Turkey between tutelary democracy and electoral authoritarianism

Sözen, Yunus (2008), Private View, No:13, pp.78-84 Turkey between Tutelary Democracy and Electoral Authoritarianism Abstract: In this paper, I claim that Turkey is moving out of its tutelary democratic regime and is moving towards a populist competitive authoritarian regime. A tutelary regime is a form of defective democracy that aims to normalize a certain level of non-elected supervision (by the military, the high courts, etc.) over the elected representatives. Turkey is transiting out of this tutelary system, but rather than transiting into a consolidated democracy as many expected, the move is towards electoral/competitive authoritarianism: a regime that advocates democracy and competitive elections, but practices populist majoritarianism and treats elections as mere confirmations of the government's rule. Introduction Since the constitutional crisis over the election of the president in 2007, Turkish politics has gone through tumultuous times characterized by a power struggle between two competing ideologies, Kemalism and the Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) neoconservative populism. At every important juncture (the new constitution, the AKP’s closure case, headscarf legislation, etc.) the forces that follow these ideologies lined up in a similar fashion. As a result of these battles, Turkey is clearly moving out of its tutelary democratic system, a form of defective democracy that aims to normalize a certain level of non-elected supervision (by the military, the high courts, etc.) over the elected representatives. But rather than transiting into a consolidated democracy as many expected, the move seems to be towards a new system under the AKP rule, which I term ‘electoral authoritarianism’i: a regime that advocates democracy and competitive elections, but practices populist majoritarianism and treats elections as mere confirmations of the government’s rule. Significantly, this move would not be possible if there were not a Kemalist defense of the tutelary supervision, because such a defense opened the way for the AKP to deepen its authoritarian-leaning populist rhetoric, while appearing democratic. Kemalism and Tutelary Democracy Aspects of the Kemalist ideology provide the political vision of many of the oppositional groups in contemporary Turkey, and it is through this understanding that they form their political strategies. Kemalism, as articulated by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, professed that for Turkey’s political survival as an independent country, Turkish society needed to be transformed into a homogeneous and civilized country. Homogeneity meant a nation without social conflicts and political pluralism, instantiated in the ideal of ‘a fused society without classes or privileges’, underwritten by the principles of halkçılık (popularism), nationalism, and 1 secularism. Civilization was conceived as becoming European in all social and political facets, exemplified in common Kemalist rhetoric as ‘the attainment of the level of contemporary civilization’, or ‘either civilization or utter destruction’. This goal also constitutes the basis of Kemalism’s principles of secularism and republicanism. What does this mean in terms of the relationship between Kemalism and democracy, and the behavior of many important political actors today? During the Inter-War period when Europe included non-democratic regimes, single-party rule in Turkey did not violate the civilizationism principle. During the Cold War period, the definitional requirements for being considered democratic were less strict than today, and this gave Kemalists enough freedom to reconcile their goal of civilizationism with their ideal of a homogeneous Turkish society. This was done by incorporating certain institutions of democracy like competitive elections, while excluding many of the associated liberal rights and without insulating politics from tutelary supervision. However, especially after the Cold War, the idea of being civilized in political regime terms consolidated into the requirements for membership in the European Union (EU). It necessitated not only competitive elections but also the inclusion of liberal/group rights and eradicating the supervision of the non-elected. Thus, Kemalism’s denial of pluralism and political liberalism, and its ideal of the state-induced transformation of society, started to conflict directly with its civilizationist aims. This has forced present day Kemalists to confront this tension. Some Kemalists have remained hesitant to make a decision, oscillating between positions, trying to reconcile the irreconcilable: between maintaining aspects of tutelary democracy, while not giving up the ideal of being part of the civilized world (the EU). In other words, these hesitant Kemalists are not entirely excluding military or juridical influence into democratic politics but they try to maintain the ideal of a liberal democracy. Others, under the banner of neo-nationalism (ulusalcilik) chose to openly support tutelary democracy or more direct versions of military or juridical intervention. Neo-Conservative Populism, Political Islam and the AKP Kemalist ideology’s aim to radically transform the society into a homogenous and civilized society inadvertently opened up the space for a reaction in the form of a conservative populism. Populist political movements, conservative or not, generally claim to represent selected contemporary values of the people and appeal to the people against established political power. Populism’s vision of democracy prioritizes popular will or national sovereignty (halkın iradesi or milli irade) over the rights of the individual; it privileges majoritarianism and direct political participation (e.g., plebiscites, referenda) over the checks and balances 2 of liberal politics or calls for a direct relationship between the leader and the people. Also, populism’s rhetoric ‘of/for the people’ is always concretized by exclusionary categories, such as labeling opposition groups as ‘the enemy of the people’, elites, the oligarchy, or the anti-people depending on the national context. Populism thus creates a challenging political environment for the opposition as well as for the maintenance of individual liberties and collective rights and therefore, for modern liberal constitutional democracy. Kemalism was progressive and sought a socio-cultural transformation; therefore, a conservative and populist discursive space was opened for oppositional acquisition. This space is first filled by the Democrat Party (DP) in the 1950’s. DP’s ideology cherished the contemporary values of the people, including a whole set of non-egalitarian ones, and gave up the idea of cultural transformation. This conservative populism survived as one of the main ideologies of the country in different forms and under different party names of the central right. The AKP is yet another representative of this ideology but with an important distinction from this tradition: the AKP has its roots in the Islamic political movement of Turkey (the National Outlook Movement – NOM). As such, it constitutes a particularly problematic version of populism for democracy. However, the problem is not the oftenstated Kemalist concern about the sincerity of the AKP’s break from its NOM roots, which emphasizes the problematic relationship of political Islam and democracy. Rather, the problem is how this unique combination strengthens the authoritarian leanings inherent in all populisms. Since the 1950’s Turkey was ruled almost exclusively by market-oriented conservative governments, but these were only against the project of cultural modernization. The AKP on the other hand, combines market-orientation with a project of creating a more conservative society (neo-conservative project). Hence just like the Kemalists, AKP elites are social engineers. In other words, unlike traditional conservatives, the neo-conservative populists’ claim to represent the contemporary values of the people includes constructing a set of values as the dominant values of the people -- mostly those coming from Islamic sensitivities -- and then promoting the policy connotations of these values as the will of the majority/people. Therefore, neo-conservative ideology provides the substance to AKP’s populism. Another contribution of the AKP’s Political Islamic roots to the virulence of its populism is that unlike its conservative precursors, it has a tradition of forming political ideas from the vantage point of ‘the repressed people’. The Islamic movement participated in multiple governments in the 1970s, and benefited from the ideological aura of the post-1980 military regime; however, it remained a peripheral element in the political elite and was at odds with the formative principles of the Republic (although not with the actual conservative rulers). Additionally, in the later half of the 1990’s when they ascended to power, they 3 faced a strong tutelary reaction. These factors allowed them to conceptualize themselves as outsiders, and the political context as exclusionary. As a result, once in power the AKP could comfortably advance its majoritarianism into a more forceful populist claim of representing the ‘oppressed majority’ that earlier conservative populist parties could not. Finally, because of their recent problematic relationship with the establishment that reacted against their political Islamic roots, they showed an initial intention to get rid of the tutelary supervision and in this way they secured the support of some of the politically liberal intellectuals. This support, in turn, provided them with legitimacy in extending their power, as well as immunity from standard liberal criticisms against populist politics. Another feature of this neo-conservative populism is its uncanny ability to sustain its claim of representing the downtrodden given its strong market-orientation. This is done not only ideologically, but also by building privatized economic relations with the lower classes – through a web of personalized state and Islamic charity aid as opposed to universal, citizenship and rights-based welfare programs. In fact, we can trace the AKP’s current hegemony to the initiation of these privatized economic dependency relations at the local level. Later on, these relationships were bolstered with public funds, first through the municipalities that they acquired in the 1990’s, and then through the national government (local state administrators). These relationships have been critical in the constitution of their hegemony because they provided the material base for the populist ideology. This means that in their fight against the opposition, the AKP formed an unusual coalition for a right-wing populist project with strong conservative and authoritarian undertones, including not only lower classes, but also more traditional conservative state and political elites, political Islamists, and a contingent of economic and political liberals. Power Struggles Between Two Visions Since the failed presidential election of April 2007, Turkish politics has become an arena where these two political visions have clashed, resulting in a clear movement from tutelary democracy to populist competitive authoritarianism. This does not mean that the Kemalist opposition has lost every battle. However, even the AKP’s losses provided the party with additional ideological tools to believably present its authoritarian-leaning populism as democratic. A number of key issues have figured in this process. The presidency, a post of symbolic importance under parliamentary systems, was transformed into a significant institution with the 1982 constitution. In 2007, the AKP decided to nominate one of its core members with political Islam roots, Abdullah Gül. This triggered a number of strategic extra-democratic reactions from the opposition, including an e-memorandum (electronic posting) by the military, and the highly controversial 4 decision by the constitutional court barring the AKP from electing Gül as president and forcing early elections. Equally important was that these extra-democratic impediments provided reinforcement to AKP rule. The AKP used this tutelary strike to enlarge its populist rhetoric, arguing that this was ‘the tyranny of the minority over the majority’, blocking the possibility of electing a president in Turkey (a statement of dubious factuality) and further, that the key to resolving this conundrum belongs to the people, as in ‘God willing, the president of the republic one day will be chosen by the public’. Thus, the AKP once again could present its populism as democratic and strengthen its liberal support. Additionally, the ideological environment made it very difficult to argue against the AKP’s choice (or its timing, in a tired parliament at the end of its term), because this meant risking being labeled as not only a laicist (laikci) elite, but also as against the ‘first religious president of Turkey’, the people’s will, and democracy. After a politically intense summer, the AKP came out victorious in the general elections. In his electoral victory speech, Erdogan seemed to embrace all the citizens not just ‘the people’ of his populist ideology. With the participation of the Nationalist Action Party (MHP) in the parliamentary meetings, Abdullah Gül was elected president on August 28th. This was followed by a referendum to determine the election method for subsequent presidents, a remnant of the pre-election clash. In another victory for the AKP, the people decided that presidents should be popularly elected, rather than by the parliament. Overall, these developments gave the appearance that the polarization between Kemalists and neoconservative populists was subsiding. In the meantime, draft preparations for a new AKP-induced constitution picked up speed. According to its proponents, this would be a civil and democratic constitution that would enlarge the scope of individual and collective freedoms, and would also remove the tutelary supervision over elected representatives. A committee of liberal and conservative academics prepared the original draft. These were critical of the military and judicial intervention into the democratic process, and sided with the AKP during the presidential election debacle. Despite the problems associated with the constitution-making process, strong neo-nationalist opposition and neo-conservative modifications proposed by some members of the AKP, a new constitution would have helped the democratic process. It would have contributed only to the destructive phase of the tutelary regime, and not to the constructive phase of the AKP’s electoral authoritarianism. As such, by providing a more democratic framework it would become an avenue of democratic habituation for political actors in resolving their conflicts. However, in early 2008, the AKP aborted the new civil constitution during the headscarf debate. Given the AKP’s neo-conservative populism, this move can be interpreted as the second of two routes to eradicating tutelary supervision over its own rule. The first would be dismantling the constitutional status of tutelary supervision 5 and instituting freedoms for everyone; the second is to conquer the institutions that sustain the tutelary supervision. The headscarf issue not only led the AKP to abandon the new constitution, but it again polarized the country along the same ideological lines. Kemalism often argued that the Turkish people’s uncivilized (non-Western) appearance prevents them from revealing their civilized core. As a result, Kemalist social engineering focused on transforming the way Turkish people look (particularly the women). However social intrusion led to another appearance-oriented oppositional religious reaction. Thus the headscarf became a symbol through which different Turkish visions intensely clash. When the MHP proposed to lift the university ban on headscarves, the AKP had to accept it given its previous stance on the issue. However, the proposal led to serious opposition from the Kemalists. It also became apparent that easy avenues to a legal solution were blocked due to a number of high court decisions since the first ban was instituted in the mid-1980s. As a result, the AKP attempted to solve the problem with a constitutional change, which was subsequently taken to the constitutional court by the CHP where it was overturned on the basis of its violation of the secularism principle (June 2008). Once again Kemalist forces managed to obstruct the government, compensating for their sheer lack in voting numbers with their current positions in a few critical institutions. Nevertheless, this once again provided the AKP with ideological tools to deepen its populist hegemony. First, being frustrated by supervision once more gave the AKP a justification for conquering institutions (including universities, the higher education council and the judiciary), without fearing significant criticism for being undemocratic. Second, while it is almost impossible to legitimately reconcile the university headscarf ban with liberal democratic principles, the way public debates took place considerably narrowed the oppositional field. Suddenly, the only categories to make sense of this multifaceted issue became the ones that equated the AKP with freedoms, popular will, democracy, and the political embodiment of Turkish cultural values, while constructing opposition as the enemies of freedom, the people, and democracy as well as alienated from their own culture. Considering these political-ideological processes along with the neoconservative social engineering of the AKP, it is possible to argue that when AKP populism is unleashed on such a symbolically significant issue, it starts to create exclusionary social pressures on those who do not share the AKP’s values because they control a number of socio-political institutions (government, local authorities, bureaucracy, a significant proportion of media, religious communities, etc.). The headscarf issue became entangled with an even more aggressive move at the end of March 2008, when the Chief Prosecutor of the Republic demanded the closure of the AKP on the grounds of activities against the secular regime This was arguably the last strike of 6 the tutelary regime. However, this time, amid strong reactions from the EU and intensified populist charges against the judiciary, the constitutional court opted for what the media called ‘the middle road’: to punish the AKP without closing it down. While 10 out of 11 judges of the Court determined that the AKP is the focal point of activities against secularism, only 6 out of 11, one shy of the required supra-majority, decided in favor of closure. The decision was against the desires of the neo-nationalist faction of Kemalists who had given up the civilizationist ideal; however, it also demonstrated that many Kemalists were not ready to completely give up that ideal (EU). On the flip side, the AKP was again able to use this extra-democratic setback to more comfortably rule over Turkey, to deepen the opposition-averse ideological aura, and strengthen liberal support. Notably, in the last two issues the main actor of tutelary supervision was the judiciary rather than the usual suspect, the military. It appears that the top echelons of the military are moving away from neo-nationalism in the name of hesitant Kemalism, which aims not only at a homogeneous country but also a civilized one. Therefore, while the military is slowly retreating from daily politics and relaxing its tutelary supervision, it is carving out the Kurdish question as its exclusive jurisdiction. In this division of labor, in spite of the strong disincentive for hierarchical military intervention, the neo-nationalist sentiment remains widespread in the military establishment and still poses the threat of a non-hierarchical intervention. This is the context within which the Ergenekon trial is taking place. The Ergenekon investigation started with the discovery of ammunitions connected to a number of retired military personnel and neo-nationalists in June 2007. By the beginning of 2008, it had progressively enlarged to include a number of well-known neo-nationalist journalists, academics, civil society leaders, and retired military personnel accused of trying to overthrow the government. Differently to the previous public polarization along the lines of Kemalists versus neo-conservative populists, the Ergenekon case is situated right at the intersection of the interests of the top echelons of the military and the AKP, because it neutralizes neo-nationalist opposition for both. Also, the trial weakened the tutelary supervision over the AKP and lent its supporters new terms to label the opposition: Ergenekonists and juntaists. With the Ergenekon trials the authoritarian aspirations of neo-nationalists are neutralized, and over the last two years it became apparent that judicial tutelage could not sustain itself and that the army will not intervene. During these same processes, the AKP has created an enormous socio-political power, by not only helping create a friendly bourgeoisie, and a wide web of religious communities, but also in securing the compliance of almost all of the social, political and economic institutions. The long list includes not only the presidency, the parliament/cabinet, the municipalities, the Higher Education Council, most of the bureaucracy, and the ‘autonomous’ state institutions, but also a significant proportion of trade unions, institutions of education, and the media. 7 It was under these circumstances that in September 2008, Prime Minister Erdogan started a populist war against the media. This was done in response to the opposition media’s broadcast of the Deniz Feneri trial, a large charity with organic relations to the AKP involved in a corruption scheme in Germany. Erdogan’s rhetoric started by blackmailing the Doğan media group reporting on the trial, accusing it of resorting to extra-legal measures (being corrupt), and ended with an appeal to boycott Doğan newspapers. Keeping in mind that the government had already secured the support of most other media groups, some through highly suspicious means, this situation was alarmingly Putinesque. Throughout the quarrel, in addition to their aim of openly subjugating the oppositional media by accusing it of being corrupt (a standard populists-in-power strategy of opposition subjugation), Erdoğan and the AKP-friendly media used multiple populist strategies to further narrow down the oppositional field. First, they depicted the Doğan media as more powerful than the government by employing rhetorical tools that portray the AKP as ‘the representative of the oppressed majority’, or ‘a pariah in its own country’. Hence, they represented the opposition media as all-powerful alienated secularist elites and therefore not credible. Second, they ideologically repositioned all the actors who are trying to expose the corruption as attacking Islamic conservative charity culture and as affluent laicists who are foreign to the values of the common people of Turkey. Therefore, the AKP exacerbates authoritarian tendencies that exist in all populisms. Like all populists, the AKP utilizes rhetorical tools that help it to use power without restraint (as in its claim that its actions represent the popular will) or to reconfigure politics in the ‘friends versus foe’ form in order to limit the legitimacy/space of oppositional politics. However, in the sphere of political domination, the AKP goes further, using these tools to advance its claims on all sources of power as its rightful domain – media, trade-unions, economic power etc. Conclusion The last two years of Turkish politics have been intense and transformative. There is a strong shift away from Turkey’s tutelary democracy. However, because Kemalists did not want to go without a fight, they inadvertently provided a fertile ground for the AKP’s neoconservative populism to become the hegemonic ideology which included: determining the terms of the political conflicts, narrowing down the oppositional space, as well as concentrating socio-political power in its own hands. Considering its ideology and its level of success at acquiring power, the AKP demonstrates significant differences from comparable contemporary populist movements. On the one hand, the AKP is a more authoritarian and all-encompassing version of the first world neo8 conservative populisms (as in American republicanism under G.W.Bush), on the other hand, it is a significantly more socially dominant (through its neo-conservatism and antiegalitarianism) version of the left-wing populisms of Latin America. Given the hegemony of this comparable but unique movement, Turkey is now on its way to institutionalizing electoral authoritarianism, and is even further from a consolidated democracy than it was 2 years ago. i Schedler, Andreas. 2002. The menu of manipulation. Journal of Democracy 13 (2): 36-50; Levitsky, Steven, and Lucan A. Way. 2002. The rise of competitive authoritarianism. Journal of Democracy 13 (2):51-65. 9 Cover Story 26-35 Übrahim KalÝn Turkey wants to pursue a multilateral foreign policy approach while attempting to become a regional player in the Middle East. In ÒTurkey and the Middle East: Ideology or Geo-Politics?Ó Übrahim KalÝn discusses TurkeyÕs foreign policy regarding the Middle East with an emphasis on the force of regional developments and in terms of continuities and changes between the 1990s and the AKP period. 38-45 Sedat Ergin Turkish-American relations faced one of their most serious crises when the Turkish Parliament voted down the governmentÕs motion to deploy American troops in Turkey and open a northern front. Sedat Ergin gives a blow-by-blow account of the 1st of March vote in 2003 and shows what went wrong in ÒThe perfect crisis revisitedÓ. 46-48 Mark R. Parris Steps must be taken to reconstruct Turkey-US relations that have deteriorated in numerous ways under the previous administration. In his ÒMemorandum to president-electÓ, Mark Parris delineates six points that the prospective US administration should keep in mind and act upon in order to revitalize bilateral relations. 50-53 Faruk LoÛoÛlu O. Faruk LoÛoÛlu addresses the president-elect in his open-letter entitled ÒWin Turkey as a Key PartnerÓ, highlighting the most significant issues that will certainly dominate Turkish-American relations and offers his recommendations on how the US should act to further consolidate this strategic tie. 54-60 Mehmet Ali TuÛtan The interests of Turkey and the US in the Black Sea and Transcaucasus can both overlap and diverge. In his article, ÒA Bridge Too FarÓ, Mehmet Ali TuÛtan examines how the regional bilateral cooperation evolved through the years, with an emphasis on political, economic, demographic, military and cultural dimensions of the regionÕs reality. 62-67 Hugh Pope The longstanding problem of Cyprus has reached a revolutionary momentum. In ÒRethinking CyprusÓ, Hugh Pope lays out the chronological phases of the dispute and looks at the chances for a settlement between the parties and warns all concerned about the consequences of failure. 68-71 BŸlent Aras It might be an exaggeration to regard the ÒfootballÓ summit as a historical turning point, yet it still has a symbolic significance for the normalization of relations between Turkey and Armenia. In his ÒBeyond Football DiplomacyÓ, BŸlent Aras argues that TurkeyÕs proactive foreign policy is essential for the creation of a new order in the Caucasus. 72-77 ‚aÛlar Keyder The financial globalization bubble has burst. Far-reaching changes in the policies of governments are expected. ‚aÛlar Keyder analyzes the economic policies in Turkey over the years and argues that enhanced state capacity for the management of the economy is a must, raising pointed questions for the government in his Òcrisis calls; competence neededÓ. 78-84 Yunus Muhsin Sšzen The last two years of Turkish politics under AKP have been transformative. The shift from Kemalist tutelary democracy to AKPÕs electoral authoritarianism and the power struggles between the two camps in Turkey is the subject of Yunus Muhsin SšzenÕs nuanced analysis of the trials and tribulations of Turkish democracy in the AKP era. Photo by Milliyet Photo by Milliyet Photo by Milliyet Photo by Milliyet Photo by Milliyet Photo by Milliyet Photo by Milliyet Photo by Milliyet ÒSurfing on rough watersÓ