Authoritarian Politics in Turkey

Elections, Resistance and the AKP

Bahar Baser, Ahmet Erdi Öztürk

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781786722270
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Democracy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Despite being democratically elected, Turkey's ruling AKP party moved towards increasingly authoritarian measures in the years that followed. After the coup attempt in July 2016, the AKP government declared a state of emergency which President Erdo?an saw as an opportunity to purge the public sector of pro-Gülenist individuals and criminalise opposition groups including Kurdish separatists, Alevites, leftists and liberals. The country experienced political turmoil and rapid transformation, and debates around constitutional amendments began that would change the regime to a "Turkish style" presidential system. This book identifies the process of democratic reversal in Turkey. In particular, contributors explore the various ways that a democratically elected political party used elections to implement authoritarian measures. They scrutinise the very concepts of democracy, elections and autocracy to expose their flaws which can be manipulated to advantage. The book includes chapters discussing the roots of authoritarianism in Turkey; the political economy of elections; the relationship between the political Islamic groups and the government; Turkish foreign policy; non-Muslim communities' attitudes towards the AKP; and Kurdish citizens' voting patterns. As well as following Turkey's political trajectory, this book contextualises Turkey in the wider literature on electoral and competitive authoritarianisms and explores the country's future options.

CHAPTER 1

IN LIEU OF AN INTRODUCTION: IS IT CURTAINS FOR TURKISH DEMOCRACY?

Bahar Başer and Ahmet Erdi Öztürk

Introduction

In recent years, scholars of Turkish studies have started to address political developments in Turkey from a more nuanced perspective. Since early 2002, when the reign of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) began, the main focus in academia was usually on (1) how the AKP would bring its Islamic and conservative agenda into the Turkish political arena; (2) how compatible Islam is with democracy; (3) the AKP's clash with the military over its influence on politics; and (4) its movement towards acknowledging minorities and their rights in Turkey.¹ In terms of foreign policy analysis, the emphasis was on understanding the Turkish desire to become a dominant but cooperative power in the Middle East, as well as in Africa, the Balkans, and the Caucasus.² These discussions gave rise to another field of research that is becoming increasingly popular: Turkey and authoritarianism. As Yeşilada very well summarizes, the positive environment of the early 2000s has been replaced by “a grim picture of illiberal political developments that are characterized by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's power grabs, loss of judicial independence, and electoral manipulations to achieve the desired election outcome that favoured Erdoğan and the Justice and Development Party.”³ The AKP and its charismatic and influential leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, have transformed Turkey into an ambiguous presidential system where the president has increasing control over each and every aspect of judiciary and legislative, which is perceived as both perturbing and polarizing.⁴ The final objective appears to be a full ‘executive presidency’ in which all power is concentrated in the hands of the president. Authors such as Esen and Gümüşçü define the current situation as competitive authoritarianism by arguing that Turkey no longer satisfies even the minimal requirements of democracy.⁵ Irak uses the term “autocratic Islamists”⁶ when referring to the ruling party and its leader, while Özbudun prefers to explain matters by using the term “majoritarian drift”.⁷ Almost every scholar has a different way of interpreting the authoritarian shift in Turkey. However, one thing is clear: the current situation shows no movement towards further democratization.

The AKP was founded in 2001 and is based on conservative and Islamic principles. The party came to power in 2002 after what Jeffrey Haynes describes as “eighty years of aggressive secularization,”⁸ which suppressed Islam in the political arena. The AKP rose as a new actor full of promises for reform. It quickly became the main and dominant political party on the Turkish political scene. It won landslide victories in elections⁹ until the elections of June 2015, which showed “an erosion of popular support for the AKP.”¹⁰ Despite this, the party was able to reconsolidate its power following a snap election in November 2015. This election received much criticism from international and domestic observers who “pointed to irregularities in the campaign, including media bias and self-censorship, misuse of state resources to support Erdoğan's election bid, lack of transparency in campaign finances, and voter fraud.”¹¹

The victory of the AKP in the November 2015 snap election failed to bring political stability. President Erdoğan expected 100 per cent compliance and loyalty from Prime Minister Davutoğlu but following several disagreements, the former pushed the latter to resign and brought in a new prime minister, Binali Yıldırım,¹² whose loyalty to Erdoğan is unquestioned.¹³ While this would have been considered highly irregular in many other countries, in the Turkish context it is widely seen as the “new normal”.¹⁴

In an article published immediately following the resignation of Davutoğlu, Alon Ben-Meir wrote that “this is not a travesty for Turkey, it is a tragedy,” and posited that “with the departure of Davutoğlu, Turkey has become a de facto dictatorship, and there is now no one to stand in Erdoğan's way.”¹⁵ After a couple of weeks, Foreign Policy published an article (with a particularly harsh tone) by John Hannah entitled “How do you solve a problem like Erdoğan?” It read:

Houston, we have a problem. A serious problem. Slowly, but inexorably, Turkey is headed off a cliff. The signposts ahead are bleak indeed. Despotism. Terrorism. Civil war. Just over the horizon, scenarios like failed state and forced partition are coming into view. The day may be approaching when U.S. policymakers, much as they'd prefer not to, will finally be forced to grapple with the question: What do you do with a NATO ally gone seriously bad?¹⁶

These are just a few examples of how the international press has covered the current political situation in Turkey. Many other media outlets such as the BBC,¹⁷ the New York Times,¹⁸ the Guardian,¹⁹ and the Financial Times²⁰ have also noted that recent developments in Turkey are disquieting. These outlets have all recognized that Turkey is gradually drifting into authoritarianism. Once praised by Western governments and media outlets for its reforms and neo-liberal economic policies, the AKP and President Erdoğan now regularly make headlines for their oppression of opposition groups in Turkey.

In addition to this, as mentioned the AKP and President Erdoğan have not shied away from openly stating their ultimate objective of changing Turkey's regime into a full-blown presidential system. Indeed, today Turkey has a de facto presidential system pending constitutional change. Almost every aspect of social, political and economic life in Turkey is already directly regulated by Erdoğan and his orders. He has a huge impact on legislative and executive mechanisms. Patrimonialism is becoming more and more embedded in Turkish politics. Based on this, we can argue that the international media was just pointing out the obvious (perhaps saying too little, too late), and on top of that using a patronising tone which irritated even Erdoğan's Turkish critics.

The leaders of the party have used a quasi-democratic system to advance an agenda that was anti-democratic and authoritarian in many respects. During the last decade, dozens of activists, academics, politicians, journalists, and others have been detained simply for disagreeing with government policies, or for opposing Erdoğan's discourses on political, economic, and social matters. What is particularly interesting about this is that these people have been criminalized using the discourse of counter-terrorism, which has been both disproportionate and ill-tailored.²¹ Whilst there has been a historical precedent for stigmatizing and labelling pro-Kurdish actors as “terrorists”, today anyone in opposition to the government is labelled a “terrorist”. The term is stretched such that its reference point is no longer the law, the Turkish constitution, or international norms and regulations but merely Erdoğan's own diktat. Everybody is under his gaze and the struggle between those in power and those in opposition is no longer solely confined to the political arena but also to courtrooms. Turkey has become an example of how democratically-elected governments take undemocratic paths to cling to power and how counter-terrorism policies go hand in hand with authoritarianism on the route to one-man rule.

When the AKP came to power, its foreign policies were also widely praised for advancing Turkey's status a rising power with capabilities of soft and hard power. It is worth noting, however, that Davutoğlu's aspiration to have “zero problems with neighbours” turned out to be a complete disaster and Turkey now has problems with almost all of its neighbours. Turkey's problematic Syria policy and its power struggle over the international approaches to Rojava destabilized domestic and international dynamics in the Middle East. The collapse of the peace process between the the Kurdistan Workers' Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan, PKK) and the Turkish state also led to the resumption of political violence. Turkey has lost prestige internationally and is now constantly criticized for its domestic and foreign policies. Despite these developments, neither the AKP nor President Erdoğan have relinquished their grip on the Turkish political arena. Half of the country still votes for this party and each domestic or international “failure” is packaged and sold to voters as an act of “glory”. Amid these multifaceted problems, Turkey is day by day heading to a place that is far from democracy, human rights, and freedom of speech. Authors such as Tezcür argue that although President Erdoğan has established his personal dominance over every facet of Turkish politics his rule still lacks the institutional basis for absolute power. Turkey has a history of political pluralism and the AKP still needs other political parties to cooperate with it to change the constitution. Therefore, hurdles remain in Erdoğan's quest for untrammelled power.²² However, the recent coup attempt and the state of emergency that followed hold the very real prospect that these hurdles will be swept away.

The idea for this edited book thus arose because of academic curiosity and interest in understanding the ongoing process of political, economic and social transition in Turkey. It aims to re-energize the debate on elections, democracy and authoritarianism by focusing on recent political developments. It engages in particular with the issue of how elections (legislative, presidential, or referenda) are instrumentalized to create the facade of a democratic regime, while shifting to increasingly autocratic measures. This is not, therefore, a compilation of chapters that merely focus on contemporary Turkish politics, the AKP's Islamic policies (and their compatibility with democracy), or the Gezi protests in general.²³ We wish to add to such work by focusing on the complexity and the alternative ways of exercising democracy in Turkey by concentrating predominantly on elections and alternative resistance mechanisms beyond the ballot box. As Jason Brownlee has stated “in the last quarter of the twentieth century, democratically elected governments replaced authoritarian regimes at an astounding rate.”²⁴ Within academia, there is an increasing interest in electoral authoritarianism,²⁵ authoritarian regimes, and democratization,²⁶ and there is a growing literature on competitive authoritarianism.²⁷ Our aim is to scrutinize this experience and unpack the meaning of such seemingly certain terms as “democracy”, “elections”, and “authoritarianism” in Turkey. By doing this, we will draw attention to the blurred nature of these concepts and how they can be manipulated. Perhaps more importantly, the chapters in this book will show how people who are oppressed by autocratic regimes find ways to flourish through resistance mechanisms to bring back democracy at different levels.

Levitsky and Way²⁸ have, in the past, defined Turkey as a restricted or semi-competitive democracy. Whilst this is beginning to change, this change is by no means for the better. This edited volume will enable us to better understand how a democratically elected political party, which takes its power from elections, manages to implement increasingly autocratic measures. What is the reason for the retreat from democracy? What creates this vacuum? Why do people opt for authoritarian leaders? And how do others resist this democratic reversal?

Notes on the Rise and Triumph of the AKP: Moving Towards an Authoritarian Path

When we talk about recent democratic reversal in Turkey, we should still emphasize that Turkey was never a fully functioning democracy. Because of the Kemalist legacy, minority groups were still oppressed, the military's influence on politics was visible and the state adopted a security-oriented military solution to address the Kurdish question in south-eastern Turkey.²⁹ Political Islam was supressed under the secular regime and many groups felt underrepresented in the pre-AKP era. It is for this reason that when the AKP came to power, despite its dedication to Islamic principles, domestic actors and Western co...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• List of Contributors
• 1. In Lieu of an Introduction: Is it Curtains for Turkish Democracy?
• 2. How Did We Get Here? Turkey’s Slow Shift to Authoritarianism
• 3. Electoral Integrity in Turkey: From Tutelary Democracy to Competitive Authoritarianism
• 4. Elections and Public Finance in Turkey: Public Spending as a Taciturn Election Campaign?
• 5. Foreign Policy as a Legitimation Strategy for AKP’s Hegemonic Project of the “New Turkey”
• 6. Power and Islam in Turkey: The Relationship Between the AKP and Sunni Islamic Groups, 2002–16
• 7. Turks as a Minority: The Effects of Minority Status in Electoral Behaviour
• 8. Recasting the Parameters of Freedom of Religion in Turkey: Non-Muslims and the AKP
• 9. Kurds and Elections Under the AK Party’s Rule: The Shifting Internal and External Borders of the Kurdish Political Region
• 10. Vanguards of Violation: Freedom of Assembly and Notes on the Turkish Political Regime
• 11. Freedom of Information in Turkey: The Death of the Free Press and the Case of Academics for Peace
• 12. Digital Cultural Capital as a Counter-hegemonic Tool in Turkey
• 13. Epilogue: The Desire is There
• Back Cover