4. The European Union as Guarantor in Turkey’s Democratic Evolution

Introduced in 1987 to restore order in two “Kurdish” provinces, the state of emergency was renewed 46 times in up to 14 provinces.

Sultan Tepe, “Turkey’s AKP: A Model ‘Muslim-Democratic’ Party,” Journal of Democracy, 16 (2005); Gunes Murat Tezcur, “The Moderation Theory Revisited: The Case of Islamic Political Actors,” Party Politics, 16.1 (2010).

Work on a ninth package will start later. An analysis of the harmonization packages is in Ergun Ozbudun and Omer Faruk Genckaya, Democratization and the Politics of Constitution-Making in Turkey (New York: Central European University Press, 2009).

Ozbudun and Genkaya, Democratization and the Politics of Constitution-Making in Turkey, cit., pp. 50–51. Before that amendment to the Constitution, the authorities could restrict basic right and freedom based on such broadly worded needs as safeguarding the indivisible integrity of the state, national sovereignty, the republic, national security, public order, public peace, public morals and public health.

See, among others, Fusun Turkmen, “The European Union and Democratization in Turkey: The Role of the Elites,” Human Rights Quarterly, 30 (2008); Mahmer Ugur and Dilek Yankaya, “Policy Entrepreneurship, Policy Opportunism, and EU Conditionality: The AKP and TÜSIAD Experience in Turkey,” Governance, 21.4 (October 2008). Death penalty in peacetime was abolished with Law 4771 (9 August 2002)—then abolished at all times with Law 5218 of 14 July 2004. Turkey ratified Protocol 13 of the European Convention of Human Rights in February 2006.

Ozbudun and Genckaya, Democratization and the Politics of Constitution-Making in Turkey, cit., p. 66.

Heath W. Lowry, “Turkey’s Political Structure on the Cusp of the Twenty-First Century,” in M. Abramowitz (ed.), Turkey’s Transformation and American Policy (New York: Century Foundation Press, 2000), p. 48—defines the NSC as a “parallel government.” See also Umit Cizre, “The Justice and Development Party and the Military: Recreating the Past After Reforming It?” in U. Cizre (ed.), Secular and Islamic Politics in Turkey: The Making of the Justice and Development Party (London: Routledge, 2008), p. 138.

Turkey has not signed the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities.

Bowcott, “Turkey Moves Closer to the EU After Retreat on Adultery Law,” cit.

The importance of the EU factor in making the military accept civilian control over its role is stressed by a number of analyses as, for instance, Cizre, “The Justice and Development Party and the Military,” cit.; Nils S. Satana, “Transformation of the Turkish Military and the Path to Democracy,” Armed Forces and Society, 34.3 (April 2008); Yaprak Gursoy, “The Changing Role of the Military in Turkish Politics: Democratization Through Coup Plots?” Democratization, 19.4 (December 2012).

Quoted in Heper, “The Justice and Development Party Government and the Military in Turkey,” cit., p. 218.

See, among other authors, Ozbudun and Genckaya, Democratization and the Politics of Constitution-Making in Turkey, cit., Chapter 1.

Art. 85/1 of the Armed Forces Internal Service Directive cited in Muge Aknur, “The Impact of Civil–Military Relations on the Democratic Consolidation in Turkey,” in M. Aknur (ed.), Democratic Consolidation in Turkey: State, Political Parties, Civil Society, Civil–Military Relations, Socio-Economic Development, EU, Rise of Political Islam and Separatist Kurdish Nationalism (Boca Raton, FL: Universal Publishers, 2012), pp. 220–21. Also Heper, “The Justice and Development Party Government and the Military in Turkey,” cit., p. 35. Among other essays, especially useful are Jenkins, “Context and Circumstances,” cit.; Steven A. Cook, Ruling but Not Governing: The Military and Political Development in Egypt, Algeria and Turkey (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007); Cizre, “The Justice and Development Party and the Military,” cit.; Satana, “Transformation of the Turkish Military and the Path to Democracy,” cit.; Gursoy, “The Changing Role of the Military in Turkish Politics,” cit.; Sule Toktas and Umit Kurt, “The Turkish Military’s Autonomy, JDP Rule and the EU Reform Process in the 2000s: An Assessment of the Turkish Version of Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DECAF),” Turkish Studies, 11.3 (September 2010); Ahmet T. Kuru, “The Rise and Fall of Military Tutelage in Turkey: Fears of Islamism, Kurdism, and Communism,” Insight Turkey, 14.2 (Spring 2012).

Cited from Toktas and Kurt, “The Turkish Military’s Autonomy,” cit., p. 390.

See Toktas and Kurt, “The Turkish Military’s Autonomy,” cit., pp. 390–91; Ozbudun, Contemporary Turkish Politics, cit., p. 108; Umit Cizre Sakallioglu, “The Anatomy of the Turkish Military’s Political Autonomy,” Comparative Politics, 29.2 (1997), p. 153.

Ozbudun and Genckaya, Democratization and the Politics of Constitution-Making in Turkey, cit., pp. 19–20; Isiksel, “Between Text and Context,” cit., p. 717, note 65.

Aknur, “The Impact of Civil–Military Relations on the Democratic Consolidation in Turkey,” cit., pp. 214ff.

See Heper, “The European Union, the Turkish Military and Democracy,” cit.

Toktas and Kurt, “The Turkish Military’s Autonomy,” cit.; Cizre, “The Justice and Development Party and the Military,” cit.

Cizre, “The Justice and Development Party and the Military,” cit., p. 138.

Cizre, “The Justice and Development Party and the Military,” cit., p. 138; Cook, Ruling but Not Governing, cit., p. 129; Yaprak Gursoy, “The Impact of EU-Driven Reforms on the Political Autonomy of the Turkish Military,” South European Society and Politics, 16.2 (June 2011).

See Cizre, “The Justice and Development Party and the Military,” cit., p. 139.

Cizre, “The Justice and Development Party and the Military,” cit., p. 139; Ahmet T. Kuru, “The Rise and Fall of Military Tutelage in Turkey,” cit., p. 51.

For the non-confrontational approach of both sides see Heper, “The Justice and Development Party Government and the Military in Turkey,” cit.; Toktas and Kurt, “The Turkish Military Autonomy,” cit., pp. 393–94.

See Heper, “The Justice and Development Party Government and the Military in Turkey,” cit., pp. 225ff.

See Heper, “The Justice and Development Party Government and the Military in Turkey,” cit., especially p. 222; Filiz Baskan, “Accommodating Political Islam in Turkish Democracy,” in M. Aknur (ed.), Democratic Consolidation in Turkey, cit., pp. 357–58; Hale and Ozbudun, Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey, cit., pp. 69–70. For a similar, overall assessment of the “compromise” see Burhanettin Duran, “The Justice and Development Party’s ‘New Politics’,” in U. Cizre (ed.), Secular and Islamic Politics in Turkey, cit., p. 95. The still limited reach of the civilian state with regard to matters involving the military was indicated by the aftermath of the Semdinli incident (a fabricated terrorist attack), when a prosecutor indicted the senior general (next in line for the top command), Yasar Buyukanit, but ended up being dismissed, accused of helping supporters of terrorism and of politicizing the judicial system. See Duran, “The Justice and Development Party’s ‘New Politics’,” cit., p. 103, note 15.

See, Pinar Bilgin, “Security Dimension: A Clash of Security Cultures? Difference Between Turkey and the European Union Revisited,” in A.M. Cakir (ed.), Fifty Years of EU–Turkey Relations: A Sisyphean Story (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011).

Quoted in Heper, “The European Union, the Turkish Military and Democracy,” p. 41.

Quoted in Cizre, “The Justice and Development Party and the Military,” cit., p. 142. Emphasis added.

Gursoy, “The Changing Role of the Military in Turkish Politics,” cit.

Hale and Ozbudun, Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey, cit.; Pevehouse, Democracy from Above, cit., p. 82.

See Misrahi, “The EU and the Civil Democratic Control of Armed Forces,” cit.

Laurence Whitehead (ed.), The International Dimensions of Democratization: Europe and the Americas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 271. A parallel conclusion is reached by Charles Powell, “International Aspects of Democratization: The Case of Spain,” in Whitehead (ed.), The International Dimension of Democratization, cit., p. 297. See also Laurence Whitehead, “International Aspects of Democratization,” in G. O’Donnell, P.C. Schmitter, and L. Whitehead (eds.), Transition from Authoritarian Rule: Comparative Perspectives (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986); Paul C. Manuel, The Challenges of Democratic Consolidation in Portugal (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1996).

See, among others, Ziya Onis, “The Political Economy of Islamic Resurgence in Turkey: The Rise of the Welfare Party in Perspective,” Third World Quarterly, 18.4 (1997); Hakan Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity in Turkey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).

On the Turkish military and European reactions to its authoritarianism see Bruce R. Kuniholm, “Turkey and NATO,” in L. Kaplan, R. Clawson, and R. Luraghi (eds.), NATO and the Mediterranean (Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 1985); Ihsan D. Dagi, “Democratic Transition in Turkey, 1980–1983: The Impact of European Diplomacy,” Middle Eastern Studies, 32.2 (1996); John Doxey, “Turkey’s Generals Draw a Line in the Sand,” Business Week, 12 May 1997; Birol A. Yesilada, “The Worsening EU–Turkey Relations,” SAIS Review, 19 (Winter–Spring 1999).

See Dagi, “Democratic Transition in Turkey,” cit.

Cizre, “The Justice and Development Party and the Military,” cit., pp. 138, 160.

For a parallel conclusion see Kirisci, “The Kurdish Issue in Turkey,” cit., p. 345.

See Muge Aknur, Civil–Military Relations in Turkey: An Analysis of Civilian Leaders (Saarbrücken: VDM Verlag Dr. Müller, 2008), pp. 175–76.

On the failed attempt by Prime Minister Tansu Ciller to adopt the “Basque model” see Aknur, Civil–Military Relations in Turkey, cit., Chapter 4. For a recent review of, and references on the Kurdish question see Ibrahim Saylan, “The Kurdish Nationalist Challenge to Democratic Consolidation in Turkey,” in Aknur (ed.), Democratic Consolidation in Turkey, cit.

See International Crisis Group, “Turkey and Europe: The Way Ahead,” Europe Report No. 184 (17 August 2007), p. 13.

Stephen Kinzer, Crescent and Star: Turkey Between Two Worlds (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Revised Edition, 2008), p. 136. Emphasis added. See also Osman Baydemir, “Turkey’s Integration to EU and Solution of Kurdish Problem” (speech, Brussels, 20 September 2005), EU Turkey Civic Commission, http://​www.​eutcc.​org/​articles/​8/​20/​document213.​ehtml.

“On Eve of Elections, a More Upbeat Mood in Turkey,” Pew Global Attitudes Project, last modified 7 June 2011.

Cited in Sahin Alpay, “After Ocalan,” Private View (Spring 2000), p. 37. Favorable to EU membership, the PKK Presidential Council even claimed credit for the positive result of the December 1999 Helsinki European Council: “Turkey’s candidacy was made possible because of our president Abdullah Ocalan’s efforts […] and the intense efforts of our party […] The mobilization of ‘Kurdish diplomacy’ in Europe and similar efforts were crucial for the EU countries to overcome their doubts about Turkey.” Quoted in Emrullah Uslu, “The Kurdistan Workers’ Party Turns Against the European Union,” Mediterranean Quarterly, 19.2 (2008). The PKK will turn against EU membership in 2006 after the European Commission’s Progress Report for 2005 identified the organization as the source of violence in Turkey’s Southeast and EU diplomats urged the Democratic Society Party (Demokratik Toplum Partisi, or DTP, banned in 2009) to distance itself from the PKK.

See, for instance, Jenkins, “Continuity and Change,” cit., p. 339.

Quite different was the tone of the speech delivered on the same occasion by the departing chief, General Ozkok, “The Guarantee of Secularism Is the Nation Itself.” See Cizre, “The Justice and Development Party and the Military,” cit., p. 151.

The “memo” was posted on the website of the General Staff shortly before midnight on 27 April 2007. See Michael M. Günter and M. Hakan Yavuz, “Turkish Paradox: Progressive Islamists Versus Reactionary Secularists,” Critique, 16.3 (September 2007); M. Hakan Yavuz and Nihat Ali Ozcan, “Crisis in Turkey: The Conflict of Political Language,” Middle East Policy, 14.3 (Fall 2007), pp. 120–21.

See Kirisci, “The Kurdish Issue in Turkey,” cit., p. 341.

See Günter and Yavuz, “Turkish Paradox,” cit.; Cizre, “The Justice and Development Party and the Military,” cit., p. 149.

International Crisis Group, “Reunifying Cyprus: The Best Chance Yet,” Europe Report No. 194 (23 June 2008), p. 19.

Cizre, “The Justice and Development Party and the Military,” cit., p. 161.

Within the armed forces, the secularist ideology was institutionalized. Between 1990 and 2010, about 1700 officers mostly accused of being “Islamic reactionaries” were expelled. See Kuru, “The Rise and Fall of Military Tutelage in Turkey,” p. 44.

Gursoy, “The Changing Role of the Military in Turkish Politics,” cit., looks at the attitudinal change of the military as complementing the institutional reforms.

A parallel assessment of the relevance of the reforms is in Ergun Ozbudun, “At present, Turkey seems to have liquidated a very large part of the semi-authoritarian legacy of the NSC regime.” “Democratization Reforms in Turkey, 1993–2004,” Turkish Studies, 8.2 (2007), p. 195. Also Paul Kubicek, “Political Conditionality and European Union’s Cultivation of Democracy in Turkey,” Democratization, 18.4 (August 2011), p. 915.

See Cizre, “The Justice and Development Party and the Military,” cit., pp. 145–46.

Cizre, “Problems of Democratic Governance of Civil–Military Relations in Turkey and the European Union Enlargement Zone,” cit., p. 108.

Quoted from Milliyet, 4 March 1997, in Usul, Democracy in Turkey, cit., p. 147.

For the powers and privileges of the military see Kuru, “The Rise and Fall of Military Tutelage in Turkey,” cit. Kuru defines the period 1997–2002 as one of “semi-military rule.”

Paul Poast and Johannes Urpelainen, “How International Organizations Support Democratization,” cit.—argue that membership in international organization helps a state’s democratic consolidation, with that effect maximized when that state comes from military rule.

For the defeat of the hard liners see Gursoy, “The Changing Role of the Military in Turkish Politics,” cit.; Kuru, “The Rise and Fall of Military Tutelage in Turkey,” cit., especially pp. 48ff.

For a similar assessment see Toktas and Kurt, “The Turkish Military’s Autonomy,” cit., p. 394.

See Kuru, “The Rise and Fall of Military Tutelage in Turkey,” cit., p. 42.