Park, Turkey's Policy towards Northem Iraq: Problems and Perspectives (London, International Institute for Strategic Studies, Adelphi Paper 374, 2005), pp. 22, 35, 49-53. 80. NTV website, 11 October 2004. 81. Park, Turkey's Policy, pp. 36':"'8 82. Today's Zaman, 6 October 2007. 83. Turkish Daily News, 14 March, 13 April 2007; CNNTurk website, 12 June 2007. 84. See Daly, US-Turkish Relatiolls, pp. 9-11. 85. Ibid., pp. 12-13; Radikal, 25 October 2007; CNNTurk website, 18 June 2008. 86. NTV website, 1 October 2007; Hiirriyet, 9, 21, 22 October 2007; Daly, US-Turkish Relations, pp. 19-20. 87. CNNTurk website,S November 2007. 88. Hiirriyet, 16 December 2007, 22 February 2008; BBC News website (http:// newsvote.bbc.co.uk) 22, 25 December 2007, 29 February 2008; Today's Zaman, 16 January 2008. 89. Today's Zaman, 9 January 2008. 90. NTV website, 17 October 2005. 91. Hiirriyet, 9 March 2008. 92. NTV website, 15 February 2007; Turkish Daily News, 17,21 February 2007; Today's Zaman, 29 March, 14 May, 4 June 2008. 93. Today's Zaman, 2 August 2008. 94. Trade data from Turkish Statistical Institute (www.tuik.gov.tr). See also Turkish Ministry of Foreign Mfairs, 'Turkey's Commercial and Economic Relations with Russian Federation' (www.mfa.gov.tr); Suat KtmkhogIu, The Anatomy of Turkish-Russian Relations (Washington DC, The Brookings Institution, 2006), p.6. 95. Data from Turkish Pipeline Corporation, BOTA~: (www.botas.gov.tr) and BP Statistical Review of World Energy (London, BP Amoco, June 2008) pp. 40-41. 96. Turkish Ministry of Foreign Mfairs, 'Turkey's Political Relations with Russian Federation' (www.mfa.gov.tr),_ 97. I
Notes

187

102. CNNTurk website, 14 April 2005; Turkish Daily News, 26 April 2007. 103. Richard Giragosian, 'Analysis: Are Armenian-Turkish Relations Headed for Breakthrough -or Breakdown?' Turkish Daily News, 6 June 2008. 104. See Unal Giindogan, 'Islamist Iran and Turkey, 1979-1989: State Pragmatism and Ideological Influences', MERIA Jouma/, Vol. 7, No.3 (2005); Hale, Turkish Foreign Policy, pp. 312-6. 105. Ian O. Lesser, 'Turkey, Iran and Nuclear Risks', Turkish Policy Quarterly, Summer 2004, pp. 87-8, and Beyond Suspicion: Rethinking US-Turkish Relations (Washington DC, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, n.d.), pp. 167-8. 106. Today's Zaman, 3 October 2007,12,14 March 2008; Hurriyet, 13 February 2008: CNNTrirk website, 6 May 2008; Lesser, B?)'ond Suspicion, pp. 167-8. 107. BBC News website, 13 June 2008; CNNTurk website, 15 August 2008. 108. Turkish Daily News, 28 February, 1,2 March, 1,14 June, 20 August 2007; Today's Zaman, 24 September 2007; CNNTurk website, 13 March 2008. 109. Turkish Daily News, 16 April, 1 July 2008. 110. Data from Turkish Pipeline Corporation, BOTA~: (www.botas.gov.tr). 111. Turkish Daily News, 16 July 2007. 112. The Guardian (London, daily) and Hurriyet, 15 August 2007. 113. However, trade with Syria still accounted for less than one per cent of Turkey'S total foreign trade in 2007. Data from Turkish Statistical Institute (www.tuik. gov.tr). 114. In March 2008 the Turkish, Syrian and Iraqi goverrunents agreed to establish a 'Water Institute' of experts from each country to work out schemes for reconciling their conflicting claims: Today's Zaman, 12 March 2008. See also Meliha Altum~lk and Ozlem Tur, 'From Distant Neighbours to Parmers? Changing Syrian-Turkish Relations', Security Dialogue, Vol. 37, No. 2 (2006). 115. See Hale, Turkey, the US and Iraq, p. 134. 116. Hurriyet and NTV website, 17 February 2006. 117. Turkish Daily News, 26 August 2006; NTV website 6 September 2006 118. Today's Zaman, 13, 14,22 November 2007. 119. Ibid., 25 April, 22 May 2008; BBC News website, 23 April 2008; CNNTurk website, 2 June 2008; Hurriyet, 18 June 2008. 120. Hurriyet, 28 May 2003. 121. 'President's Remarks at Galatasaray University, 29 June 2004: from the White House website (www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/06). 122. Meliha Altunl~lk, 'The Turkish Model and Democratization in the Middle East', Arab Studies Quarterly, Vol. 27, Nos. 1-2 (2005) p. 56. 123. Today's Zaman, 26 April 2008. 124. Speech at the American Enterprise Institute, 29 January 2004; quoted, Altum~lk, 'Turkish Model', pp. 56-7. 125. Samuel P. Huntington, 'The Clash of Civilizations', Foreign Affairs, Vol. 72, No.3 (1993). 126. Quoted, the Guardian, 30 September 2005. 127. Website of 'Alliance of Civilizations' (www.unaoc.org), 2008. 128 .. Today's Zaman, 19 August 2008. 129. Lesser, Beyond Suspicion, p. 42. 130. Nigar Goksel, 'The Turkey-Armenia Border, Mental Maps and Incoherent Policies', Turkish Daily News, 28 January 2008. 131. International Crisis Group, Cyprus: Reversing the Drift to Partition (Brussels, International Crisis Group, Europe Report No. 190, 10 January 2008), p. 10. 132. Cenap <;:anak, 'EI-Be~ir'i Agrrlamak ve Tiirk Dl§ Politikasmda Erik', ['Receiving al-Bashir and Ethics in Turkish Foreign Policy'] Radika/, 21 August 2008.

188

Notes

Conclusions, Assessments and Expectations 1. Bassam Tibi, 'Islamist Parties: Why they Can't be Democratic', Journal of Democracy, Vol. 19, No.3 (2008), p. 45. 2. Ibid., pp. 46-7. However, Tibi does not appear to be consistent in this attitude. In a book published in 2008 (the same year as the article quoted) he is mote cautious, accepting that 'the AKP presents itself as secular and 'conservativeIslamic' and no longer as an 'Islamist' party.' (In fact, the party describes itself as 'democratic conservative' and not 'Islamic', conservative or otherwise). He goes on to conclude that '[F]or an evaluation of this experiment the norm would be to 'wait and see'. It is too early for a mature statement.' Bassam Tibi, Political Islam, World Politics and Europe: Democratic Peace and Euro-Islam versus Global Jihad (Abingdon and New York, Routledge, 2008), p. 84. 3. Daniel Pipes, in a round-table discussion chaired by James Glazov, 'Turkey: the road to Sharia?' Frontpagemagazi11e.com, 6 May 2005 (www.FrontPageMagazine. com). 4. Daniel Pipes, 'A Critical Moment for Turkey', New York SUit, 15 May 2007. 5. Daniel Pipes, 'A Democratic Islam?' Jerusalem Post, 17 April 2008. This drew a sharp response from Namlk Tan, the Turkish ambassador in Tel Aviv, rejecting the 'totally baseless and unacceptable comparison' with bin Laden: ibid, 24 - April 2008. 6. In the United States, nation-wide prohibition was ended by the passage of the Twenty-first Amendment to the constitution, passed in 1,933. However, this specifically allows individual states to restrict or ban the purchase of alcohol, and there are still numerous 'dry' towns or counties in the US. Similarly, there are strict controls (previously outright prohibition) in most Scandinavian countries, and 'dry' states in india. 7. ihsan D. Dagl, 'Islamic Political Identity' (unpublished MS) p. 5l. 8. ihsan D. Dagl Battlrla~ma Korkusu (Fear of Westernisation) (Ankara, Liberte YaymlaCl, 2003) Introduction ('Sunu~') (unpaginated). 9. Interestingly, this point was freely admitted by Muhammad Habib, one of the leaders of the Egyptian_ Muslim-Brotherhood, in an interview in the Turkish newspaper Today's Zama11, 20 October 2008 . .In his words 'the AK Party is a liberal and secular party, not an Islamic party', whereas the constitution of the Muslim Brotherhood 'outlines an Islamic style of activism'. 10. Gareth Jenkins, Political Islam in Turkey: Running West, Headiltg East? (Basingstoke and New York, NY, Palgrave Macmillian, 2008), p. 215. 11. Barry Rubin, 'Islamic Radicalism in the Middle East: a Survey and Balance Sheet', Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA), Veil. 2, No.2 (1998): (published on internet at meria.idc.ac.il: no pagination). 12. See, for instance, Tayyip Erdogan's remarks, in an interview published in December 2002: '[s]ome people may think differently. They may look towards such bodies as the Christian Democratic parties in Europe. That is their view -and their reality. We do not share it.' Interview with ~eref Ozgencil, The New Europe, Vol. 1, No.2 (2002), p. 11. 13. William Hale, 'Christian Democracy and the AKP: Parallels and Contrasts', Turkish Studies, Vol. 6, No. -2 (2005). Reprinted as 'Christian Democracy and the JDP', in M.Hakan Yavuz (ed.), The Emergence of a New Turkey: Democracy and the AK Parti (Salt Lake City UT, University of Utah Press, 2006); subsequent page references are to the first version of this article. 14. Ibid., pp. 297-9, 302-5. 15. Ibid., pp. 300, 302. 16. The Economist, 29 November 2008.

Notes

189

17. Ziihtu Arslan, 'Reluctantly Sailing towards Political Liberalism: the Political Role of the Judiciary in Turkey', in Terence C. Halliday, Lucien Karpik and Malcolm M. Feely (eds.), Fightillg for Political Freedom: Comparative Studies of the Legal Complex and Political Liberalism (Oxford and Portland OR, Hart Publishing, 2007) pp. 219-45. . 18. Today's Zamall, 12 November 2008. 19. Milliyet, 17 December 2008. For some critical assessments of the AKP's new position on the Kurdish issue, ~ee Hasan Cemal, 'Ozal'la~ma, Demlrel'le~me derken <;iller'le~me mi?' (After Ozalisation and Demirelisation, is it the turn of <;iI1erisation?) Milliyet, 8 November 2008; Fazll Hiisnii Erdem, 'ABD'nin WASP'l ve Tiirkiye'nin TMSL'si' (The WASPs of the USA and the TMSLs of Turkey), Tarar. 24 November 2008; Ferhat Kentel, ~Kiirtlerin Sesleri: Ne Sadakat ne de Terk' (The Voice of the Kurds: Neither Loyalty, nor Exit) ibid, 6 November 2008; interviews with Avni Ozgiirel, ibid, 20 October 2008; "Omit Firat, ibid, 27 October 2008; Mithat Sancar, ibid, 17 November 2008; Nurettin Yllmaz, ibid, 24 November 2008; Abdurrahman Kurt, ibid, 8 December 2008. Kurt, a leading AKP deputy of Kurdish stock from Diyarbaklr, argues that the Prime Minister is 'besieged by the hawks'. 20. Ahmet A1tan, 'AKP, ANAP olur mu?' (Will the AKP become ANAP?) Tarar. 18 November 2008. 21. Ahmet Altan, 'AKP nereye gidiyor?' (Where is the AKP going?) ibid, 8 November 2008; see also his 'Erdogan 2008', ibid, 5 November 2008; in the same direction, Etyen Mah~upyan, 'Bu tarz-i siyaset' (This style of politics) ibid, 3 December 2008. 22. Interview with Cengiz Aktar, Milliyet, 15 December 2008. Critics even include some prominent Islamist writers such as Ali Bula~, who argues that the AKP no longer pursued the EU path wholeheartedly: hence, an important section of the intellectuals, being democrats of liberal or social-democratic origins, had withdrawn their support from the AKP: 'AB'nin Goremedigi' (What the EU cannot see) Zaman, 15 December 2008. 23. Quoted, Turkish Daily News; 6 Nove~ber 2008. 24. Interview with Yonca Poyraz Dogan, Today's Zaman, 5 January 2009. 25. Haluk Ozdalga, 'Turkey's Best Option for the EU: 'No Stopping, Keep Moving Ahead", ibid, 22 December 2008. 26. Hiirriyet, 8 November 2008; Hiirriyet Daily News, 4 December 2008. 27. Today's Zaman, 8 January 2009.

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Index

Abbas, Mahmud, 143 'Abd al-Aziz ibn Sa'ud, xiii Abu Ghraib prison scandal (Iraq) 133 AdhalZ: see EzalZ Adil DiizelZ: see 'Just Order' Adultery, attempted re-criminalisation of, 70-71, 149 Mghanistan, 129 Mrica, Turkish policies, 144, 147 Ahmadinejad, Mahmud, 140-1 Akdag, Recep, 70 Akdogan, Yalesm, 24, 153 AKEL (Progressive Party of Working People: Cyprus) 128 Ak~it, Guldal, 70 Aktar, Cengiz, 157 Al-Assad, Bashar, 142, 143 Al-Assad, Hafiz, 142 AI-Bashir, Omar, 147 Alcohol, sale of, 150 Alevis, Alevi-ism, xvii, 78-9, 150 Alexandretta.(Hatay) question, 142 Al-Ghazali, xiii 'Alliance of Civilisations', 144 Alphabet reform (1928) xvii Al-Qaeda, xiii Altan, Ahmet, 157 Altunay, Cahit, 49 ANAP (AIlavatalZ Partisi) see Motherland Party

'Annan Plan' (Cyprus) 83-4,89,122-4 Annan, Kofi, 83, 122-4,144 Annapolis conference (2007) 143 Anti-missile defence system proposals, 140 Anti-Terrorism Act, see Law for the Struggle against Terrorism. Anti-Zionism, 6 AP (Adalet Partisi) see Justice Party Annes, Biilent, 19,27, 85, 130 Annes, Miinevver, 85

Armenia, 138-9, 146 Armenians, in USA, 135, 139, 147 Asad; Muhammad, xiv ASlltiirk, Oguzhan, 19 Atatiirk, Kemal, xvi-xvii, xix, 78, 81, 149, 150 Atatiirkist Thought Society (ADD) 91, 94 Austria, policy towards Turkey, 122, 125,126 Ayata, Sencer, 18 Azerbaijan, 137-9, 141, 146 Babacan; Ali, 137, 139, 158 Baheseli, Devlet, 72,157: see also Nationalist Action Party Bai'a (oath of loyalty) xiv Bak",-Tiflis-Ceyhan oil pipeline, 139 Ban Ki-moon, 144 Banking Regulation and Supervisory Agency (BRSA) 101 Banks, 101,103,104,115 Barzani, Massoud, 134: see also Kurdistan Regional Government Ba~bug, General ilker, 90, 93, 95, 98,135 Ba~er, General Edip, 134 Baykal, Deniz, 91: see also Republican People's Party Bilgin, Dines, 104 Bin Laden, Osama, 149, 150 Birand, Mehmet Ali, 89 Black Sea, Turkish policy, 138 Blair, Tony, 144 'Blonde Girl' (Sarlklz) alleged coup plot, 88-9,93 Bremer, Paul, 133 Broadcasting in minority languages, 60,77,128,156 'Broader Middle East Initiative', 144 Brumberg, Daniel, 9

206

Index

Brussels, European Council meeting, December 2004, 124-6: December 2006, 127: December 2007, 127 Bulac;, Ali, 28 Bulgaria, Rights and Freedoms Party, 77: gas pipeline, 137: relations with Turkey, 145 Burke, Edmund, 153 Bush, George W., 85, 129, 130, 135, 139, 144 Biirgenstock, meetings on Cyprus, March 2004, 123-4 Biiyiikarut, General Ya~ar, 77, 86, 87, 89,90,91,92,93,95,135 Biiyiikderuz,Adnan,103 Caliph, Caliphate, xiv, xvii, 154 'Caucasian Stability and Cooperation Platform', 147 Cem Foundation, 78 Central Bank governorship, 103 'Centre-periphery cleavage' in Turkey, xvii, 33-4 CGP: see Republican Reliance Party Chief of the General Staff (CGS) position of, 82, 88, 97 China and India, economic effects on Turkey, 112 Chirac, Jacques, 122, 125, 127 CHP (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi): see Republican People's Party Christian and Jewish minorities in Turkey, 60, 156 Christian Democrats in Europe, policy towards Turkey, 122, 126: compared with AKP, 153-4 Christofias, Dimitris, 128 Civil Code (2002) 62 Civil Servants Law, 60 Cizre, Omit, 96 'Clash of civilisations', xi, 144 Clerides, Glafcos, 123 Clinton, Bill, 99 Closure case against AKP (2008) 74-5, 115, 127-8 _ . __ CMP (Cumhuriyet Millet Partisi) see Republican Nation Party Coalition Provisional Authority (Iraq) 133 Conservatism, vagueness of, 25, 26, 152 Conservative Party (Britain) 152-3 Constitution of Turkey (1982): Article 2; xvi, 73, 100: Article 4; 73: Article

10; 57, 72: Article 15; 56: Article 17; 56: Article 24; xvi-xvii: Articles 20 and 22; 59: Articles 34-5; 59: Article 38; 56: Article 42; 72: Articles 68-69; 4, 74: Article 76; 39-40, 57: Article 96; 39-40, 63: Articles 87 and 90; 56: Article 92; 129, 131: Article 118; 87: Article 131; 69: Article 148; 73: Article 175; 40, 63: constitutional amendments of 2004,55-7: of 2006, 57: of 2007, 63: referendum on amendments, 2007,65: proposals for new constitution and criticisms, 65-7, 74, 155: AKP losing enthusiasm for reform, 67,156-8: and headscarves issue, 71-4 Constitutional Court, xvii, 3, 22: and headscarves issue, xxi, 34, 71-4, 156: closure of Welfare Party (1998) 4, 10,27: and presidential election, 2007,39-40: and constitutional amendments on presidency, 2007, 63-4: and proposed new constitution, 66: and procedural review, 73: usurpation of power, 73-4, 156: closure case against AKP, 74-5, 115, 127-8, 156: and social security reforms (2006) 103 Constitutional crisis, 2007: 34, 39-40, 62-5,90 Copenhagen criteria, 21, 28, 57,86: see also Harmorusation packages Copenhagen, European Council meeting, December 2002,121-2,123 Co~an, Mehmet Esat, 16 Court of Accounts, and military, 56, 61 Criminal Code, 122: Article 312; 55, 58: Article 159, 58: new Criminal Code (2005) article 216, 58: Article 301; 58, 126, 128, 156: other provisions, 62, 71 Croatia, 126 Crone, Patricia, xiii CTP (Cumhuriyetfi Turk Partisi) see Republican Turkish Party Cyprus problem, and military, 83-4, 89: developments, 2002-8,122-5, 127-8,146 Ru~en, <;akmakogI~,

<;alor,

7 Sabahattin, 65 <;amurogIu,Reha, 78

Index 207 <::arkoglu, Ali, 31, 36, 37 <::icek, Cemil, 70, 85, 87,91,94,158 <::i:imez, Turhan, 94 Dagl, ihsan, 151 Davos, World Economic Forum, January 2004,123 Davutoglu, Ahmet, 120, 145 De Villepin, Dominique 126 Death penalty, abolished, 55 Defence Ministry, position of, 88,97 . DEHAP (Demokratik Halk Partisi): see Democratic People's Party Demirel, Siileyman, xix-xx, 3, 63, 69: see also Justice Party, True Path Party Democracy Party (Demokrasi Partisi: DEP) 14 Democrat Party (Demokrat Parti: DP) (1945-60)xvli-xix,22,25,27 Democrat Party (Demokrat Parti: DP) (since 2007: successor to True Path Party, q.v.) 43, 51 Democratic Left Party (Demokratik Sol Partisi, DSP) 14,37,65, 129: see also Ecevit, Biilent Democratic People's Party (Demokratik Halk Partisi: DEHAP) 14 Democratic Society Party (Demokratik Toplum Partisi: DTP) 14,40,41,65, 74, 77 Democratisation in middle east, xii-xvi, 143-4 Democratising reforms, in Turkey, 55-62: AKP losing enthusiasm for reform, 67, 147 Denktash, Rauf, 83, 122-4, 128 Denktash, Serdar, 123-4 DEP (Demokrasi Partisi): see Democracy Party Dervi§, Kemal, 102 Dl§bank,104 Dink, Hrant, 94, 126 Disraeli, Benjamin, 153 Diya1tet j§leri Ba§ka1tI'g' (DiB): see Presidency of Religious Affairs Diyarbaktr, 87, 95 Dogan, izzettin, 78 Dolmabah~e Palace meeting (4 May 2007)92 DP (Demokrat Parti) (1945-60): see Democrat Party

DSP (Demokratik Sol Partisi): see Democratic Left Party DTP (Demokratik Toplum Partisi): see Democratic Society Party Duverger, Maurice, 17,46 DYP (Dogru Yol Partisi): see True Path Party Ecevit, Biilent, 3, 100, 101, 106, 120, 129,138,142 Economic policies: of Islamist parties, 8, 100: of AKP, 99-118 Economy, effect on voting trends, 99, 100: 'stop-go cycles', 101: crash of 2001, 101-2: exchange rates, 101, 104,113,116: government debt, 101, 108: Gross Domestic Product (GDP) 101, 106-7, 115: per capita GDP, 106-7: income distribution, 107, 118: welfare services, 107, 118: inflation, 101, 103, 108: fiscal balance, 108-9, 117: unemployment, 101-2,110: interest rates, 102: dependence on USA, 102: structural reforms, 102-5: Banking Law (2005) 103: social security reforms, 103, 117-8: privatisation, 104-5: tax reform, 104, 109-10: new labour law, 117: foreign trade and balance of payments, 110-14: tourism, 112: foreign direct investment, 112-3: effects of customs union agreement with EU, 113: overall performance of AKP governments, 115, 118, ISO: effects of world economic crisis, 2008-9, 115-6, 150: and 'Washington consensus', 118: and Iraq crisis (2003) 131-2: see also International Monetary Fund,Banks Egypt, Islamist movements, xiii-xv Elections, see General elections Emre, Siileyman Arif, 3 Erbakan, Necmettin, xx, 3-4, 6-7,15, 17,18,19,27,81,121,151,157: see also National Order Party, National Salvation Party, Welfare Party, Virtue Party, 'National Outlook' Erdemir (steel company) privatisation, 105 Erdogan, Emine, 85 Erdogan, Recep Tayyip: in Welfare Party, 8-9: conviction in 1998,

208

Index

55: founds Justice and Development Party (2001) 5, 18-19: on secularism and religion, 22: on conservatism and 'conservative democracy', 24-5: in election campaigns, 52: and proposed new constitution, 66: and imamHatip schools, 69: and attempted re-criminalisation of adultery, 70-71: and headscarves issue, 72, 85: and Kurdish question, 76-7,87: and Alevis, 78: and military, 81, 85, 90, 92, 96: as foreign policy actor, 121-2,123,130,132,135,137,139, 141,144,147: meetings with George W.Bush, 121, 130, 135, 145: criticisms and assessments of, 149 'Ergenekon' investigations and trial: 82,87,89,94-5 Ers6z, Brigadier Levent, 94 Eruygur, General ~ener, 82-3, 88-9, 91,94 Esmer, YI1maz, 35 Etibank, 104 EU: see European Union, European Council Euphrates waters question, 142 'Eurasian option', 138 European Commission, 57, 60: 'Negotiating Framework for Turkey', 125: see also European Union European Committee for the Prevention of Torture, 60 European Community (later European Union) xx European Convention of Human Rights, 23, 56, 61, 63: and proposed new constitution, 66 European Council, 88: Helsinki mee~ing, December 1999, 57,123: Copenhagen meeting, December 2002,121-2: Brussels meeting, December 2004, 124-6: Brussels meeting December 2006, 127: Brussels meeting, December 2007, 127 European Court of Human Rights,.23, 56,60,61,75,125-6 European Union (EU) xx, 6, 10, 15, 36, 55,57, 145, 147: policy towards Turkey, 2002-8, 121-8, 157-8: public support for Turkish accession, 125: and political reform in Turkey, 67,122,126,128: and attempted re-criminalisation of adultery, 71:

and 'e-memorandum' (27 April 2007) 91: and Turkey's foreign trade, 113: and Cyprus problem, 121-8: see also European Council Evren, General Kenan (later President) xxi,71 Ezall (Muslim call to prayer) xviii Fallujah, 133 Felicity Party (Saadet Partisi, SP) 5, 11, 19,37 Fethullah Giilen: see Giilen, Fethullah Flrtma, General ibrahim, 88-9 Finansbank,104 Flori, Jean Christophe, 71 Foreign policy and relations: effects of end of cold war, 119: AKP's foreign policy doctrine, 120-1, 145-7: relations with EU, 121-8: Cyprus problem, 122-5, 127-8, 150: relations with USA and Iraq, 128-36, 150: relations with Russia, 136-8: relations with Transcaucasian republics, 138-9: relations with Iran, 139-41: relations with Syria, 142: relations with Israel and Palestinians, 142-3:· other foreign policy issues, 143-4: assessments and expectations, 144-7. Fortis (bank) 104 FP (Fazilet Partisi): see Virtue Party France, policy towards Turkey, 122, 125,126,127,145 Fukuyama, Francis, 120 Garanti Bankasl, 104 Gaza strip, 142 Gaziosmanpa~a (Istanbul district): AKP's local organisation, 49-51 General elections: 5, 40 General Electric Company, 104 Geographical voting patterns, 11-13, 17-18,42 Georgia, 137-8, 145, 146, 147 Germany, Turkey'S trade with, 113: policy towards Turkey, 122, 145: attitude of CDU-CSU, 122, 126 Gl6balisation, 13,28,100: and anti-globalists, 36 Golan heights, 143, 146 G6ksel, Nigar, 146 G6rmu~, Alper, 89 . Greece, policy towards Turkey, 124-5, 145

Index 209 Giil, Abdullah: challenges Recai Kutan for leadership of Virtue Party (2001) 5, 19: elected President, August 2007: 41, 65, 155: and attempted re-criminalisation of adultery, 70-71: and 'e-memorandum' (27 April 2007) 92: on role of military, 97: foreign policy, 129-3Q, 137, 140, 142-3 Giilen, Fethullah, 15 Giinay, Ertugrul, 43 Giiven, General iIker, 94 HADEP (Halkm Demokrasi Partisi): see People's Democracy Party Hak-i~ labour confederation, 16 Hamas, xiii, 142-3, 148, 150 'Harmonisation packages', 57-62, 86, 87,122 Headscarves issue, xxi, 34, 41, 126, 156: in 1988-9, 71-2: in 2008, 72-4: and the military, 85,90-91 Hezbbollah (Lebanon) xiii Hefner, Robert, xv Helsinki, European Council meeting, December 1999, 57, 119, 123 HEP (Halkm Emek Partisi): see People's Labour Party Heper, Metin, 95-6 Human rights, in Turkey, 55-61: freedom of expression, 58: freedom of the press, 58-9: freedom of association, 59: freedom of assembly, 59-60: freedom of religion, 60: prevention of torture, 60: minority rights, 60: and proposed new constitution, 66 Huntington, Samuel P., xi, 120,144 Ijtihad (interpretation of Islamic law) xiv IMF, see International Monetary Fund Independent Industrialists and Businessmen's Association (MOSiAD) 16 . International agreements, and domestic . law in Turkey, 56, 61 International Criminal Court, 56, 147 International Monetary Fund (IMF) 100-05,108-9,115 Iran, xiii-xv, 137, 139-41, 146 Iraq: Gulf War of 1991, xx: of 2003, 84, 130-3: aftermath, 133-6, 145: and Iran, 141 Iraqi Provisional Governing Council, 133

Iraqi Turcoman Front, 134 Ireland, ban on abortions, 71 Islam and nationalism in Turkey, 75: see also 'Turkish-Islamic synthesis' Islam and politics, in general, xii-xvi: in Turkey, in general, xvi-xxi: social basis, 30-3: public attitudes, 38-9: see also 'National Outlook', 'TurkishIslamic synthesis', National Order Party, National Salvation Party, Welfare Party, Virtue Party, Felicity Party, Justice and Development Party . Islam in Turkey: social surveys: 30-3 'Islamic bourgeoisie', 28, 34 Islamist intellectuals, 28 Israel, 6, 142-3, 146, 147 i~li, Hiiseyin Tayfun, 65 ihsanoglu, Ekmeleddin, 143 ima·m-Hatip schools, xviii, xx, xxi, 68-70: access of graduates to higher education, 69-70, 149: and military, 85-6 imar Bank, 104 incirlik air base, 133 iskenderpa~a community, 3,15,16

Jenkins, Gareth, 90, 97, 98, 152 ]iTEM (Gendarmerie Intell~gence and. Counter-terrorism Service) 94 'July 4 incident' (Iraq, 2003) 133 'Just Order' (Adil Diizen) 8 Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkmma Partisi: AKP): foundation of (2001) 5, 19: wins 2002 elections, 5: wins 2007 elections, 40: and shari'a, xvi, 29: ideology, 20-9: 'Development and Democracy Programme', 21: on human rights: 21: on secularism and religion, 21-2, 26,29, 51: on constitution, 22-3: on economy, 23: on foreign policy, 23-4, 27-8; on 'conservative democracy', 24-5,29: and other Turkish centreright parties, 25, 27, 29, 36-9, 50:· vagueness of ideology, 26-7, 29: social basis, 28, 33-4, 36-9,41-3: electoral support base, 41-3,152: and centre-periphery cleavage, 33-4: and European Union, 36: and re-criminalisation of adultery, 38,149: party organisation, 43-52:

210

Index

central decision-making bodies, 45-6: at local level, 46, 49-51: organisational culture, 46-7: membership base, 47, 49: political education, 48-9,50: social welfare activities, 50, 118: competitive strategy, 51-2: women activists, 51: losing appetite for reforms, 67: cultural policies, 68-79: and imam-Hatip schools, 68-70,149: and headscarves issue, 71-4,149-50: closure case, 74-5: and Kurdish question, 76-7, 87, 150: and Alevis, 78-9, 150: and military, 80-98: economic policies and performance, 99-118: foreign policy and performance, 119-47: criticisms and assessments of policies and performance, 148-51, 155-8: compared with Islamist parties, 151-2: compared with other conservative parties, 152-3: compared with Christian Democrat parties, 153-5 Justice Party (Adalet Partisi, AP) xix-xx,3,15,22,25,27 Ka~ar, Kemal 15 KalayclOglu, Ersin, 157-8 Kedourie, Elie, xii Kemal, Nanuk: see Namlk Kemal Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruhollah, xiii, 140 Krlm~, General Tuncer, 82, 86, 138 KrvnkogIu, General Hiiseyin, 138 Kirkuk, 134, 136 Kocharian, Robert, 139 Kotku, Mehmet Zahit, 3 Kurdish question, 75-7, 150, 157: Kurdish identity parties, 14: Kurdish language, 60, 77, 86, 92, 128, 156: and military, 86-7, 92: economic aspects, 117: see also Democratic Society Party Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq, 90, 132, 134 Kurdistan Workers' Party, see PKK Kurds in Iraq, 90, 132, 134, 136, 147._ Kutan, Recai, 5, 19, 27 . Kutluer, Mehmet, 15 Kuzu, Burhan, 71 Kii~iik, General Veli, 94

Law for the Struggle against Terrorism, 58,86 Law on Associations (2004): 59

Lebanon, 143 Left-right divide, and voting behavior in Turkey, 35 Mardin, ~erif, xviii, 33 Mashaal, Khaled, 142-3, 147 Media, and Iraq, 133-4 'Medina Covenant', 8 Menderes, Adnan, xvii, xix Merkel, Angela, 67,122,126,157 Mersin, port, 133 Metal Storm (novel) 133 MHP (Milliyetfi Hareket Partisi) see Nationalist Action Party Middle East, Turkey's trade with, 114: Turkish policy towards, 131: see also Iraq, Israel, Palestinians, Syria Military Criminal Code, 62 Military in politics, 80-98: coup d'etat of 1960, xix, 81: 'coup by memorandum' of 1971, xix, 3, 81: coup d'etat of 1980, xx, 81: '28 February process' (1996) 4, 10,27,28,69, 81, 98: and presidential election, 2007, 39-40, 90-92: and constitutional amendments, 56-7, 61, 87-8: and proposed new constitution, 66, 92: and imam-Hatip schools, 70: and Kurdish question, 77, 86-7, 95: and Cyprus problem, 83-4: and invasion of Iraq, 2003, 84: and headscarves issue, 85, 93: and EU, 86, 88, 97: alleged coup plots, 88-9,93: and Iraqi Kurds, 90: and United States, 84,90,95: 'e-memorandum' (27 April 2007) 91: and closure case against AKP, 93-4, 96: and media, 95: and Iraq, 130-3, 135-6: and Israel, 142: see also National Security Council Milli Goru§: see 'National Outlook' MNP (Milli Nizam Partisi) see National Order Party 'Moonlight' (AYI.ggl) alleged coup plot, 89,93 Motherland Party (AlIavatall Partisi: ANAP) xx-xxi, 14, 15, 16,22,25, 34,37,43,47,51,71-2,91,114 MP (Millet Partisi) see Nation Party MSP: see National Salvation Party Muhammad Asad: see Asad, Muhammad Mujahiddill-i Khalq, 140 Mumcu, Erkan, 71 Muslim Brotherhood (Egypt, Jordan) xv

Index 211 MUSiAD (Independent Industrialists and Bussinessmen's Association) 16,28 Nabucco pipeline project, 141 Nagorno-Karabagh, 138-9, 146 Nak~ibendi order, 3,12,15,16 Namlk Kemal, XlV Nation Party (Millet Partisi, MP) xix National Bank of Greece, 104 National Order Party (Milli Nizam Partisi, MNP) 3, 13, 16 'National Outlook' "ideology (Milli GorU§) 5-10

'National Salvation Party' (Milli Selamet Partisi: MSP) xv, xx, xxi, 3-4,8,25: mass support base, 11-13 National Security Council (NSC), 81, 82,101: as government of Turkey, 1980-83, 4, 62: reforms in role and membership of, 61, 87, 97: and Court of Accounts, 61: and Kurdish question, 77, 86: and invasion of Iraq, 2003, 84,131: and Cyprus, 123 Nationalism and Islam in Turkey, 75: see also 'Turkish-Islamic synthesis' Nationalist Action Party (Milliyetfi Hareket Partisi, MHP) 3,14,34, 35,37,41,64-5: and headscarves issue, 71-2: and closure case against AKP (2008) 74: on Kurdish broadcasting, 77 Nationalist Front government (1975) 3 NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) i, 6, 15, 129, 138, 140 Natural gas and oil pipelines, 137, 139, 141 'Neo-orientalists', xiii Nokta (magazine) 88-9 Non-govermental organisations (NGOs) 59 Nuclear weapons, Iran, 140-1 Nurcu order, 3, 12, 15 Obama, Barack, 135,147 Oil pipelines: see Natural gas and oil pipelines Olson, Robert, 77 Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) 15,143,145 Ottoman Empire, and AKP's identity, 152 Ocalan, Abdullah, 142, 146 (see also PKK)

Oni~, Ziya: 28, 36, 101 Ornek, Admiral Ozden, 88-9, 96 Oz, Zekeriya, 89 Ozal, Korkut, xxi Ozal, Turgut, xx-xxi, 28, 37, 63, 81,120: see also Motherland Party Ozdalga, Haluk, 158 Ozkok, General Hilmi, 82-4, 86, 87, 88,95-6,123,133 Ozyiirek, Mustafa, 91

Paksiit, Osman, 93 Palestinians, 142-3 Pamuk, Orhan, 126 Papadopoulos, Tassos, 123-4, 127, 128 Peel, Robert, 153 PEJAK (Free Life Party of Kurdistan) 141 Pelosi, Nancy, 135 Penal Code : see Criminal Code People's Democracy Party (Halkm Demokrasi Partisi: HADEP) 14 People's Labour Party (Halkm Emek Partisi: HEP) 14 Peres, Shimon, 143 Petkim (petro-chemicals company) privatisation, 105 Petrol-i~ (labour union) 105 Pipes, Daniel, xiii, 149, 150 PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) 86-7, 90: in Iraq, 134-6, 145: and Iran, 140-1: and Syria, 142 PLO (Palestine Liberation Organisation) 142 Political Parties Law (1983): Articles 86-7, xvii: new law, proposals, 23: and party organisation, 44-5: and proposed new constitution, 66 Pollock, Robert J., 133 Powell, Colin, 130, 132 Presidency of Religious Mfairs (Diya/Zet i§leri Ba!jkanltgl: DiB) xvii, 79 Presidency: crisis over (2007) 39-40, 63-5,90-91, 155: and proposed new constitution, 66 President of Republic, constitutional amendments, 63: and proposed new constitution, 66 'Privileged partnership', 122 Progressive Party of Working People (Cyprus): see AKEL Public opinion: on EU, 125: on US attack on Iraq, 129: on Armenia-

212

Index

Azerbaijan, 139: see also Justice and Development Parry, Welfare Parry Purin, Vladimir, 136, 137 Ralston, General Joseph, 134 Ramadan, Taha Hassan, 131 Rashid Rida, xiv Reagan, Ronald, xx, 153 'Refahyol' government (1996-7) 81: comparison with AKP, 98: see also National Salvation Parry, True Path Parry Referendum on constitutional amendments, October 2007,65: referendums in Cyprus, April 2004, 124 Regional voting patterns in Turkey, 12-13 Rehn, OlIi, 91, 126, 127, 128, 157 Religious education, xviii, xx, xxi: and proposed new constitution, 66: and Alevis, 79: see also imam-Hatip schools Republican Nation Parry (Cumhuriyet Millet Partisi, CMP) xix Republican People's Parry (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi: CHP) xviii, 3,14,22, 25,33,34,35,36,39,41-3,55,63: and headscarves issue, 71-2: on Kurdish broadcasting, 77: and Alevis, 78: and 'e-memorandum' (27 April 2007) 91: on Iraq war, 129 Republican Reliance Parry (Cumhuriyetfi GuvelZ Partisi, CGP)"3 Republican Turkish Parry (Cumhuriyetfi Turk Partisi, CTP) (in lRNC) 123 Rice, Condoleezza, 91 RP: see Welfare Parry RTOK, see Supreme Board of Radio and Television Rubin, Barry, 153-4 Rumsfeld, Donald, 130, 133 Russia, Turkey's trade with, 113-4, 137: policy towards Turkey, 124, 136-8,145,146,147 Sabri, Naji, 131 Saddam Hussein, 129, 131 Samsun,137 Saru~lk, General Siikrii, 82 Sankaya, Ferhat, 87 Sarkisian, Serzh, 139 Sarkozy, Nicolas, 67, 127, 157 Saudi Arabia, xiii-xv

Savings Deposit Insurance Fund (SDIF) 104 Schools for Chaplains and Preachers (imam-Hatip Okullarl): see imamHatip schools Schiissel, Wolfgang, 122, 125 September 11 terrorist attacks (2001) 129 Serdenge~ti, Siireyya, 103 Sezer, AhmetNecdet, President, 34,40, 63,69-70,85,86,90,101,103,123, 130, 138, 142 Shah Deniz, gas pipeline, 139 Shari'a (Islamic law) xiii-xiv, 9: and AKP, xvi: attitudes to, in Turkey, 31-2 SHP/SDHP (Sosyaldemokrat Halkfl Parti) see Social Democrat Populist Parry Shura (consultation) xiv-xv Social Democrat Parry of Germany (SPD) 126 Social Democrat Populist Parry (Sosyaldemokrat Halkfl Parti, SHP/SDHP) 72 Social welfare services, 18,50 Socio-economic class, and voting behaviour in Turkey, 34-6, 38,42-3 Solana, Javier, 141 Soroush, Abdul Karim, xv-xvi South Pars gas field (Iran) 141 Southern Anatolia Project (GAP) 117 SP (Saadet Partisi): see Felicity Parry State Security Courts, 56 'Strategic depth' doctrine of Turkish foreign policy, 120-1 Sudan, 147 Supreme Board of Radio and Television (RTiiK) 77 Siileymancl religious order: 15-16 Syria, 134, 142-3, 145-6 Safak, Elif, 126 Sabin, Leyla, 126 Semdinli affair, 87, 95 $eyh ul-islam (in Ottoman Empire) xvii Talabani, Jelal, 136 Talat, Mehmet Ali, 83, 123, 128 Taqfir w'aI Hijra ('Denunciation and Emigration') xiii Taraf newspaper, 93 Tarikats (religious brotherhoods) xvii, 3,15

Index 213 Tekdal, Ahmet, 4 Tekin, Captain Muzaffer, 94 Tezkere (parliamentary resolution to allow Turkish participation in Gulf war, 2003) 131-2 Thatcher, Margaret, xx, 153 The Economist (London, weekly) 92 The Hague, talks on Cyprus (2003) 123 Tibi, Bassam, xv, 148-9, 150 Ticani religious order, xix Tolon, General Hur~it, 82-3, 89, 94 Toprak, Binnaz, 21,36 Toptan, Koksal, 71 Torture and mistreatment, 60 TPAO (Turkish state petroleum corporation) 141 Trade unions: and Islamist parties: 16 TRNC, see Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus TRT, see Turkish Radio and Television Corporation True Path Party (Dogru Yol Partisi, DYP) 4, 14, 15,22,25, 34, 37,43, 71,91 Tum;, Hakan, 101 Turcomans, in Iraq, 134 'Turkey-African Cooperation Summit' (2008) 144, 147 Turkish Industrialists and Businessmen's Association (rusiAD) 71 Turkish nationalism, and Islamism: 6-7: see also 'Turkish-Islamic Synthesis' Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT) 77 Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) 83, 122-5, 127-8 Turkish Special Forces (in Iraq) 133 'Turkish-Islamic Synthesis' (Turk-islam Sentezi) xx, xxi, 152 Turkmenistan, 141 Tiipra~ (refinery company) privatisation, 105 Tiirk Telekom, privatisation, 105 Turk-islam SelZtezi: see 'Turkish-Islamic Synthesis' ruSES (Turkish Foundation for Social, Economic and Political Research) 31 rusiAD, see Turkish Industrialists and Businessmen's Association Tiizmen, Kur~ad, 131

Ukraine, 138 Union of Bar Associations, constitutional proposals, 67 United Nations (UN) 15: and Cyprus problem, 83-4, 122-4, 138: and Iraq, 130-1: and Iran, nuclear weapons, 140-1: and Arab-Israeli conflict, 142: 'Alliance of Civilisations', 144: Turkey as non-permanent member of Security Council, 144 United States, and Iraq, 84, 128-36, 145 United States, policies towards Turkey, 128-36, 145: see also Bush, GeorgeW. Unity of Education Law (1924) 69-70 Universities: and headscarves issue, xxi: and imam-Hatip schools, 68-70 Uzan family, 104 Umraniye (Istanbul district) 17, 94 Valley of the Wolves (film) 133 Van, 87,95 Vatikiotis, P.J., xiii Venice Commission, 23, 75 'Venice criteria', 158 Verheugen, Giinther, 71, 122,124 Virtue Party (Fazilet Partisi, FP) 5, 10-11, 14, 19,27,35,36: closure by Constitutional Court, 2001, 11, 19, 27,31,50 Wall Street ]ouma/, 133 Welfare Party (Refah Partisi: RP) xv, 4, 25,50,152: in government, 1995-6,4-5: closure by Consti~u­ tional Court, 1998,4, 10,27,31: ideology and policies, 5-10: mass support base, 13-16, 17-18 : organisation, 16-18,46: welfare services, 18: and Kurdish question, 75-6: foreign policy, 121 White, Jenny, 17 Wolfowitz, Paul, 84, 130, 132 Women, in Welfare Party, 17: in AKP, 51: and civil rights, 62: attempted re-criminalisation of adultery, 70-71

Yal"mbaYII, Ertugrul, 130 Yalman, General Ayta", 82, 83, 86, 88-9,123

214

Index

Yavuz,tiakan,9, 10,28 Yetkin, Murat, 93-4 Ylldlflm, Captain Muzaffer, 89 Yilmaz, Durmu~, 103

Ylimaz, Mesut, xxi Zapatero, Jose Luis Rodriguez, 144 Zengin, Bahri, 11