BY MINA TOKSOZ
The government must form its own democratic model, balancing religion and secularism.
Situated
in one of the world’s most unstable strategic fault-lines, struggling with
decades-long Kurdish insurgency, and with an economy that has seen impressive
growth but is stuck in a middle-income trap, it is difficult to be optimistic
about democracy in Turkey. The wide popular opposition to the attempted July
coup raised hopes of a new national democratic consensus.
However, these hopes
were crushed by the witch-hunt atmosphere created by the extensive
arrests and purges extending
far beyond the mostly Gulenist coup perpetrators. Turkey appears to be moving
away from a European liberal democratic model. But before dismissing Turkish
democracy for “turning Asian” or “becoming Arab” etc, Western liberals should
try to understand the specific dynamics of Turkish democracy and resist making
judgments in terms of their approximation to Western models.
Where is the AKP taking Turkey? Since
coming to power and facing antagonism from the established Kemalist elite, the political
survival strategy of
the AKP aimed to take-over the Kemalist military-bureaucratic state apparatus.
This included reforms to bring the military under civilian control, which
corresponded to EU membership accession criteria. Supported widely, this has
been positive for Turkish democracy. Not so positive was the series of trials
over 2008 to 2011, known as Sledgehammer and Ergenekon, targeting top-level
military on trumped-up charges mostly engineered by the Gulenists.
Nevertheless, reforms rushed through parliament after the attempted July coup
in 2016 furthered civilian control over the military, creating a structure not
dissimilar to the British one.
In
contrast, the AKP’s attempts to wrest control
of the state bureaucracy
has been a major disaster as the AKP—lacking its own experienced cadre—turned
to the Gulenists for new bureaucratic recruits. The Gulenists’ bid for power
had become increasingly apparent, sharply surfacing in 2012 during the MIT
(Turkish Secret Service) crisis—and had broken down by 2013 when President
Erdogan was targeted with corruption allegations that brought the resignation of four ministers.
Today’s frantic purge of Gulenists is trying to undo in a few months what the
AKP instigated previously over the past decade. The question many Turks are
asking is, which other religious order will take the Gulenists’ place? Allowing
this parcelling out of ministries among religious orders and meddling with the
judiciary has fragmented and weakened the state. To compensate, the government
has become more authoritarian; Turkish democracy has paid the price.
The current obsession of the AKP is to
establish an executive presidency. This is awaiting constitutional reforms but
is already de-facto in place with the imposition of emergency rule. The
argument for an executive presidency is that it is a solution to the problems
of the Turkish parliamentary-bureaucratic model. Turkish parliament—Mejlis—has
frequently become dysfunctional because of the lack of democracy in the
political parties. They tend to ossify around their traditional leaders,
bringing deadlock to the legislative process.
But, in a country where
transparency and the rule of law remains weak, it is not clear why anyone would
suggest further centralization of power around an executive presidency, rather
than democratic decentralization and accountability.
In place of new political structures,
many Turkish
analysts argue, the
government needs to tackle the core structural problems of the political
system. One is patronage and the associated weak rule of law. Another is the
need to find a balance between government and the religious orders—a system
that gives the latter a voice but ensures secular democracy. The third is to
move towards a resolution of the Kurdish question. This article deals with the
first two.
As crises in the
southern EU economies
revealed, patronage and corruption is not just a Turkish problem nor has it
only emerged with AKP rule. Already, the structural reforms after the 2001
economic crisis included privatization of state enterprises not only to boost
productivity but also to curb the patronage exercised by Ankara. Since coming
to power, the AKP has pursued an extensive privatization program that has
largely closed off this source of patronage. But patronage has now morphed into
other channels such as investment incentives, licensing and permits,
procurement for government-led infrastructure projects, and the TOKI mass
housing scheme. This situation is reflected in declining private investment and
business demanding the government takes measures to ensure a level playing
field.
Another structural challenge is the
relation between the secular authority and the religious orders These religious
orders, the biggest and oldest being the Naksibendi that hails from Central
Asia, came to Anatolia with the Turkish tribes over a thousand years ago. Their
lay preachers led peasant protests over centuries in Ottoman times, and they
backed Ataturk in the war of independence. But they opposed the early
Republic’s hard French-style laicite;
Ataturk’s answer was to outlaw the religious orders, which merely sent them
underground. They re-emerged in Turkish political life in the 1940s with the
multi party regime and formed influential relations with all centre-right
secular and Islamist parties. Banning these orders was a historical mistake
but, as the Gulenist debacle shows, allowing them a central role in politics is
equally disastrous.
There seems to be an awareness that the
task is to bring transparency and accountability to these entities. At an
extraordinary three-day conference held a few days after the coup attempt, The
Ministry of Religious Affairs advised the
religious orders to stay out of politics (and football match fixing!) and declared “competence,
merit, science and freedom…the solution is transparency.” Eventually, a
socially acceptable role for the religious orders is likely to be found that
will be an organic Turkish version of a secular democracy.
None of this will happen soon. More
Gulenist-style debacles are possible. With a raft of corruption allegations
languishing in parliamentary investigative committees, it is difficult to see
the AKP leading a major transparency drive. It will also be difficult for AKP
to reaffirm the importance of citizenship rather than religious identity, that
has been shown to be so divisive. However, given the country’s long (and as
everywhere else tortuous) democratic tradition and the commitment of the
Turkish people to democracy, something unique to Turkey is likely to emerge. It
that may not look like French or U.S. models but will still deliver key
principles of representation, transparency and accountability.
Mina Toksoz is an emerging markets economist and Turkish writer
specialising in Turkey, Russia and the Middle East. who will be speaking on the
panel Turkey: Is there hope for democracy? at the Battle of Ideas on October 23.
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